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Hedging as a general-semiotic phenomenon
https://doi.org/10.28995/2686-7249-2024-5-55-69
Abstract
Alexander Barulin’s most notable results have to do with the communicative aspects of the human protolanguage. This kind of research differs from the conventional reconstructions of proto-languages because it cannot rely on material traces left by ancient humans, and the linguistic structures properly speaking are hardly available. Thus, linguists cannot put forward a description of phonetic and grammatical systems of the languages of the first humans. Instead, conjectures are usually made based on the etological-communicative studies of animal behaviour. Following Alexander Barulin, animal communication displays certain signs analogous to ‘hedges’, whose main function consists in accommodating information conveyed as a sort of ‘goods’ in communicative ‘exchange’. Hedges of “possibly” vs. “probably” types belong to linguistic techniques extensively used both in West-European and in Russian discourses. Lexical properties of such hedges interact with grammatical and pragmatical categories of tense, mood, and negation.
About the Author
V. Z. DemyankovRussian Federation
Valery Z. Demyankov, Dr. of Sci. (Philology), professor
1-1, Bolshoi Kislovsky Line, Moscow, 125000
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Supplementary files
For citation: Demyankov V.Z. Hedging as a general-semiotic phenomenon. RSUH/RGGU Bulletin: “Literary Teory. Linguistics. Cultural Studies”, Series. 2024;(5):55-69. https://doi.org/10.28995/2686-7249-2024-5-55-69
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