Translated material
Mikhail Epstein. The gift of words. Issue 4
Projective dictionary of the Russian language.
Mikhail Epshtein
Publication date: November 25, 2002
Love
Fall in love
Lovelessness
Dislike
The word “ lyublya ,” which we wrote about in the last issue, is far from the only possible new formation from the verb “to love.” If we use the affix-free method of word formation (removing the suffix), we will get a pure root “lyub” (with a soft b’ at the end), which can be used as an independent feminine noun of the 3rd declension - love (like “depth”, “swell” "). It is the noun “ love ” that expresses, in nominative form, the purest, primary meaning of the root “love”, which is expressed in predicate form by the verb “love”. (The words “love” and “lyub-la” already introduce suffixal “impurities” into the meaning of the root).
love is the state of being loved; the experience and atmosphere of universal love; love as a cosmic element and dimension.
In the indirect cases of the word “ love ”, the stress falls on the first syllable: love , love , o love (cf. the declension of the words “depth”, “height”, “swell”).
If loving is a more earthly feeling and (mutual) action than love, then love is, on the contrary, more dreamy, pointless, devoid of both a specific direction and reciprocal meaning.
One can draw the following parallel between these three nouns and the verbs that motivate them:
love corresponds to the transitive verb to love someone, what
Ivan loves Marya - Ivan's love for Marya
lyublya corresponds to the reciprocal verb love with whom
Ivan is in love with Marya - Ivan is in love with Marya
love corresponds to the impersonal verb to love someone
Ivan loves, Marya loves - they have love in their hearts
Examples:
Then a great love fell upon him - sleepy, dreamy. “Dope,” he called it to himself. It’s not that he loved anyone, but his heart asked for love, and not even love, but some kind of boundless love : beloved and loving faces, eyes, voices...
The gaze is directed into the distance, the mind into the depths, and the heart into love .
The impersonal verb “to love” (cf. “to think”, “to sleep”, “to be unwell”) controls the dative case, denoting the one who is loved , but does not have a case reference to the object, who is loved. Accordingly, the noun love , motivated by this impersonal verb, does not have a prepositional-case relationship to the object; it is not implied here. Love is a pure, objectless state that is given to the recipient, the addressee of this state, to experience, as a person in the dative case. But this is precisely an impersonal or superpersonal state, and not a personal action directed by one person to another. Since the properties of motivating verbs are reflected in the meaning and compatibility of the nouns formed, we can say that love is a transitive noun, love is a reciprocal noun, and love is an impersonal noun. If love is from one to another, and love is from one to another, then love , so to speak, is unprepositional - this is a relationship not of transitivity-unidirectionality and not of reciprocity-compatibility, but of the presence of one to the Other as a higher power, as a superpersonal principle, which encourages, demands, asks to love.
Love is when I love , when This , It , called “ LOVE ,” comprehends me from above, descends on me, overwhelms me. Love has a separate subject and object, in love they participate, and in love the subject himself becomes the object of an impersonal, subjectless state.
Love is when the heart wants and can love, when it “feels in love.” “And the heart burns again and loves because it cannot help but love” - this is love , which precedes love and embraces it, just as possibility precedes its incarnation. “Perhaps a whisper was already born before the lips” ( O. Mandelstam ). Perhaps, before love, which needs the beloved, the soul is sent love , which needs only the lover, his ability and need to love.
Examples:
Jealous calls, almost daily attempts to sort things out and take stock are a thing of the past. Georgy pulled himself together, and now there is peace and love in his heart.
A person craves distance, breadth, love - and receives another love , at best, love. Love is more than love, it is like God towards man. The poor verb “to love” does not cope with all shades - precisely because it is rich; so let's give them different names. Love is for the body, love is for the soul, and love is for the spirit.
Where the Great Guba has been for centuries
She took cities by pestilence,
Suddenly Great Love came:
Take a sip of poison or a lion's dove -
You will never die.
"Peace and quiet and God's grace."
This expression describes the world horizontally, but there is also a vertical dimension:
Height and depth and God's love .
Among feminine nouns of the 3rd declension there are the shortest words, root lexo-morphemes (i.e. roots as independent words), denoting the basic elements, properties and dimensions of the universe:
Space:
height, depth, breadth, distance, surface
State of matter:
dry land, firmament, swell, swamp, flow
State of being and speech:
reality, life, reality, speech, silence
The word “ love ” also joins the list of such first words, denoting the fundamental principles of the universe.
The word " love " can also mean: a tribe or country whose custom is to love and be loved (cf. "Rus", "Chud").
Do you still dream of the country of Great Love , with the capital city of Novolyubsk, where only Ljubljana and Ljubljana women walk the streets?
* Ljubljana , Ljubljana (in this example) - citizens, residents of a country where the custom is to love each other.
falling in love
(adverb, cf. “swim”, “swim”) - in the direction of love, through love.Through wars and raids, our country has spread widely across the earth, but now it’s time for it to expand in depth and love .
Just as a shipwrecked person swims to the shore, so Bessonov tried to fall in love with those people who until recently were alien and indifferent to him.
The word " love " has two antonyms, formed with the prefix "without" and the negative particle "not". They differ not only in composition, but also in meaning. If “ without love ” indicates the external absence of persons and objects worthy of love, then “ non-love ” indicates the internal impossibility of this feeling or state.
lovelessness
(cf. lack of fish, lack of roads) - a situation when there is no one or no one to love; lack of love and those who deserve it; circumstances when there is nowhere to expect love.In the absence of love , a fleeting meeting sometimes seems like a promise of eternal love.
In the small town where Lyudmila arrived on assignment, for the first time in her life she suddenly found herself completely without love . No calls, no flowers, no dates.
B. Pasternak has an early prose sketch called “ Lovelessness ” (1918), in which this word itself, however, is never used.
dislike
(cf. weakness, undead) - a state of not being loved; life without love; mental or physical impossibility, inability to love.In comparison with the word " lack of love ", the word " lack of love " has a stronger expression and refers more to the internal state - the inability to love, than to the lack of suitable objects and circumstances of love.
“ Dislike ” is both morphologically and semantically a more direct antonym of the word “ love ” and is accordingly motivated by the impersonal negative verb “does not love,” which presupposes a superpersonal source of this state, the absence of a higher sanction when one is not given to love.
The soul gradually cools and weans itself from love. At first it seemed to Masha that there was lovelessness all around, there was simply no one worthy. Then some nice and even talented people appeared, capable of captivating and getting carried away... And suddenly she realized that the reason was not around, but in herself: here it is, this damned dislike .
I am in such a period of my life now. Without deity, without inspiration. In a word, dislike .
How do you live, love, breathe? - No way, sheer dislike and undead.
After breaking up with Larisa, Kirill could not look at women for a long time. It was a strange state of unlove , similar to anesthesia: he lost sensitivity to both pain and pleasure.
Fate brought the teacher to a provincial town, where he soon felt uneasy: all around him were pig snouts, inhumanity and unlovingness .
This disease has been known since the time of Onegin and other “superfluous” people, who in their youth were in too much of a hurry to live and feel. It's called dislike .
Previous episodes of "The Gift of the Word"
1. Introduction to the project. One word.
2. Self-righteousness . How does it differ from complacency, pride and fanaticism?
3. Love . How to talk “about this” without falling into either bookishness or vernacular language. Prepositions and cases of love feelings.