Derivational means of expressing locativity in the Erzya and Finnish languages

Abstract

The semantic category “locality” is a common phenomenon in various languages and has various means of expression. The article deals with derivational means of expressing the category of locality on the material of the long-range Erzya and Finnish languages. The article draws particular interest to the suffix way of word formation as one of the most common and productive in Erzya and Finnish languages. The research material is the lexical units of the Erzya and Finnish languages containing word-formation suffixes with the meaning of locality. It employs the descriptive method and the method of comparative analysis. The analysis of language material was carried out by continuous sampling of texts of artistic works. As a result of a comparative analysis, it reveals word-formation suffixes that convey the semantics of locality, including the so-called affixoids and semi-affixes, distinguished in Erzya. The study allows to identify both more and less productive suffixes in each of the considered languages.

Keywords

• locativity
• word-formation suffix
• the Erzya language
• the Finnish language