The one who loves is loved: Adjectives of emotional attitude with conversive polysemy in Russian

The article deals with Russian adjectives which can characterize both the subject and the object of an emotional attitude. This phenomenon in the verbal domain is usually described as lability. This type of metonymy is rarely attested in adjectives. However, it is very typical of adjectives denoting emotional attitude. Usually the senses ‘the one who is the subject of the feeling’ and ‘the one who is the object of the feeling’ are expressed by different words: ljubjaščij ‘loving’, vljublënnyj ‘in love’, nežnyj ‘tender’, laskovyj ‘affectionate’ characterize the one who loves, or their gestures, looks, voice, etc., whereas ljubimyj ‘beloved’, vozljublennyj ‘beloved’, dorogoj ‘dear’ describe the object of the feeling. However, there are cases when both meanings are expressed by one lexical unit. For example, the word ljubeznyj ‘amiable’ has the meaning ‘friendly’ (ljubeznaja sekretarsa ‘an amiable secretary’, on byl ko mne ljubezen ‘he was amiable to me’) or ‘dear’ (ljubeznyj drug ‘dear friend’), though the second meaning has become obsolete. The word milyj is freely used in contexts like mil mne ‘I like (somebody)’ and mil ko mne ‘(somebody) is friendly to me’. Often the adjective is ambiguous between two meanings: Eē mama očen‘ milaja ‘Her mom is very nice’, that is, rather cute or friendly; milaja ulybka ‘a nice smile’ is attractive or favorable. The adjective ljubovnyj ‘amorous’ used to have similar polysemy, but the passive meaning has been completely lost. I conclude that such polysemy is widespread and grounded in the language system. The described semantic shift also has typological parallels.

conversives, lability, metonymy, polysemy, adjectives, Russian