The Russian preposition o with the accusative case: a valency analysis

The main purpose of this investigation, which is carried out on a relatively small amount of corpus material, is to apply a special and little-known method of valency analysis. The basic unit for such analysis is a linguistic sign, and the semantic relations between signs are shown by means of graphs with their nodes occupied by predicates and actants. Prepositional phrases investigated here always occur with a verb (or a verb nominalisation) and can be located within or outside the actant frame of this verb. The first actant of the verb may or may not signify a human being. Based on these two distinctions, the material is divided into four parts. Some additional remarks concern optional constituents, complements as well as adjuncts. The article concludes with critical remarks on two traditional linguistic concepts: the definition of morpheme and the division of word classes into autosemantic and synsemantic ones.