The Conjunction esli and Semantic Primitives

An analysis of the Russian conjunction esli 'if' demonstrates the weaknesses in the descriptive-explanatory potential of current semantic theory. The models based on semantic primitives fail to adequately define the meaning of this conjunction for lexicographic purposes. A decomposition of esli shows the existence of four different lexemes, some with additional contextual modifications, nondefinable within the standard metalanguage of semantic primitives. Yuriy D. Apresyan's (1979 & 1995) theory of the decompositionality of semantic primitives in terms of nonverbalized semantic quarks is modified postulating definability & decompositionality as two distinct properties of lexemes. Thus, words are semantically decompositional if at least one semantic component, verbalized or not, can be identified in its basic meaning. Several different scenarios are considered for semantic analysis: (1) a word is neither definable nor divisible (as of now, no such units have been identified) or (2) a word is nondefinable but divisible. Two cases are possible within (2): (A) there are only semantic quarks in a lexeme's meaning or (B) there are both quarks & verbalized components in a lexeme's meaning. It is concluded that the various uses of esli fall under 2B. 23 References. Z. Dubiel