Perspective and morphosyntax in Russian fear predicates: a constructional analysis with cross-linguistic insights

Abstract This article investigates how Russian fear-related predicates encode an emotional perspective through systematic constructional variation. Using corpus data drawn from the Russian National Corpus, the study demonstrates that perspectival construal, understood as whether fear is conceptualized as an externally triggered event with an objective perspective or as an internally anchored state with a subjective perspective, is not lexically fixed but rather constructionally mediated through the integration of morphosyntactic resources such as case alternation, aspectual contrast, and reflexive marking. Three major construction types are identified: causatives ( pugat’, ispugat’ ‘frighten’), which present fear as a stimulus-driven event; reflexive psych-constructions ( pugat’sja , ispugat’sja ‘be/become frightened’), which encode either sustained or bounded shifts into fear; and the canonical psych-construction, exemplified by the verb bojat’sja ‘fear’, which represents sustained internal stance. These morphosyntactic features function as grammatical cues that distinguish perspectives within broader constructional schemas. A contrastive analysis with Korean demonstrates the typological scope of these findings: Russian encodes perspective primarily through reflexivity, case, and aspect, whereas Korean employs constructional differentiation, such as double nominative constructions, predicates with - hata ‘do’ and - key hata ‘make’, which mark the same subjective–objective opposition. Overall, these findings support the claim that emotional perspective constitutes a universal organizing principle of grammar. This principle is realized through language-specific constructional resources and discourse functions.