Some semantic aspects of Spanish verbs used in the syntactic constructions describing the peculiar properties of a person’s emotional life

Abstract

This article is dedicated to investigation of the verbs used in the syntactic constructions describing the influence that a person has on emotions he experiences. These constructions show that the subject of emotion tends to experience some emotion that is usually positive o he is already experiencing it but tries to control this emotion o feeling and influences over it in order to continue to experience it in  future in case of positive emotions or, on the contrary, stop experiencing it in case of negative emotions. The main components of these structures are a predicate name of emotions, which designates positive and negative emotions and a verb the semantic meaning of which conveys the way the subject of emotion influences this emotion o feeling in order to begin to experience it or to extend its existence, or that it has ceased to exist in this subject. The aim of this study is to analyze the semantic features of verbs, which are used with the predicate names of emotions in the above semantic constructions and to reveal the character of expression of emotions and emotional life of a person.

Spanish has a large number of verbs used in syntactic constructions to express the idea of control that a person exercises over his emotions and feelings. The analyzed constructions show that the subject of emotions plays an active role, and emotions are passive because they depend on the will of the subject. The analyzed constructions demonstrate the richness of linguistic means, in general, and of verbs used metaphorically, in particular, which a person uses to describe the possibilities of controlling his emotional state and the processes of his emotional and spiritual life.