Comparative Analysis of Purpose Constructions in Russian and Spanish (in the Aspect of Teaching Russian as a Foreign Language)

Abstract

The purpose is the ideal image of the future result formed in our minds and is the most important element of the structure of human activity. However, in modern linguistics there are no works comparing the ways of representing of purpose relations in Russian and Spanish. In our opinion, typological studies of languages are important, and they allow to optimize the learning process and to predict potential mistakes in students’ speech, especially when languages belong to different language families. This article is devoted to the identification and analysis of the structural and semantic features of the means of expressing the purpose in Russian and Spanish.
According to the results of the study, the author came to the following conclusions. In Russian and Spanish, there are various means of expressing purpose relations. The main of them are combinations with prepositions, constructions with infinitive and complex sentences with adverbial clauses of purpose that in the context are often synonymous and
interchangeable. In Russian, compared to Spanish, there are more prepositions connected with purpose semantics.
Nevertheless, in both languages, the analyzed prepositions can be classified according to a semantic attribute and the author distinguish five main groups of them: 1) prepositions that point to an object as a final destination and target; 2) prepositions conveying the semantics of the purpose of the object; 3) prepositions denoting a “high aim”; for the
sake of which the subject of the sentence makes considerable efforts; 4) prepositions indicating the object that the subject tries to acquire; 5) prepositions with the meaning of “predestination against something”.