A govern pattern of the Russian verb revnovat’ (‘to be jealous’): norm, usage, diachrony

The article discusses the competition between two govern patterns of the Russian verb revnovat’ (‘to be jealous’): the pattern revnovat' zhenu k sosedu (lit. ‘being jealous of one's wife towards a neighbor’), recommended by academic grammar, and the pattern revnovat' soseda k zhene (lit. ‘being jealous of a neighbor towards one's wife’), which corresponds to an outdated norm but still remains relevant. The mechanism of formation of both patterns is reconstructed, and the history of their coexistence is traced using corpus material from the 18th through the 21st centuries. It is shown that the three-place govern pattern revnovat' zhenu k sosedu appeared in the late 18th century, simultaneously with the emergence of the modern “romantic” meaning of this verb, which includes an additional actant “rival”. An alternative pattern with reverse coding of actants was formed in the second half of the 19th century, as a result of the emergence of the possibility of coding the “rival” actant with an accusative (instead of the construction k + dative). It is shown that the preservation of the pattern revnovat' soseda k zhene is due to two factors – pragmatic and communicative: the “rival” actant can appear in the salient position of the direct object either because it is the focus of jealousy or because the “object of love” is named in the pretext or implied.