Semantic syncretism in the aspect of emotive causatives functioning patterns

The article examines emotive causatives of the Russian language as an example of semantic syncretism. Their meanings are determined by two categorical semes: the seme of emotivity and the seme of causation. These verbs function in speech in a categorical situation of causation of emotional modification where under the influence of the subject, a change in the emotional state of the object of causation occurs. In such a situation, there may be an interaction with other categories, particularly with the category of intensity since it is closely related to emotions. Intercategory interaction can take place at different levels of the language system including several levels simultaneously. This article discusses wordformation patterns of intensification in a situation with emotive causatives. The analysis of 8 prefixes’ and some suffixes’ definitions found in dictionaries and 90 emotive causatives containing them and the specifics of their usage in the Russian National Corpus showed that the prefixes and suffixes help the verb acquire additional meanings that can be characterized as intensive modes of action.