The document discusses the use of communicative verbs and constructions as markers of text genre in media texts. It analyzes the most frequent communicative verbs used in several Russian news corpora, including Lenta.ru, Nezavisimaya Gazeta, RosBusinessConsulting news, and Russian Information Agency. The analysis found differences in frequent communicative verbs between more traditional newspapers and news feeds, with "сообщать" (to inform/report) being more common in news feeds and "писать" (to write) and "говорить" (to say) less frequent. Communicative verbs and constructions can help identify stylistic differences between genres but not subject differences between corpora.

1. Communicative verbs and
constructions as markers of
text Media genre
Lidia Pivovarova, Elena Yagunova
Saint-Petersburg State University
Edward Klyshinsky
Keldysh IAM of Russia Academy of Science

2. Introduction
• Ongoing research of different text genres:
– Media texts, scientific papers, fiction…
• Our approach:
– Different genres means different corpora -
special corpus for each genre
– Formal markers of a corpus are keywords,
collocations, constructions, POS co-
occurrences – found by different statistics

3. Media texts
• Different (sub)genres, subtypes:
– news, articles, analytical review, etc.
• Sources are heterogeneous:
– newspaper, news feed, etc.
• Trade-off between between informative
and persuasive functions of language
• Communicative verbs and constructions
may help to study this trade-off

4. Constructions in media texts
• Media text are stereotyped
– Especially texts with high informative function
• Long word sequences (up to 7 words) may
be repeated in every text of a corpus
• These word sequences are mostly
constructions
• The most frequent constructions are
introduction of information source:
– According to RIA News…, Our reporter says
with reference to…

5. Communicative verbs and
constructions
• Reuters reported with reference to Ministry of
Internal Affair …
vs.
• Ministry of Internal Affair informs citizens...
• The Prime Minister stated that…
vs.
• Our president said that…

6. Materials
• Lenta.ru
– a news feed with short information messages;
– 2005-2010, ~60 mln tokens (words and punctuation mark)
• Nezavisimaya gazeta
– a traditional newspaper with articles, interviews and analytics;
– 1999-2009, ~60 mln tokens
• Compulenta
– a news portal specializing in IT matters;
– 2009, ~1,5 mln tokens
• Russian Information Agency
– one of the most authoritative news sources in Russia;
– 2009-2010, ~60 mln tokens
• RosBusinessConsulting news
– a news portal specializing in economical and political information
for business.
– 2009, ~20 mln. Tokens
• etc.

7. Materials
• style and format opposition:
– traditional newspaper – news feed
• subject opposition:
– general news – IT news – business news

8. Communicative verbs
• RussNet Project
– Russian WordNet project, Saint-Petersburg
State University, group of I.V. Azarova
• Only a list of verbs (instead of their full
descriptions)
• Broke up into three groups:
communicative, mental and imagination
verbs
– Rather contradictional: He thinks… often
means He said…

9. Specificity of news (newspaper)
texts
• Word frequencies are different from
frequencies in language at the whole
• COOБЩАТЬ (to inform, to report) –
more frequent
• ПИСАТЬ (to write), ГОВОРИТЬ (to say)
– less frequent

10. Lenta.ru: most frequent verbs
БЫТЬ 72993 to be
СООБЩАТЬ 27498 to report, to inform
СТАТЬ 12614 to become
ЗАЯВИТЬ 10861 to announce
МОЧЬ 10341 to be able
ПОЛУЧАТЬ 7924 to receive
ЯВЛЯТЬСЯ 7590 to be, to come
СООБЩАТЬСЯ 6670 to report (reflexive voice)
ОТМЕТИТЬ 5806 to mark, to mention
ПИСАТЬ 5462 to write
НАХОДИТЬ 5221 to find, to consider
НАПОМНИТЬ 5209 to remind
НАХОДИТЬСЯ 5120 to be situated
НАЧАТЬ 4907 to begin
СООБЩИТЬ 4832 to report (perfective aspect)

11. Lenta.ru: RussNet communicative verbs
СООБЩАТЬ 27498 to report
ЗАЯВИТЬ 10861 to announce
СООБЩАТЬСЯ 6670 to report (reflexive voice)
ПИСАТЬ 5462 to write
СООБЩИТЬ 4832 to report (perfective aspect)
СКАЗАТЬ 2281 to say (perfective aspect)
ГОВОРИТЬСЯ 1765 to say (reflexive voice)
ПОДЧЕРКНУТЬ 1637 to underline
ЗАЯВЛЯТЬ 1165 to announce (imperfective)
ГОВОРИТЬ 1104 to say
ПОЯСНИТЬ 880 to elucidate
НАПИСАТЬ 841 to write (perfective)
ВЫЯСНИТЬСЯ 803 to find out (reflexive voice)
ВЫЯСНИТЬ 662 to find out
ПОДЧЕРКИВАТЬ 646 to underline
ЗАПИСАТЬ 248 to write down

12. RosBusinessConsulting
БЫТЬ 270391 to be
НАПОМНИТЬ 65126 to remind
ОТМЕТИТЬ 47770 to mark, to mention
МОЧЬ 46877 to be able
СООБЩИТЬ 41867 to report (perfective aspect)
СОСТАВИТЬ 40057 to make, to form
СТАТЬ 35792 to become
ЗАЯВИТЬ 34767 to announce
СООБЩАТЬ 26744 to report, to inform
ЯВЛЯТЬСЯ 24216 to be, to come
СЧИТАТЬ 21808 to consider
ПЕРЕДАВАТЬ 20676 to broadcast
НАЧАТЬ 19805 to begin
НАХОДИТЬ 19309 to find, to consider
ПОЛУЧИТЬ 19284 to receive
СКАЗАТЬ 19123 to say (perfective aspect)
ВЫРАСТИ 19034 to increase
НАХОДИТЬСЯ 18996 to be situated
ПРОИЗОЙТИ 17505 to happen
ПОДЧЕРКНУТЬ 15129 to underline

13. RosBusinessConsulting
СООБЩИТЬ 41867 to report (perfective aspect)
ЗАЯВИТЬ 34747 to announce
СООБЩАТЬ 26744 to report
СКАЗАТЬ 19123 to say (perfective aspect)
ПОДЧЕРКНУТЬ 15129 to underline
ГОВОРИТЬ 10788 to say
ГОВОРИТЬСЯ 8314 to say (reflexive voice)
СООБЩАТЬСЯ 7873 to report (reflexive voice)
ЗАЯВЛЯТЬ 5092 to announce (imperfect)
ПОЯСНИТЬ 3487 to elucidate
ВЫСКАЗАТЬ 3167 to state, to express
ПОДЧЕРКИВАТЬ 2157 to underline (imperfect)
ПИСАТЬ 1966 to write
ВЫЯСНИТЬСЯ 1657 to find out (reflexive voice)
ВЫСКАЗАТЬСЯ 1390 to state, to express (reflexive)
ВЫЯСНИТЬ 1189 to find out
ВЫЯСНЯТЬСЯ 622 to find out (reflexive, imperfect)
НАПИСАТЬ 565 to write (perfective aspect)

14. Nezavisimaya gazeta
БЫТЬ 1550085 to be
МОЧЬ 239754 to be able
СТАТЬ 157307 to become
СКАЗАТЬ 101534 to say (perfective aspect)
ГОВОРИТЬ 92014 to say
СЧИТАТЬ 86323 to consider
ИМЕТЬ 75300 to have
ЗАЯВИТЬ 69021 to announce
ЯВЛЯТЬСЯ 68759 to be, to come
НАЧАТЬ 62696 to begin
ИДТИ 61977 to go, to go on
ПОЛУЧИТЬ 54966 to receive
ОКАЗАТЬСЯ 49748 to turn out, to find out
ЗНАТЬ 49413 to know
ХОТЕТЬ 48822 to want
НАХОДИТЬ 46363 to find, to consider
СДЕЛАТЬ 45003 to do
РАБОТАТЬ 44392 to work
СООБЩИТЬ 42477 to report, to inform

15. Nezavisimaya gazeta
СКАЗАТЬ 101534 to say (perfective aspect)
ГОВОРИТЬ 92014 to say
ЗАЯВИТЬ 69021 to announce
СООБЩИТЬ 42447 to report (perfective aspect)
ПИСАТЬ 31785 to write
СООБЩАТЬ 14988 to report
ГОВОРИТЬСЯ 13116 to say (reflexive voice)
НАПИСАТЬ 11315 to write (perfective)
ЗАЯВЛЯТЬ 9763 to announce
ПОЯСНИТЬ 8790 to elucidate
ВЫЯСНИТЬСЯ 6325 to find out (reflexive voice)
ВЫСКАЗАТЬ 4711 to state, to express
ВЫСКАЗАТЬСЯ 4604 to state, to express (reflexive)
СООБЩАТЬСЯ 3895 to report (reflexive)
ПОВТОРЯТЬ 3190 to repeat
ПОВТОРИТЬ 2704 to repeat (perfective)
ВЫСКАЗЫВАТЬСЯ 2612 to express (reflexive, imperfect)
ВЫСКАЗЫВАТЬ 2194 to express (imperfective)

16. Discussion
• “Nezavisimaya gazeta” is quite different
from other sources
• Communicative verbs help to identify the
style and format opposition (traditional
newspaper – news feed) but not the
subject oppositions (all news – IT news –
business news).

17. Combinatorial databases
• A complete set of words combination extracted
from different corpora – separate database for
each corpus
• Combinations are sorted by grammar patterns:
V+N, V+P+N, etc.
• It is possible fix V and find out all the
combinations included it
• We use communication verbs to create a
corpora “passport”
– not complete description, but important information of
style and genre (not subject)

18. RosBusinessConsulting: V+P+N
ГОВОРИТЬСЯ В СООБЩЕНИЕ 6509 message says
СООБЩИТЬ В ПРЕССЛУЖБА 5665 according to the press service
ГОВОРИТЬСЯ В ЗАЯВЛЕНИЕ 4493 announce says
СООБЩИТЬ В УПРАВЛЕНИЕ 1865 according to the administration
ЗАЯВИТЬ О НАМЕРЕНИЕ 1337 to declare the intention
ОБЪЯВИТЬ О НАМЕРЕНИЕ 1053 to announce the intention
СООБЩИТЬ НА ПРЕСС-КОНФЕРЕНЦИЯ 985 announce at a press conference
ЗАЯВИТЬ В ИНТЕРВЬЮ 937 say in an interview
ЗАЯВИТЬ О ГОТОВНОСТЬ 913 declare determination
ГОВОРИТЬСЯ В ДОКЛАД 789 report says
ГОВОРИТЬСЯ В МАТЕРИАЛ 745 material says
ЗАЯВИТЬ О НЕОБХОДИМОСТЬ 733 declare necessity
ГОВОРИТЬСЯ В ОТЧЕТ 693 report says
ВЫСКАЗАТЬ В ЭФИР 693 to state on the air
ГОВОРИТЬСЯ В ПРЕСС-РЕЛИЗ 661 press release says
ЗАЯВИТЬ В ЭФИР 637 to declare on the air

19. RosBusinessConsulting: V+N
ВЫСКАЗАТЬ МНЕНИЕ 3913 express an opinion
ЗАЯВИТЬ ГЛАВА 3465 the head announced
ЗАЯВИТЬ ПРЕЗИДЕНТ 3233 the president announced
СООБЩИТЬ ПРЕДСТАВИТЕЛЬ 3069 the spokesman informed
ЗАЯВИТЬ ПРЕДСТАВИТЕЛЬ 2869 the spokesman announced
СООБЩИТЬ ПРЕСС-СЛУЖБА 2813 the press service informed
ЗАЯВИТЬ МИНИСТР 2313 the minister announced
СООБЩИТЬ ГЛАВА 2309 the head informed
СКАЗАТЬ ГЛАВА 2301 the head said
СКАЗАТЬ ПРЕЗИДЕНТ 1981 the president said
СКАЗАТЬ МИНИСТР 1861 the minister said
СООБЩИТЬ МИНИСТР 1785 the minister informed
ПОДЧЕРКНУТЬ ГЛАВА 1705 the head underlined
ПОДЧЕРКНУТЬ ПРЕЗИДЕНТ 1485 the president underlined
СООБЩИТЬ ИСТОЧНИК 1485 the source reported
СООБЩИТЬ ЗАМЕСТИТЕЛЬ 1321 the deputy reported
СКАЗАТЬ ПРЕДСТАВИТЕЛЬ 1101 the spokesman said
СООБЩИТЬ ПРЕЗИДЕНТ 993 the president

20. Conclusion
• It is possible to classify communicative verbs as
(mostly) informative or (mostly) persuasive
• However, it is not our goal: we are focused on
corpora, not words
• We try to find as many formal markers as it is
possible
- collocations, keywords, POS distribution…
• Communicative verbs are rather informative
markers for Media text genres