This article aims to further develop a methodology for studying and describing

argument and actant structures. The specific features of corpus methodology as applied to

Russian are also discussed. The article discusses the differences between the verbs isportit’

and podportit’ based on corpus material from the Russian National Corpus. This study is an

example of how corpus material can be used for studying the relationship between meaning

and grammatical features. The various arguments that appear in combination with the two

verbs differ in their frequency, i.e. the verbs are not identical in their grammatical behavior.

They also differ in their actant structure, which means that their semantic content and behavior

are different. This serves as evidence for the different roles that subjective judgment may

play with regard to their use.