Russian syntax Research Papers - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

The authors suggest a definition of the predicative that is limited to the examples where the constructions biti ‘to be’ + predicative have predicative and/or attributive meaning; in connection with biti the predicative is an obligatory syntactic-semantic unit.
The predicative is therefore a syntactic-semantic manner of using content words like adverbs, adjectives, nouns, or particles. In terms of lexicography, they do not represent separate lexical units, but only one out of several meanings of a lexeme.
Within the syntactic structure [Snom+Vcop+Snom] in identificational clausal sentences, the verb biti ‘to be’ expresses ‘sameness’ or ‘equality’ of two nominal phrases, which in both positons as the subject and the predicate noun retain the reference value and semantic autonomy. On the other hand, the very fact that these participants in the given syntactic functions cannot be freely switched underscores the syntactic attributive hierarchy expressing an existing state and feature that is attributed to the subject. In cases of attributive relationship, however, the content word in the subject complement does no longer have concrete reference features, but it acquires predicate categorial features.
In the second part of the article, the authors focus on Slovene clausal sentences with the basic structure [S nom+S acc/S dat+V cop] that contain the nouns strah ‘fear’, sram ‘shame’, groza ‘horror’, mraz ‘cold’, dolgčas ‘boredom’, škoda ‘pity’ as predicatives. Peculiarities of Slovene sentences like Strah me je ‘I’m afraid’, Sram me je ‘I’m ashamed’, Dolgčas mi je ‘I’m bored’, Mraz mi je ‘I’m cold’, are evident when compared to Russian equivalents, which in a minimal realization also denote the existing state.
In Russian constructions like Мне холодно ‘I’m cold’, Мне страшно ‘I’m afraid’, Мне стыдно ‘I’m ashamed’, predicative adverbs appear, while Slovene has predicative nouns in this position. Slovene nouns like strah ‘fear’, dolgčas ‘boredom’, and mraz ‘cold’ can appear in other syntactic types, which indicates that they retain nominal categorial features.
In comparing valency features of predicative syntagms, the authors point out the difference in marking the experiencer: in Slovene constructions the experiencer can be expressed with both the dative (Dolgčas mi je ) and the accusative (Strah me je), while in Russian it can be only expressed with the dative (Мне скучно, Мне страшно).
The option of expressing the experiencer with nouns like strah, sram, and groza in the accusative is typical of South Slavic languages (Bulgarian, Bosnian, Croatian, Macedonian, Serbian, Slovene). The Slovene examples also show that the type of clausal sentences with accusative experiencer differs somewhat from the sentences with predicative nouns (dolgčas and mraz ) and dative experiencer.
Clausal sentences with accusative experiencer are not possible without expressing the logical subject (*Strah je , *Sram je ), while in cases with dative experiencer parallel clausal sentences exist (Sln. Dolgčas mi je ‘I’m bored’ vs. Dolgčas je ‘It’s boring’; Russ. Мне скучно vs. Скучно ). Slovene sentences with the accusative have the valency with abblative genitive denoting the instigator of the state (Strah me je psa ‘I’m afraid of a dog’, Sram ga je prijateljev ‘I’m ashamed of my friends’), while this option is not available to the same type of Russian sentences (*Мне страшно собаки ). Clausal sentences with dative experiencer, e.g., Mraz mi je ‘I’m cold’, Dolgčas mi je ‘I’m bored’, are monovalent; introduction of another valency position usually leads to a change in meaning, e.g., Dolgčas mi je po tebi ‘I miss you’.