Sentential interpretative adverbs: grammatical and pragmatic features in contrast to predicatives

The article examines the functional interaction of predicatives and adverbs ending in -o which formally adjoin the verb, but semantically characterise the entire sentence (sentential adverbs). The research focused on lexemes expressing socio-ethical (bestaktno, egoistichno / English tactlessly, selfishly) and rationalistic (oshibochno, netselesoobrazno / English erroneously, inappropriately) evaluation of individuals’ actions. The functioning of 50 adverbs with both types of use, namely predicative and sentential, was investigated. As for constructions with predicatives, the study only examined sentences with dependent infinitives (Nechestno skryvat’ eto ot menya / English It is unfair to hide it from me). The research methods included transformational analysis, contextual analysis, and analytical description. The article argues that a sentential interpretative adverb can be embedded in a sentence (proposition) denoting not only a fact (a performed action), but also a possibility. Additionally, the study demonstrates the acceptability of statements in which such adverbs adjoin verbs in the forms of the future tense, the subjunctive mood with a conditional, sometimes desiderative semantics, and also in some cases the imperative mood, and so on. Pragmatic strategies that determine the use of sentential adverbs in the specified contexts of resolved affirmativeness are identified. The article notes grammatical and communicative differences between sentences with predicatives and sentential adverbs. For instance, the standard rhematic emphasis of the predicative enables it to foreground the interpretation rather than the situation being evaluated. Conversely, the sentential adverb does not normally act as an emphasis carrier. It is shown that the difference in the communicative organisation of utterances with the grammatical units under study prevents their interchangeability if the syntactic structure requires interpretative component (de)actualization. For example, for a sentential adverb, the position of the interrogative statement component with a focus on evaluation is closed. 

1. Arutyunova N. D. Types of linguistic meanings. Evaluation. Event. Fact. Moscow: Nauka, 1988. 339 p. (In Russ.)

2. Degaltseva A. V. The adverbial complicators as modifiers of a sentence. Izv. Sarat. univ. (N. S.). Ser.: Filologiya. Zhurnalistika = Izvestiya of Saratov University.Ser.:Philology.Journalism. 2019;19(1):36– 39. (In Russ.) http://doi.org/10.18500/1817-71152019-19-1-36-39.

3. Dobrushina N. R. The subjunctive mood in Russian: experience of research of grammatical semantics. Prague: Animedia Company, 2016. 413 p. (In Russ.)

4. Zaliznyak A. A. Plurality of meanings in language and ways of its representation. Moscow: Yazyki slavyanskoi kul’tury, 2006. 672 p. (In Russ.)

5. Kobozeva I. M. Adverbs of evaluation: Correlation of semantic and syntactic properties (the case of general and hedonistic evaluation). Kritika i semiotika = Critique and Semiotics. 2022;(1):90–109. (In Russ.) http://doi.org/10.25205/2307-1737-20221-90-109.

6. Kustova G. I. Semantics of the predicative and functions of the infinitive in constructions "predicative + infinitive" in Russian. Russian Linguistics. 2024;48:Article 5. (In Russ.) https://doi.org/10.1007/s11185-024-09289-0.

7. Kustova G. I. Semantic classes of state predicates (on the material of the Russian language). Ontologiya na situatsiite za s’stoyanie – lingvistichno modelirane. S’postavitelno izsledvane za b’lgarski i ruski / pod red. S. Koevoi, E. Yu. Ivanovoi, Y. Tishevoi, A. Tsimmerlinga = Ontology of stative situations – linguistic modeling. A contrastive Bulgarian-Russian study / S. Koeva, E. Yu. Ivanova, Y. Tisheva, A. Zimmerling (eds.). Sofia: Prof. Marin Drinov, 2022. P. 53–67. (In Russ.)

8. Kustova G. I. Types of infinitive constructions with predicatives (according to the National Corpus of the Russian Language). Kompyuternaya lingvistika i intellektual’nye tekhnologii. Po materialam ezhegodnoi mezhdunarodnoi konferentsii "Dialog" = Computational Linguistics and Intellectual Technologies: Papers from the Annual International Conference "Dialogue". Issue 20. Moscow: RSUH, 2021. P. 456–463. (In Russ.)

9. Letuchy A. B. The place of the predicative in the system of Russian attributive words (adverbials and adjectives). Vestnik Tomskogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta. Filologiya = Tomsk State University Journal of Philology. 2022;(76):105–147. (In Russ.) http://doi.org/10.17223/19986645/76/5.

10. Letuchy A. B. Syntactical features of sentential arguments with predicatives. Vestnik Moskovskogo gosudarstvennogo gumanitarnogo universiteta im. M. A. Sholokhova = Bulletin of Sholokhov Moscow State University for the Humanities. 2014;(1):62–84. (In Russ.)

11. Norman B. Yu. On the special function of adverbs in the structure of an utterance (the role of the secondary predicate). Izvestiya RAN. Seriya literatury i yazyka = The Bulletin of the Russian Academy of Sciences: Studies in Literature and Language. 2023;82(2):15–21. (In Russ.) https://doi.org/10.31857/S160578800025498-3.

12. Rudnitskaya E. L. Some classes of sentential adverbs in Russian. Semantics. Syntax. Lexicography. Voprosy Jazykoznanija = Topics in the stude of language. 1994;(1):114–125. (In Russ.)

13. Serdobolskaya N. V., Toldova S. Yu. Constructions with evaluative predicatives in Russian: participants of the evaluation situation and semantics of the evaluative predicate. Acta Linguistica Petropolitana. Trudy Instituta lingvisticheskikh issledovanii = Acta Linguistica Petropolitana. Transactions of the Institute for Linguistic Studies. 2014;10(2):443– 477. (In Russ.)

14. Filipenko M. V. Semantics of adverbs and adverbial expressions. Moscow: Azbukovnik, 2003. 304 p. (In Russ.)

15. Zimmerling A. V. History of one polemic. Yazyk i rechevaya deyatel’nost’ = Language and Language Behavior. 1998;(1):65–87. (In Russ.)

16. Zimmerling A. V. Predicatives and qualitative adverbs: classes of words and directions of derivation. Rusistika na poroge XXI veka: problemy i perspektivy: materialy Mezhdunarodnoi nauchnoi konferentsii. Moskva, 8–10 iyunya 2002 g. = Rusistics on the threshold of the 21st century: problems and prospects: proceedings of the International Scientific Conference. Moscow, June 8–10, 2002. Moscow: RLI RAS, 2003. P. 54–59. (In Russ.)