Parenthetical constructions in the Russian epistolary text of 1700 –1710s: the problem of syntactic qualification

Authors

Keywords:

parenthetical constructions, syntactic qualification, evaluation modal meaning, functioning, epistolary text, Russian language, 18th century

Abstract

The problem of determining of the syntactic status of constructions with an evaluation modal meaning in the Russian epistolary texts of the first decades of the 18th century is considered. This problem is connected with studying of the evolution of the parenthetical category in the history of the Russian language and studying of the formal expression of this category. Functional and semantic groups of constructions are described. It is shown that in this chronological period the syntactic organization of the selected type of discourse is characterized by using both parenthetical constructions and non-related phrases with an evaluation modal meaning. Such phrases are significantly more quantitative and frequency prevailing. It has been established that many units allow different syntactic interpretations due to formal connections with other components of the statement, grammatical homonymy and inability to reconstruct the communicative intention of the author of the text in principle. The need to study formal and grammatical characteristics of modal and evaluative constructions in the Russian language of the pre-national period in order to clarify their syntactic status is concluded.

Author Biography

  • Volha U. Zuyeva, Belarusian State University, 4 Niezaliežnasci Avenue, Minsk 220030, Belarus

    PhD (philology); head of the department of Russian language, faculty of philology

References

  1. Itskovich VA. [To the history of parenthetical words and sentences in Russian]. Voprosy russkogo yazykoznaniya. 1958;3:35–80. Russian.
  2. Itskovich VA. [To the history of parenthetical words and sentences in Russian]. Voprosy russkogo yazykoznaniya. 1960;4:91–126. Russian.
  3. Cherepanova ОА. Leksiko­grammaticheskie sredstva vyrazheniya modal’nosti v russkom yazyke [Lexical and grammatical means of expression of modality in Russian] [dissertation abstract]. Leningrad: A. A. Zhdanov State University of Leningrad; 1965. 18 р. Russian.
  4. Pavlovskaya NY. [Author’s remark as part of direct speech constructions as the basis for the formation of the parenthetical component of the sentence]. Vesnik Belaruskaga dzjarzhawnaga wniversitjeta imja U. I. Lenina. Seryja 4. Filalogija. Zhurnalistyka. Pedagogika. Psihalogija. 1988;3:41– 45.
  5. Pavlovskaya NY. [On the multifunctionality of the parenthetical unit in the texts of Old Russian writing of the 16th–17th centuries]. Vesnik Belaruskaga dzjarzhawnaga wniversitjeta imja U. I. Lenina. Seryja 4. Filalogija. Zhurnalistyka. Pedagogika. Psihalogija. 1990;1:44 – 48.
  6. Glukhova VA. [Parenthetical constructions with the meaning of a consequence in the Russian literary language of the 18th century]. Voprosy yazykoznaniya i sibirskoi dialektologii. 1977;7:136 –140. Russian.
  7. Karimova RA. [Parenthetical words and parenthetical combinations of words in the Russian literary language of the second half of the 18th – early 19th centuries]. Uchenye zapiski Kazanskogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta imeni V. I. Ul’yanova­Lenina. 1965;125:137–158. Russian.
  8. Glushakova SO. The functioning of parenthetical and inserted constructions in scientific texts of the 18th–20th centuries. In: Kozhina MN, editor. Ocherki istorii nauchnogo stilya russkogo literaturnogo yazyka XVIII–XX vv. Tom 1. Razvitie nauchnogo stilya v aspekte funktsionirovaniya yazykovykh edinits razlichnykh urovnei. Chast’ 2. Sintaksis [Essays on the history of the scientific style of the Russian literary language of the 18th–20th centuries. Volume 1. The development of the scientific style in the aspect of the functioning of language units of various levels. Part 2. Syntax]. Perm: Publishing House of the Perm University; 1994. p. 44 –81. Russian.
  9. Rudnev DV. The history of the Russian parenthetical word znachit. Vestnik Voronezhskogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta. Seriya: Lingvistika i mezhkul’turnaya kommunikatsiya. 2014;3:79–82. Russian.
  10. Patroeva NV. Parenthetical constructions in lyrical text. Yazyk. Slovesnost’. Kul’tura. 2013;2–3:183–205. Russian.
  11. Shvedova NY, editor. Russkaya grammatika. Tom 2. Sintaksis [Russian grammar. Volume 2. Syntax]. Moscow: Nauka; 1980. 709 p. Russian.
  12. Vinogradov VV. Russkii yazyk. Grammaticheskoe uchenie o slove [The Russian language. Grammar learning of the word]. Moscow: Uchpedgiz; 1947. 784 p. Russian.

Downloads

Published

2019-11-01

Issue

No. 3 (2019): Journal of the Belarusian State University. Philology

Section

Linguistics

License

The authors who are published in this journal agree to the following:

  1. The authors retain copyright on the work and provide the journal with the right of first publication of the work on condition of license Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial. 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0).
  2. The authors retain the right to enter into certain contractual agreements relating to the non-exclusive distribution of the published version of the work (e.g. post it on the institutional repository, publication in the book), with the reference to its original publication in this journal.
  3. The authors have the right to post their work on the Internet (e.g. on the institutional store or personal website) prior to and during the review process, conducted by the journal, as this may lead to a productive discussion and a large number of references to this work. (See The Effect of Open Access.)

How to Cite

[1]
Zuyeva, V.U. 2019. Parenthetical constructions in the Russian epistolary text of 1700 –1710s: the problem of syntactic qualification. Journal of the Belarusian State University. Philology. 3 (Nov. 2019), 49–59.