An imperative form in non-imperative constructions in Russian
The goal of this paper is to examine constructions with
predicates in imperative form and surface subjects in non-imperative context,
with special emphasis on the conditionals. There are altogether five such uses,
four with concrete subjects and one with generalized subjects. Two form direct
word order constructions ‹ unexpected action in the past and imposed undesirable
action, and three ‹ the conditionals ‹ form inverted word order constructions.
The best examined use is unexpected action in the past
(Prokopovich 1982, Glovinskaja 1989). Imposed undesirable action has been described
by Xrakovskij & Volodin (1986) as forced and obligatory, and they did not
ascribe to it any subjective value. Sheljakin (1990), on the other hand, did
attribute to it a "negative value, blame, displeasure". The paper will show
that not only the obligation, but also high undesirability on the part of the
speaker constitutes the semantics of this construction. The most complicated
issue is the use of imperfective forms in conditional constructions. In most
studies of Russian conditionals (Xrakovskij 1994, Xrakovskij 1996a, Wierzbicka
1997, Hacking 1998), such constructions are simply mentioned on a par with
other counterfactual conditionals, while some studies (Podlesskaja 1997, Kasevich
1998) do not mention them at all. The two studies that do discuss conditionals
with imperfective forms (Xrakovskij & Volodin 1986 and Birjulin & Xrakovskij
1992) fail to discuss the semantic distinctions between these conditionals and
the conditionals with esli/esli by. Moreover, Birjulin & Xrakovskij
1992 attribute to these constructions highly improbable meanings, such as 'the
possibility of the realization of the action' for highly improbable examples:
[??] Privezi on lentu cherez
polchasa, seans nachnetsja vovremja.
Such benign usages are impossible and not attested.
Sil'nickij (1990: 98) discussing
Pridi on ko mne s povinnoj,
ja tut zhe proshchu ego.
stated that this form "implies a ceratin interest on the part of the Speaker
in realization/nonrealization of the action" (zainteresovannost' sub"ekta
rechi v realizacii/nerealizacii dejstvija pridatochnogo uslovnogo). Examination
of a large number of examples suggests that this meaning is not part of
the grammatical meaning of this construction; Speaker's interest may be
coincidental to this particular example due to
its lexical meaning. The subjective interest either is not pertinent or
is impossible to gauge. The semantics of this construction will be reexamined.
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