The grammar of surprise: the Russian construction of the type "Kowka e3rna da yMepna" 'Suddenly, the cat died'

• Autores: Daniel Weiss
• Localización: Meaning-Text Theory 2007 [Recurso electrónico]: proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Meaning-Text Theory : Klagenfurt, May 20 - 24, 2007 / Kim Gerdes (ed. lit.), Tilmann Reuther (ed. lit.), Leo Wanner (ed. lit.), 2007, ISBN 978-3-86688-017-7, págs. 427-436
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • Contemporary Russian has a construction composed of the verb 'to take' and a second verb V2. Both verbs manifest identical grammatical categories, they are linked either by syndetic (with a conjunction meaning 'and') or asyndetic coordination or else they are serialized, and the meaning of the whole construction is roughly speaking 'to suddenly V2'. In the paper I will first examine the formal and semantic properties of the construction, next discuss some criteria which support an analysis in terms of grammaticalization theory including additional pragmatic effects, and finally tackle the question how to model these facts in a dependency framework of the MTT type.