A Semantic Analysis of Russian Impersonal Sentences

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to show that the affective value of Russian Impersonal Sentences (IPS) can be accounted for by the close examination of underlying (semantic and syntactic) structures of various types of IPS. For this purpose, I utilize a somewhat modified version of Simon Dik's Functional Grammar as a framework. I define IPS as sentences marked by the absence of a participant in the narrat~d event in the subject role. On the basis of this definition various types of Russian IPS are examined, primarily in terms of their semantic functions. A detailed analysis of such types reveals that there are restrictions on the semantic structure, which account for the affective value: "backgrounding" of a "major" source or "foregrounding" of its absence.