Russian modal predicates: personal vs. impersonal construction

Abstract

The formal distinction between 'personal' and 'impersonal' modal predicates has been well-recognized in the previous literature, but the exact nature of the difference seems not to have been captured. This investigation attempts to describe the morphsyntactic differences and to pinpoint the semantic difference between them in terms of absence / presence of 'modal experiencer' as well. The 'personal' modal predicates are in every respect an unmarked category with relation to the 'impersonal' modal predicates, which is marked counterpart. This assignment of markedness value is justified both semantically and syntactico-distributionally. Semantically, the 'personal' modal predicates lack the symantic component of 'modal experiencer', which is present in the meaning of the 'impersonal' counterparts; thus, the opposition is contradictory (A vs. non-A). As far as usage is concerned, the former express both epistemic and root modality, whereas the latter express only root modality. Further, the modal predicatives structurally are highly restricted; they cannot occur with infinitival complements as the u+NP-G construction of 'possession', impersonal constructions, passive constructions, and existential constructions. There are no such syntactic constraints on the personal modal predicates. This formal constraint is closely related to, or derived from, the semantic constraint, which dictates that when the underlying subject of the infinitival complement represents non-agent, the infinitival complement must occur with personal modal predicates; and note that all the subject NPs of the above mentioned constructions are not agent. Thus,

a sja-construction which is used reflexively (not but in the passive sense) can occur with impersonal modals, since the sja- verb in this sense has the valency structure, which includes an NP-subject whose participant role is agent. In addition, a construction with u+NP-G where the nominative subject represents not posses see but agent can occur with the impersonal modals. Again the personal modal predicates have no such semantic constraint. These semantic and syntactic considerations prove our assignment of markedness value to two classes of modal predicates: the personal modal is unmarked in relation to the impersonal modal which is marked.