English words difficult to render in Russian

This section lists in alphabetical order some of the more common English words which give difficulty for students learning Russian and defines some of the Russian equivalents they may have. The list is intended to encourage the student to think about the precise meaning of the English word in a given context and to consider which of the various possible Russian renderings is appropriate in that context. The lists of Russian equivalents for the English words are not intended to include all possible translations of the English word, merely to draw attention to the ways in which Russian deals with the main fields of meaning which the English word may have. In each entry the Russian word/words which render the meaning of the English word that seems most common or fundamental is/are given first.

Rendering of English prepositions is dealt with separately in 10.4.

English has many phrasal verbs (e.g. to hold back, hold on, hold up) in which the precise meaning of the verb is clarified by the following preposition. Translation of phrasal verbs is not considered here except in a very small number of cases. It should be noted that in many cases the function of the English preposition is fulfilled in Russian by a verbal prefix (see 8.3), as well as by a following preposition.

General considerations

An important locus of the interaction of syntax, semantics and pragmatics is grammatical relations. RRG takes a rather different view of grammatical relations from other theories. In the first place, it does not consider them to be basic, nor does it derive them from structural configurations. Second, it recognizes only one syntactic function, not up to three like other theories; there is nothing in RRG corresponding to notions like direct object and indirect object. The syntactic function posited in RRG is not, therefore, part of the same system of oppositions as the traditional notions of grammatical relations (i.e. subject vs direct object vs indirect object), and consequently it is not really comparable to the traditional notion that is its closest analogue, subject. Third, RRG does not assume that grammatical relations are universal, in two senses. On the one hand, it does not claim that all languages must have grammatical relations in addition to semantic roles, which are universal. On the other hand, in those languages in which a non-semantic grammatical relation can be motivated, the syntactic function posited need not have the same properties in every language; that is, the role of this syntactic function in the grammar of language X may be very different from that played by the syntactic function in language Y, and, consequently, the two cannot be considered to be exactly the same. Variation in grammatical relations systems is directly related to differences in the syntax–semantics–pragmatics interface across languages.

General considerations

In this chapter the linking between semantic representations and syntactic representations in complex sentences is explored. An important question to be investigated is the extent to which the linking algorithms proposed in chapter 5 for simple sentences must be modified to deal with complex sentences. Most complex sentences pose no particular difficulties for the linking system developed in chapter 5. Clausal junctures, for example, are composed of clauses, each of which links like an independent clause. Moreover, nuclear junctures act for linking purposes like simple clauses containing a complex predicate, and they basically follow the algorithms for simple sentences. The real challenge comes from non-subordinate core junctures with their obligatory sharing of a core argument, as discussed in section 6.2. Accordingly, linking in clausal and nuclear junctures will be examined first. After the discussion of linking in the different juncture–nexus types and in complex NPs, reflexivization in complex constructions will be investigated, and again the question arises as to the extent to which the principles proposed in section 5.3 will have to be modified to deal with these new phenomena. In the final section an account of the restrictions on so-called ‘long-distance dependencies’ involved in WH-question formation, topicalization and relativization will be proposed. These restrictions, which fall under the principle known as ‘subjacency’ in the generative literature, are significant for linguistic theory, for theories of language acquisition and for related theories of cognitive organization.

General considerations

The various components of a description of grammatical structure have been presented (clause structure, lexical representation and semantic roles, syntactic functions, focus structure), and now the principles that link them together will be presented. They illustrate the workings of the syntax–semantics–pragmatics interface. The linking algorithm is central to a theory like RRG that posits only one level of syntactic representation, for it must be able to deal not only with canonical clause patterns, i.e. those in which the default correlations between syntactic and semantic structure exist, but also with the non-canonical patterns as well. The general linking schema in RRG may be sketched as in Figure 5.1 on p. 129. The relation between logical structure and macroroles is mediated by the actor–undergoer hierarchy in Figure 4.4. The relation between macroroles (and non-macrorole arguments of the verb) and morphosyntactic functions is subject to extensive cross-linguistic variation and is affected by the privileged syntactic argument selection hierarchy in (4.14) and selection principles in (4.15) and by the extent to which focus structure is grammaticalized in clause-internal relational syntax (see Figure 4.3).

The opposition labelled ‘universal’ vs ‘language-specific’ in Figure 5.1 reflects the fact that there is very little cross-linguistic variation in the lexical phase of the linking and a great deal of cross-linguistic variation in the syntactic phase.

General considerations

The starting point for the discussion of the syntax–semantics–pragmatics interface in complex sentences is the syntactic structure of complex sentences. The units of the layered structure of the clause play a central role in the RRG theory of clause linkage, as they are the units which constitute the building blocks of complex sentences, and given RRG's approach to clause-internal relational structure, it is perhaps not surprising that the RRG theory of interclausal relational structure diverges from the standard analyses. Focus structure in complex sentences will also be discussed in this chapter, as well as the structure of complex NPs.

Nexus relations

Traditional, structural and generative grammar have all operated on the assumption that there are two linkage or ‘nexus’ types, coordination and subordination. Switch-reference constructions, particularly those in the languages of Papua-New Guinea as illustrated in (4.23), have long presented a vexing problem for theories of complex sentence structure. Coordination is characterized by the joining of two or more units of equal size and status, and, in the case of whole clauses, all of the clauses have the form of independent main clauses. Subordination, on the other hand, involves the embedding of one unit in another, and the embedded unit does not normally have the form of independent main clauses. The embedded clause functions either as an argument, as in complementation, or as a modifier, as in adverbial subordinate clauses. (Cf. Lyons 1968:178.)