Factivity and unreal contexts: the Russian case

P. 156–178.

Letuchiy A.

The article is focused on marking factive complement clauses in Russian (in particular, in constructions with emotional verbs) in unreal contexts. Contexts like these are especially problematic, since non-reality and factivity by nature constitute a logically strange combination. Factivity is associated with real contexts, and the degree of reality is equal for the matrix factive predicate and the complement event. However, as I will show, the two values are combinable. Importantly, the two ways of marking differ semantically, one of them being a default one, and the other one having de dicto special interpretation in most cases. This de dicto reading is facilitated by a sort of ‘agreement’ taking place between several components of the utterance: the participant NPs tend to have a non-specific reading, while the complement clause tends to be marked with subjunctive and has a maximally possible degree of non-reality

Keywords: модальности de re и de dicto, ирреальность, modalities de re and de dicto, фактивность, specificity, референтный статус, factivity, non-reality

Publication based on the results of: Зависимость характеристик одной клаузы от характеристик другой клаузы в русских полипредикативных конструкциях: статистическое исследование (2015)

In book

Donum semanticum: Opera linguistica et logica in honorem Barbarae Partee a discipulis amicisque Rossicis oblata

M.: Languages of Slavic culture, 2015.