Предикативы в системе русских признаковых слов - наречий и прилагательных

Вестник Томского государственного университета. Филология. 2022. № 76. С. 105–147.

Letuchiy A.

The article focuses on the function and classification of Russian
‘predicatives’ (non-verbal predicates), such as uyutno ‘(it is) cosy’, nepriyatno ‘(it is)
unpleasant’ and kholodno ‘(it is) cold’. The main problem I am solving is why the
third element of the attributive system, besides adjectives and adverbials, is necessary.
In the end, I conclude that predicatives have common properties both with adjectives
and with adverbials. On the one hand, predicatives often describe features of
situations, alternating with adjectives that characterize nominal phrases and pronouns.
On the other hand, predicatives fill a lacuna in the use of adverbials, which normally
cannot be used in the predicate position. Note that, in Cinque’s account, only ‘high’
VP modifiers can be used as predicatives, while for ‘low’ modifiers of mode of action
Лингвистика / Linguistics
106
this use is rare. The conclusion is that different groups of predicatives function
differently. Some of them having a complement clause grammaticalize the structure
with an adverbial in the predicate position. This function is somewhat different from
the canonical modifier position of the adverbial because the embedded clause is
mainly interpreted as a fact, and not a proposition or another type of situational
meaning. Semantic properties of predicatives are reflected in their syntactic behavior.
For instance, predicatives that are used analogically to adjectives but for situations
(e.g., interesnyy ‘interesting’) are also parallel to them in that the complement clause
is a subject (the structure Mne interesno, kto pridet ‘It is interesting to me who will
come’ is parallel to Kniga okazalas’ interesnoy ‘The book turned out to be
interesting’).

Keywords: noun phrase, именная группа, подлежащее, инфинитив, предикатив, ситуация, adjective, situation, наречие, факт, coordination, сочинение, infinitives, syntactic subject, predicative, adverbials, прилагательное, fact as a type of situation