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ytcjvy†yyj ‘undoubtedly’, and the validity of these evaluations depends on the subject -- for example, on the subject’s talents in [4].

[4]F dtlm cljcj,yjcnb r hbcjdfyb/ e vtyz ytcjvytyyj ,skb.

But some talent for drawing there certainly was by me [≈ I had some talent].

In this sense even the subject of existential be is responsible. The modal argument should be construed in broader terms than the idea of conscious or intentional agency.

Predicate histories are then both aspectual (they are concerned with change over time) and they are modal (they are concerned with possibilities and contingencies). Modality and aspectuality are often concentrated in specific arguments, but ultimately these are broad, layered concepts that belong to the whole predicate, not exclusively linked to specific arguments.

5.1.3 Aspectuality and modality in context

When a predicate is used, its lexical history is embedded in specific time-worlds, namely the here and now of speech, the connected narrative of events in the past, or a projected future. For example, in [1] above, the initial stative predicate establishes a time and a world (dj dnjhj´q gjkjd∫yt lyz´), and makes possible the subsequent decision (jnghƒdbkbcm j,jphtdƒnm jrh†cnyjcnb). During the extended (imperfective) process of viewing, a sequence of (perfective) actions occurs one after the other, each in consequence of the preceding (gjljik∫, hfpékbcm, gjgks´ kb). In this embedding of lexical histories in time-worlds, we see the familiar lexico-grammatical categories of tense, aspect, and mood.

A predicate history is located in time (past, present, future); the world in which it occurs can be presented as actual (realis mood) or desired by the speaker of the addressee (imperative) or hypothetical but not actual (irrealis mood). The categories of tense, aspect, and mood are treated together here, and separately from predicates and arguments (§5).

As a predicate is used in context, the time-world of a predicate can be left implicit, to be determined from context, or it can be spelled out: by prepositional phrases (dj dnjhj´q gjkjd∫yt lyz´, d [élitv ckéxft ‘in the worst case’) or by adverbs (njulƒ ‘then’, xƒcnj ‘often’, gjcntg†yyj ‘gradually’) or by certain noun phrases without prepositions (ldƒ xfcƒ ‘(for) two hours’, nfr∫v ´,hfpjv ‘in such a fashion’). In a loose sense, these phrases expressing information about time and possibility can also be called arguments, though in comparison to subject or object arguments, they are less specific to the particular verb. These adverbial temporal-aspectual-modal arguments, however, are not completely unrestricted. For example, the bare accusative of duration only occurs with imperfective verbs (Ltvjycnhƒwbz ikƒ w†ks[ ldƒ xfcƒ gjlhz´l ‘The demonstration went two whole

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hours’) and with certain prefixed perfectives; adverbs or prepositional phrases describing the mode of progress of an action only combine with verbs expressing a process; adverbs expressing frequency occur almost exclusively with imperfective verbs; the prepositional phrase pf (ld† ytl†kb) ‘within (two weeks)’ occurs most naturally with perfective verbs which, furthermore, express the idea of overcoming an obstacle. Thus there is some justification for extending the concept of argument to aspectual and modal phrases as well.

5.1.4 Predicate information structure

At the same time that predicates locate states in time-worlds, they shape and rank the information they present, in two ways.

First, they influence how arguments, specifically aspectual arguments, are understood. On the one hand, a predicate can describe a property of an entity presuming that the entity is known as an individual with well-defined properties. For example, in [1] above we are introduced to two protagonists, the speaker and his companion Serezha, and we gradually learn more about them. This type of reference can be termed i n d i v i d u a t e d , and predicates that impose this sense on their arguments (specifically the aspectual argument) can be termed i n d i v i d u a t i n g p r e d i c a t e s .

In contrast, predicates are sometimes interested in an entity only for its quantity -- for how much there is of something. Existence is minimal quantification: either there is some of an entity or there is none. The entity is often a token of a type, the instantiation of an essence; reference is not i n d i v i d u a t e d , but e s s e n t i a l .

[5]Z ghtlcnfk gthtl rjvbccbtq d rjcn/vt Flfvf, f chtlb tt xktyjd ,skb ldt vjkjlst ;tyobys. Ghtlctlfntkm ecgtk pflfnm kbim jlby djghjc: -- Ds ult exbkbcm?

Tuj ghthdfk dhfx b crfpfk:

-- Lfdfqnt tuj cgthdf dpdtcbv. Ghb vjtv hjcnt -- 180 cv dj vyt jrfpfkjcm dctuj

55 ru dtce.

I appeared before the commission in my birthday suit, and among its members were two young women. The chair managed to ask just one question: -- Where did you study?

He was interrupted by a doctor, who said:

-- Let’s weigh him first. For all my height -- 180 cm -- there turned out in me [≈ I weighed] just 55 kg.

In [5] the past tense of be (,s´ kb) asserts the existence of the two members of the committee; then jrfpƒkjcm gives a measurement of kilograms, a number without individual characteristics. Predicates that are concerned with quantity, including e x i s t e n t i a l predicates, are q u a n t i f y i n g predicates. The difference

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between individuation and quantification is one way in which predicates shape information about arguments.

A second way in which predicates shape information is that they rank and hierarchize the information. Any predicate can be viewed as a predication about the entities in the predicate and the universe of discourse at the time. In [1] above we learn something about the two travelers but also about a town and a river, about the author’s boots. In the choice of a predicate with its valence pattern, the participants and their properties are in effect ranked, and generally one participant is chosen as subject. The subject is a kind of synecdoche for the whole predicate; the subject’s properties are taken to be most informative and r e p r e s e n t a t i v e of the world as a whole.

5.1.5 Information structure in context

In speech and writing, the predicate and its arguments have to be put in linear order, and (in speech) given an intonation contour. Each predicate, as a lexical convention, has a preferred linear order. For example, a transitive verb such as j,thyénm ‘wrap’ is likely to have the order nominative subject, verb, accusative object, and domain (sz´ vj,thyékf ory∫ue dd ,evƒue ‘I wrapped the books in paper’), while jrfpƒnmcz ‘turn out to be’ in an existential sense is likely to have its domain come first in the clause and its subject after the verb (dnƒv vjrfpƒkjcm cnjkj´djt sctht,hj´ ‘in that place there turned up silver plate’). But with most predicates, other orders are possible; for example, the object can be made more the topic by putting it at the front of the sentence:

[6]o Rybue s z v ljk;yf j,thyenm d d ,evfue.

The book I was supposed to wrap in paper.

And various intonation contours are possible. At the level of discourse, by varying word order, the relationship of the predicate and its arguments can be presented in different ways, and through intonation and sentence stress, different elements can be selected as focal. These modulations of information -- how the speaker presents the information of predication in sequence, for the benefit of the addressee -- deserve a separate discussion (§7).

5.1.6 The concept of subject and the concept of object

The two threads discussed above -- the modal argument and the representative argument -- come together in the concept of the subject. The subject, in terms of tangible morphological and syntactic properties, is an overt argument phrase expressed in the nominative case, with which a finite predicate agrees for the features of gender--number (past tense) or person--number (present tense) (§5.9). There are various situations in which predicates do not actually have an

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argument in the nominative. In discourse, once a certain individual is identified, it can often be reconstructed from context and need not be named as an argument with each new predicate; note gjljik∫ ‘approached’, hfpékbcm ‘took off shoes’ above in [1]. Occasionally the expected position of a subject expressed in the nominative case is filled instead by a prepositional phrase expressing approximate quantity: yf,hfkj´cm lj cj´nyb fhtcnj´dfyys[ ‘there gathered upwards of a hundred people who were under arrest’. Even in these instances, the predicate is such that there could have been a nominative subject. Similarly, non-finite predicates necessarily lack any constituent in the nominative functioning as the subject in the same clause, though the referent of the missing subject can be supplied from context. Thus “subject” refers not only to arguments actually expressed as nominative nouns, but also to virtual arguments -- to arguments that would be overt nominative subjects of a finite predicate, were it not for certain other (quite specific) considerations.

Is there any meaning, any positive value, to being the subject in the nominative case? In recent years, the subject has come to be defined only negatively, as the argument that fails to have any positive qualities. Possibly, however, the nominative subject has a positive value, as used to be assumed in an earlier tradition of grammar.3 The subject is the argument in which the two major strands come together: the subject is the modal argument -- it is the argument that is held responsible -- and the informational argument par excellence -- it is the argument whose properties represent the whole situation of the world.

It is then clear why subjects have special, positive, properties. Inasmuch as the subject is the informational argument, the identities and properties of other arguments are naturally defined relative to the subject -- as reflexive pronouns are (§4.7). Because subjects are the arguments most representative of the world, whole predicates can be turned into properties of the subject. Accordingly, it is through the subject that non-finite verb forms (participles, infinitives, adverbial participles) are integrated with the larger clause. For example, the noun modified by a participle (vjyƒ[ in [7]) is the subject of the participle (ds´ itlibq),

[7]Yfc jrkbryek jnrelf-nj dsitlibq vjkjljq vjyf[.

We were hailed by a young monk who had come out from somewhere.

and the subject of an adverbial participle (,élexb in [8]) is identified with the subject of the finite verb (jn†w in [8]):

[8]Vjq jntw, ,elexb ,jkmysv, djj,ot ybrelf yt tplbk. My father, being ill, did not go anywhere at all.

3See Kozinskii 1983, Chvany 1996, on properties of subjects in Russian. Halliday 1970 pointed out that subjects are the focus of modal operations.