454A Reference Grammar of Russian

The order VSX can be used to start a new episode (gj,sdƒkf in [24]). The usage is sometimes termed “epic,” in memory of its use in chronicles and folk texts to announce new events or episodes. In contemporary Russian, it has connotations of the Soviet imperial style.

The order VOS introduces a new scene involving the object (hence VO) and then, as a strong focus, the as yet unknown subject that is involved:

[25]Gjxtve ;t vtyz djj,ot jcdj,jlbkb, lf tot nfr crjhj? v Jn[kjgjnfkf o vtyz s Trfnthbyf Gfdkjdyf Gtirjdf.

Why did they release me at all, and why so quickly? My release was arranged by Ekaterina Pavlovna Peshkova.

In the test corpus with vtyz´, the two verb-initial orders were equally frequent: VSO, 13/359xx = 3.6 percent, VOS 17/359xx = 4.7 percent. Both are also used following direct quotes, VSO when the subject is a pronoun (cghjcbk jy vtyz ‘he asked me’), VOS when it is a full noun phrase (cghjcbkf vtyz vfnm ‘asked of me my mother’). This latter fact suggests that VSO and VOS are indeed close in function; what is crucial is that the subject follows the verb, and the relative position of O and S is less critical. The orders VS, VSO, and VOS can be termed situational: they establish the existence of a situation, a state of the world, that includes certain entities. This function is common to all tokens of these orders, regardless of whether the subject is known or newly introduced. Existential and presentational functions are special instances of the situational function.

7.3.6 Word order without subjects

Not all sentences have subjects. Subjects can be absent for one of three reasons. Different types of subjectless sentences do not have the same word-order proclivities.

Ellipsis: The subject can be omitted by ellipsis between conjoined verbs or between separate sentences. Though the subject is not represented as a constituent, it counts as the entity of which the predicate states a property. Accordingly, the object normally follows the verb, as it does when the subject is overt. This VO order is frequent (40/55xx of elliptical sentences with vtyz´, or 73%).

[26]Jy crfpfk, xnj yt v jngecnbn o vtyz lj nt[ gjh, gjrf z yt yfgbie pfzdktybt. He said he wouldn’t let me go until I had written an attestation.

Impersonal verbs; unspecified agents: If it is usual to use VO when the subject is omitted by ellipsis, OV order is usual when the clause necessarily lacks a subject -- when the verb is impersonal ([27]) or in the construction with an indefinite thirdplural agent ([28]).

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[27]o Vtyz v njiybkj.

Nausea overcame me.

[28]o Vtyz v gjdtkb gj rjhbljhe. Rjhbljh gjdthyek, o vtyz v ddtkb d yt,jkmie/

rjvyfne.

[They] led me along a corridor. The corridor turned, [they] led me into a small

room.

In the third-plural agent construction, VO does occur, but infrequently (only 11/72 tokens, or 15%, of the tokens with vtyz´ as object). In such cases the O is often the strong focus: Jlyf;ls yjxm/ vdspdfkb ob vtyz ‘once at night they summoned me as well’.

7.3.7 Summary of word-order patterns of predicates and arguments

The basic functions of word-order patterns are summarized in Table 7.2, with illustrative examples and overly explicit interpretive glosses in English. There seem to be three groups of patterns. Intransitive SV and transitive SVO and OVS are hierarchical: they state properties of a privileged individual. Intransitive VS and transitive VSO and VOS are situational: they present the world as a holistic situation in which the property overshadows the identity of the individuals involved. Transitive OSV and SOV are relational: they list elements, then state a relation among them.

7.3.8 Emphatic stress and word order

The speaker can choose to mark one word with a stress distinctly louder than the stresses on other words in the immediate vicinity. Emphatic stress can be used on words in different positions: r yfv lz˝lz ghbt[fk ‘to us came u˝ncle’ lz˝lz r yfv ghbt[fk r yfv ghbt[fk lz˝lz.10 Emphatic stress might seem to override the function of word order. In actuality, word order retains its usual functions. With emphatic stress, the speaker signals that this word is more informative than other words. That is not the same as the function of word order, which is to suggest a strategy for interpreting words together. The value of word order is preserved when emphatic stress is used with different orders in analogous contexts. For example, vtyz´ is stressed in both [29--30], but occupies a different word-order position and has a different value in each:

[29]Vtyz gjkmcnbkj, xnj bvtyyj o vtyz˝ s jy v ghbukfiftn.

I was flattered by the fact that I was being invited.

[30]Z ,sk ytgjvthyj ujhl b ljdjkty, xnj s jy v ds,hfk bvtyyj o vtyz˝ d d cdjb gjvjoybrb.

I was immeasurably proud and gratified, that he had chosen me˝ for his assistant.

10 Adamec 1966:69.

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Table 7.2 Basic word-order patterns of verb and major arguments

i n t r a n s i t i v e
SV(X) hierarchical: given entity S, V(X) is		s Vfnm v dthyekfcm d cj cnfywbb
	property	‘As for my mother, what she did was return
		from the station.’
(X)VS situational (existential): establishes		d E yfc v tcnm s rehbwf.
	relevance (existence) of S in X	‘By us remained a chicken.’
VS(X)	situational (epic): establishes new	d Jlyf;ls v gj,sdfkf s jyf b d e yfc.
	situation involving known S, or	‘It once happened that she spent time also
	new property X of known S	with us.’
t r a n s i t i v e
SVO	hierarchical: differentiates given entity	s Jyf v dpzkf o vtyz d yf ,fpfh.
	S from property VO; links to prior	‘As for my mother, what she did was take
	text through S	me to the market.’
OVS	hierarchical: differentiates given entity	o Vtyz v ;lfkj s hfpjxfhjdfybt.
	O as basis from property VS; links	‘What happened to me was that I was met
	to prior text through O	by disappointment.’
SOV	relational: given entities S and O, V	s Dct o vtyz v ckeifkb.
	states relation between	‘As for everyone and me, what happened
		was that they listened to me.’
OSV	relational: given unexpected O, and	(Bvtyyj) o vtyz s jy v ghbukfiftn.
	given S, V states relation	‘What happened to me in particular with
		him was that he invited me.’
VSO(X) situational: property V is situation		v Dcnhtnbk s jy o vtyz m [jkjlyj.
	encompassing S and O; X focal	‘Then it happened that he met me in some
		fashion, namely coldly.’
VOS	situational: property V encompasses O;	v Jn[kjgjnfkf o vtyz s Trfnthbyf Gfdkjdyf
	S = strong focus	Gtirjdf.
		‘Then it happened to me that I was saved by
		someone, namely EPP.’
i m p e r s o n a l
OV	relational: VO states property	o Vtyz v njiybkj.
		‘As for what happened to me, I was made
		ill.’
u n s p e c i f i e d 3 p l
OV	relational: VO states property	o Vtyz v ddtkb d d yt,jkmie/ rjvyfne.
		‘What happened to me was that I was led
		into a small room.’

e l l i p t i c a l s u b j e c t

VO hierarchical: equivalent to hierarchical SVO

s Lfdsljdbx v eks,fkcz, v [kjgfk o vtyz d gj gktxe.

‘As for Davydovich, he smiled, and as for that person, what he did was slap me.’

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With the pre-verbal object in [29], the sentence is about the individual and how he was treated: ‘I was flattered that I was treated in this fashion’. In [30], the issue is who was chosen: ‘I was gratified by the fact that he chose a person who turned out to be myself’. Even with emphatic stress, word-order patterns have their usual values.

7.3.9 Word order within argument phrases

If considerable freedom is granted to the order of major constituents, word order within argument phrases in prose writing and in speech is much less flexible. As a rule, adjectives occur before the head noun, and genitives and other arguments (of event nouns) occur after the head noun. Complex modifier phrases -- participles and adjective phrases in which the modifier has its own dependent arguments -- can come in either order. Before the noun, they are more integrated. After the noun, they are more detached, semantically and prosodically.

There is one class of modifiers that not infrequently comes after the noun, and that is determiners -- demonstratives and possessive adjectives and existential adjectives (rfrj´q-nj). After a noun, such modifiers have weak stress. They have the flavor of an epithet that reminds the addressee of a property which the speaker takes as known and established. In cgtrnfrkm yfi<pss> bvtk ,jkmijq ecgt[ ‘the performance of ours had great success’, the speaker reminds the addressee that the play being discussed is associated with the speaker.

When an ordinary adjective comes after its head noun, it imputes essential reference to the phrase; [31] distinguishes one variety of the head noun from other possible varieties:

[31]Pltcm yt yfikjcm n rjvyfns adj jnltkmyjq. Here there was not to be found a room apart.11

7.3.10 Word order in speech

It is generally assumed that word order in speech differs from word order in writing.

Speech often uses a distinctive construction in which two constituents of an argument phrase -- adjective and noun, quantifier and noun -- are separated, bracketing other material:12

[32]d E vtyz adj rfrjq-nj v ,sk s ujl.

Quite the year I had.

[33]Rjivfh, o b[ [=nfhfrfyjd] d nfv v vyjuj . . . jq, blbnt ds r xthnjdjq ,f,eirt. What a nightmare, of them [= cockroaches] there are a lot . . . Oh, go to hell!

11Discussion: Schaller 1966:122, Bivon 1971:76 ([31], from Solzhenitsyn).

12Analysis and extensive illustration in Zemskaia 1973.

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In the use of word-order patterns of major constituents, speech and writing differ at least in preference. It seems that, in speech, speakers are more inclined to view the world as relations among entities, expressed as bases before the predicate, as in [34]:

[34]s Jyf d ujl dhjlt d c эnbv vfkmxbrjv v dcnhtxftncz, jy tt yf nhb ujlf cnfhit,

<. . .> dct [jhjij, dct d rfqa. s Vfvf tuj o tt v j,j;ftn.

She for a year or so with this boy has been going out, he’s older than she is by three years, <. . .> it’s all fine, it’s cool. His mother adores her.

Here the speaker makes a list of the elements relevant to a situation -- subject (jyƒ), temporal duration (uj´l), a domain (c vƒkmxbrjv). This inventory of entities is tied together by the predicate at the end, which states how these elements are related to each other -- in [34], they are all components of courtship: dcnhtxƒtncz. Similarly, the components of comparison in [34] are named before the predicative cnƒhit that states their relationship, and the mother and bride are named before their relation is stated.

While SOXV is common in speech, this is not to say that SVD and SVO are missing entirely from speech. They occur in narrative structured around the deeds of the subject:

[35]Ye s vs v dthyekbcm d bp эnjuj rfymjyf / jgznm e;t cnfkj ntvytnm / s vs v hfp,bkb . . . jgznm o gfkfnrb

Well then we came back out of that canyon / it started to get dark again / we

broke out our tents again.

Evidently, word-order patterns have analogous values in speech and in writing, but speech and writing have different preferences with respect to what they say. Writing and narrative are more likely to hierarchize entity and predicate (SVO, OVS), while speech and commentary prefer to list entities and then state the relationship (SVO). The difference can be seen by comparing [36], a snippet of conversation, and [37], the commentary provided by the speaker who transcribed [36]. In the conversation ([36]), both objects come before the verb, while the commentary uses SVDO order to report the same event ([37]):

[36]-- Dbnz, s ns d ,f,ekt o rjymzxrf v yfkbk? Vitia, did you granny some cognac pour?

[37]s Dbnz v yfkbdftn d Yfnfit o rjymzr. Vitia pours for Natasha cognac.

What is different is the willingness, the predisposition, of speech to present the world as relations of entities rather than as hierarchical statements of entity and property.