A Construction Grammar Approach To Impersonal Sentences Of "Cветает" Type In Russian

The research work of this paper goes around impersonal sentences of "CBeTaeT" type in Russian. Impersonal sentences of "CBeTaeT" type in Russian is a kind of structure without subject, the predicate takes the form of third person singular (present tense, future tense) or neutral form(past tense), and the semantic meaning of whole sentence is "there exists an objective state, which is caused by action of an unknown subject". Under the guidance of Construction Grammar, this paper treats impersonal sentences of "CBeTaeT" type in Russian as a kind of construction, studies it in the theoretical framework of Construction Grammar. Simultaneously, in order to give more reasonable observation, description and explanation, in the process of research this paper also pays attention to absorb the theories and methods of Cognitive Linguistics, the Theory of Clausal Pivot and the Theory of Clausal Government.There are seven parts in this paper.In chapter one, first of all, the object and scope of the study are defined and divided. Then, from five aspects (historical origin, definition and classification, syntax and semantic, pragmatic functions, partial productivity) the history of the past research is traced comprehensively. On the basis of reflection and reference, the significance, research thoughts, methods and theories are interpreted specifically.In chapter two, firstly, the construction status of impersonal sentences of "CBeTaeT" type is recognized, these sentences are treated as a kind of construction. Then, the category of impersonality is defined and explained, this part of study mainly involves five concepts:category of impersonality, category of impersonality, impersonality, non-subject and non-agent. Clarification on the relationship between these concepts contributes to have a deeper and accurater understanding of category of impersonality. On this basis, the connotation and denotation of impersonal sentences of "CBeTaeT" type in Russian are discussed. All these works manifest as the foundation of subsequent systematic construction study.In chapter three, the pairing of form and meaning of CBETAET Construction is studied under the framework of Construction Grammar. This part of the research carries out in three steps:firstly, the constructional meaning of CBETAET Construction, including forepart (action of an unknown subject), backpart (objective state caused by action) and meaningful integration (causes and consequences). Secondly, the form restrictions of CBETAET Construction are described following the principle of "semantic is the basis of the grammar". The constructional meaning of CBETAET construction is "there exists an objective state, which is caused by action of an unknown subject", it leads to a series of syntactic consequences:the sentence repels the subject, components of purpose, animate instrumental case, and the inflection of verb is fixed and single. Thirdly, the form permission of CBETAET Construction. Except the form restrictions, CBETAET Construction has a large capacity, many kinds of components can enter into the Construction, for example:the strongly identical components of verbs, full-sentence qualified components of subject and object, modal particles, qualified adverbs, parenthesis and conjunctions between sentences, etc.In chapter four, the form feature "non-subject configuration" of CBETAET Construction is mainly discussed. Using the theory of "the integration of verb and construction", this study tries to explain the problem from the angle of verbs. First of all, the nature of verb meaning is defined. Because the traditional theory of "verb projection" likely causes unreasonable verb meanings and inevitably falls into circular arguments, therefore in order to define the nature of verb, this paper switches to "Frame semantics":there is a participant role "actor" in the frame semantics of verbs.which can enter into CBETAET Constructions. Then, participant roles of verbs and argument structures of CBETAET Construction are deeply interpreted. Since the actor is the highest level of participant role, associated with the verbs, so it is obligatorily profiled in its meaning framework. For CBETAET Construction, considering that its constructional meaning is "there exists an objective state, which is caused by action of an unknown subject", so its argument structure has to be a "agent-excluded" structure. After the analysis of profiling, the participant roles of verbs and the argument structures of CBETAET Constructions can be described as:V<actor (participant2//participant2) (participants//participants)...>CBETAET<(?)agt, (Pat.) (Ins.).> Finally, the integration of verb and CBETAET Construction. The integration of verb and construction sometimes has a feature of asymmetry, then construction will change usage and meaning of verb. The verbs in the CBETAET construction have a participant role "actor", however, this type of participant role conflicts with the "agent-excluded" argument structure, and was cut in the process of interaction between verb and Construction.In chapter five, the motivation of CBETAET Construction in Russian grammar system is researched. The CBETAET Construction is a construction with high motivation. Firstly, It inherited from the Personal Construction and manifests as a kind of prototype category. In this category, CBETAET Construction with the meaning of "natural phenomen or natural state" is the core member, and the other three meaning types are non-core members, these non-core members are identified as a meaning extension of the core construction. Secondly, after a long-term development, CBETAET Construction carried out a new extension, which was driven by the pragmatic factors. This extension caused appearance of "Riddle CBETAET Construction" and "Context CBETAET Construction". Thirdly, pragmatic differences between CBETAET Construction and Personal Construction. Sometimes both of Constructions have the same meanings, however, they are different in pragmatic aspects, for instance:fuzziness or definiteness of subject, subjectivity or objectivity of expression, etc.In chapter six, the partial productivity of CBETAET Construction is studied in empirical way. The study divided into three steps:firstly, definition of partial productivity of CBETAET Construction, research thoughts, theories and methods are interpreted specifically. Then, the target verbs in Construction are analyzed with the help of large-scale corpus statistics, the meaning features of these verbs in "subject, behavioural process, object" aspects are isolated. Finally, all the statistical data and meaning features of verbs are integrated into three shared common meanings:(1) the verbs have the potential to express "action of an unknown subject"; (2) the verbs possess the meaning feature "dynamic"; (3) the verbs have the potential to express "physical changes" or "physiological-psychological changes". These three shared meanings can be considered as selective conditions of CBETAET Construction for verbs, and be used to explan the partial productivity of CBETAET Construction.In chapter seven, a summary of the whole paper. A conclusion of this research is maked, the existing deficiencies and future research directions are pointed out.