English tough-constructions and their analogues in Russian
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.36505/ExLing-2023/14/0028/000622Keywords:
Tough constructions, Experimental linguistics, Corpus-based investigation, Russian, English, Semantics-syntax interfaceAbstract
This study focuses on Tough constructions (TCs), syntactically complex constructions that present atypical form-to-meaning mappings, with special focus on English TCs and their Russian counterparts. Although English speakers use so-called TCs to evaluate an event or process, constructions in which the syntactic subject of the matrix sentence is logically the missing object of the embedded non-finite verb, Russian has been described as a language without TCs that instead offers functional analogues (e.g., impersonal predicatives, deverbals, passives). This study combines parallel corpus-based analysis with experimentally collected data from 25 L1 Russian speakers. The findings challenge previous theoretical descriptions, revealing alternative functional analogues for Russian. This comprehensive approach highlights the need for both corpus and experimental investigations to fully grasp variability across languages in this domain.
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