Dative subject and predicativity: towards the typology of Russian infinitive phrases

Abstract

The article deals with two interrelated theses, often found in works that are more or less focused on generative grammar: 1) any infinitive group is a clause; 2) each infinitive clause contains the position for a dative subject, including the zero one (PRO_DAT). A clause is interpreted as “minimal grammatical unit corresponding to a proposition” (S. S. Sai). The focus is on infinitive groups that function as 1) the semantic component of the compound verb predicate (nachal izuchat’ francuzskij ‘started learning French’), 2) object (poprosil zhenu prigotovit’ obed ‘asked the wife to cook dinner’), 3) adverbial modifier (poshel otpravlyat’ pis’mo ‘went to send a letter’), 4) subordinate clause (chtoby otpravit’ pis’mo ‘...to send a letter’). A distinction is made between complete and incomplete clauses. Complete ones contain a dative subject, which, when expressed by zero, is easily restored, and fully reflect the structure of the proposition. Only such infinitive clauses are characterized by predicativity; these include subordinate clauses. Incomplete infinitive clauses in the role of an object and an adverbial modifier (“sentential actant” and “sentential circonstant”) cannot contain a pronounced dative subject. Constructions with incomplete clauses cannot be recognized as polypredicative, but they can be recognized as polypropositive. Some examples, designed to prove the presence of a zero dative subject (PRO_DAT) in them, are considered, the ungrammaticality and inconsistency of these examples with the usus is demonstrated. It is concluded that in such cases there is no syntactic position for the dative subject, while semantically the subject is transmitted into an incomplete infinitive clause from the “matrix clause”. It is proposed to refer to such constructions as merged clauses. For constructions with infinitive groups arising from the phase or modal modification of a simple verbal predicate, it is considered expedient to retain the traditional name of the compound verbal predicate, since such constructions are not only monopredicative, but also monopropositive. The concept of an infinitive clause is not applicable to such constructions.