Circumstance inRussian: Syntax and Interlocution

Abstract

The adjunct is defined as the spatio-temporal and causal background in which the content ofthe utterance will be correct. The adjunct is not always facultative, even on the syntactic level. Thisis the case, especially when it is a part of a binary system: the removal of one of the two elementsmakes the sentence ungrammatical. In terms of information, the speaker builds his/her utterance bytaking into consideration what (s)he assumes to be the addressee’s knowledge. The spatio-temporalor causal background may be new, but it may be considered by the speaker as a part of the Theme,and it is placed at the beginning of the utterance. When the background is well known by theaddressee, we may wonder why the speaker needs to repeat it. (S)he does it for several reasons:retrieval, disambiguation, demarcation of the area of validity of the utterance.

Keywords

• Russian
• “circontant” (adjunct)
• enunciation
• interlocution
• discurse coherence