Grammatical Meaning of the Subject in the Avar Language

Abstract

The article examines the status of the subject - a major sentence part in the Avar language. It shows that the subject as a constituent of a clause is opposed to other subject expressing means both in terms of the grammatical meaning and its role within the sentence structure. The syntactic essence of the main parts of a sentence can be determined only when viewed through the prism of syntactic correlation. The subject in the Avar language is a constituent part of the predicative basis, though it contains no predicativity. Its participation in the predicative basis lies in the fact that it coordinates with the verb-predicate by class and number. The class verb is related to the name in the nominative. The categorical substance of the ergative is not refl ected in the verb. So, it can be classifi ed only as a subordinate part of the sentence. Only a name in the nominative can act as the subject in the Avar language. This very defi nition of the subject is confi rmed by linguistic evidence. Thus, conjugation of a verb by class and number and agreement of the predicate it denotes with the subject and a direct object are signifi cant grammatical characteristics of the Avar language that can serve as the basis for the determination of essential and specifi c features of major parts of the sentence. So, the nominative in the Avar language is a form of the subject in a sentence with a transitive predicate. The class verb is related to the name in the nominative within the sentence structure. The ergative expresses no categorical substance of its own in the verb. In the Avar language, the agreement between the predicate and the subject by class and number are the only means to express their relations within non-transitive constructions.

Keywords

• главные члены предложения
• подлежащее
• эргативная конструкция
• номинативная конструкция
• координация
• дополнение
• субъект
• классно-числовой показатель
• словосочетание