Другое на тему Translation of impersonal constructions from Russian into English on the example of political texts

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The
grammatical structure of a sentence, like any grammatical category, is formed
on the basis of the generalized nature of human thinking, reflecting objective
reality. In the grammatical form of the main members of the sentence and their
varieties, in the nature of their grammatical connection, the most essential
connections of objective reality are fixed.

A
special place in the typology of a simple sentence is given to impersonal
sentences. The question of the genesis and nature of impersonal sentences
deserves close attention. This type of sentences needs to be explained not only
from a linguistic, but also from a logical-philosophical point of view.

It
is believed that impersonal sentences are the central, most common and most
variegated in structure and semantics, a variety of one-piece sentences. In a
significant number of cases, the specificity of impersonality is created not by
the fact that it is impossible to insert the subject in the sentence (often the
syntactic position of the subject is preserved), but by the fact that it is
necessary to depict the action in isolation from the agent, as a spontaneous
process, as a state, and the feature in isolation from his carrier, as a state, as a
general assessment of the subject of speech (thought). According to V.V. Vinogradov, impersonal
sentences "form a complex and variegated range of transitional types from
complete impersonality to imaginary or potential impersonality" [1: 418].

In
impersonal sentences, “the attribute either does not imply referral to the
subject, or assumes referral to the subject deagent and inactive” [2: 49].

T.B. Alisova notes the
neutralization (deconcretization) of the semantic subject”. In such sentences,
the semantic subject always turns out to be in an indirect case: it is deagentive and inactive –
under the influence of the grammatical semantics of the sentence, or under the
influence of the syntactic meaning of the sentence (in contrast to its
significative and denotative meanings).

In
science, there is a point of view according to which impersonal sentences
represent a late formation that arose as a result of the transformation of
personal two-part structures           (F. Miklosich, I. Yagich, A. A.
Potebnya, D. N. Ovsyaniko-Kulikovsky, V. A. Bogoroditsky, L.A. Bulakhovsky,
A.M. Peshkovsky and others). The idea of impersonal sentences as a later
transformation of personal ones was formulated by D.N. Ovsyaniko-Kulikovsky and
A.A. Potebnya and subsequently gave rise to a number of studies. "Impersonal
sentences arose on the basis of implicitness".

There
are many works devoted to the diachronic study of impersonal sentences. The
main ones are the studies of A.A. Potebnya, who believed that the main thing in
a sentence is predicativity, the carrier of which is the predicate. A two-term
structure is recognized as the norm and starting model of the historical
development of language, and the impersonal sentence is a later modification of
the two-term structure.

This
view of the scientist largely determined the further research of a one-part
sentence: it either did not stand out as an independent category at all, or was
considered as a result of the elimination of the subject, i.e. derived from a
two-part scheme of the proposal. The first direction was reflected in the works
of F.V. Rzhiga, the second – in the works of D.N. Ovsyaniko-Kulikovsky.

F.V. Rzhiga believed that “… a
sentence consists of three main members: subject, predicate and addition. The
combination of two basic words through a judgment is created by a two-term
sentence, and by the combination of three words — by a three-term sentence”.
The position on the three-term structure of the sentence is now found in V.S.
Yurchenko, N.N. Arvat, G.A. Zolotova and others.

D.
N. Ovsyaniko-Kulikovsky attempted to establish criteria for the classification
of impersonal sentences. Taking the absence of a subject as the basis for the
definition of impersonal constructions, the author sees the solution to this
issue in the establishment of various degrees of inappropriateness, determined
purely psychologically. He believes that a subjectless sentence can be
relatively subjectless and absolutely subjectless. At the same time, he writes:
"A comparative historical study of non-subject sentences of different kinds
and shades leads to the conclusion that they all arose at different times from
subjective ones, that in modern Russian this process is going in the same
direction." He believed that in every sentence there is a subject, or it
is, at least, “mentally felt” [7: 231].