The Meaning of Pluperfect:
Lexical and Grammatical Semantics

Авторы
T. E. Yanko
The paper is aimed at the analysis of expressing the meaning ‘long ago’ or the meaning of pluperfect. In the meaning of ‘long ago’ the Russian word davno is the focus
of a sentence. Meanwhile, if an event began long ago and is taking place at the time
of reference (for instance, at the moment of speech), such context does not require
davno to function as the focus. At present, the hypothesis was verified on the spoken
corpora material. The key to the analysis is the prosody of the focus. On the whole,
the hypothesis appeared to be true. At the same time, it acquired some substantial
corrections. If earlier it was presumed that the context of pluperfect arises from the
combination of davno and the aspectual forms of a verb, at present, the corpus analysis has revealed the third factor: it is the lexical semantics of the verb. The corpus
analysis shows that the verbs of information transfer and the verbs in the negative
can recover the connection of the past events with the point of reference. This meaning, in its turn, can cause the loss of the invariable focal function of davno in the context of the general factual in the past.
DOI
10.25205/2307-1737-2021-1-145-158
Аннотация

The paper is aimed at the analysis of expressing the meaning ‘long ago’ or the meaning of pluperfect. In the meaning of ‘long ago’ the Russian word davno is the focus
of a sentence. Meanwhile, if an event began long ago and is taking place at the time
of reference (for instance, at the moment of speech), such context does not require
davno to function as the focus. At present, the hypothesis was verified on the spoken
corpora material. The key to the analysis is the prosody of the focus. On the whole,
the hypothesis appeared to be true. At the same time, it acquired some substantial
corrections. If earlier it was presumed that the context of pluperfect arises from the
combination of davno and the aspectual forms of a verb, at present, the corpus analysis has revealed the third factor: it is the lexical semantics of the verb. The corpus
analysis shows that the verbs of information transfer and the verbs in the negative
can recover the connection of the past events with the point of reference. This meaning, in its turn, can cause the loss of the invariable focal function of davno in the context of the general factual in the past.

Keywords
pluperfect, focus, prosody, corpus analysis, spoken corpora, Russian language

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The Meaning of Pluperfect:
Lexical and Grammatical Semantics С. 145–158. DOI 10.25205/2307-1737-2021-1-145-158