So-called independent infinitives in Russian: The construction of the form Ètogo mne ne ponjatʹ ‘It is impossible for me to understand this’
So-called independent infinitives in Russian: The construction of the form Ètogo mne ne ponjatʹ ‘It is impossible for me to understand this’

Summary/Abstract: The paper considers the Russian construction of the form “NDAT bytʹ ne VINF”—one of severalso-called “independent infinitive constructions.” This construction represents two syntactically discontinuousidioms: [X-u] ˹bytʹI.1 … ne˺11 [Y-nutʹ] ‘It is/was/will be impossible that X has done Y’and [X-u] ˹bytʹI.1 … ne˺12 [Y-atʹ] ‘It will be impossible that X does Y’. The paper describes twoillustrative sentences containing these idioms, giving and discussing their formal representationson the semantic, deep-syntactic and surface-syntactic levels; it also presents the lexical entries forboth idioms with detailed linguistic comments. The problems of the “independent infinitives” inRussian and of phraseologically bound lexemes are discussed.

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