Sentential interpretative adverbs: grammatical and pragmatic features in contrast to predicatives

The article examines the functional interaction of predicatives and adverbs ending in -o which formally adjoin the verb, but semantically characterise the entire sentence (sentential adverbs). The research focused on lexemes expressing socio-ethical (bestaktno, egoistichno / English tactlessly, selfishly) and rationalistic (oshibochno, netselesoobrazno / English erroneously, inappropriately) evaluation of individuals’ actions. The functioning of 50 adverbs with both types of use, namely predicative and sentential, was investigated. As for constructions with predicatives, the study only examined sentences with dependent infinitives (Nechestno skryvat’ eto ot menya / English It is unfair to hide it from me). The research methods included transformational analysis, contextual analysis, and analytical description. The article argues that a sentential interpretative adverb can be embedded in a sentence (proposition) denoting not only a fact (a performed action), but also a possibility. Additionally, the study demonstrates the acceptability of statements in which such adverbs adjoin verbs in the forms of the future tense, the subjunctive mood with a conditional, sometimes desiderative semantics, and also in some cases the imperative mood, and so on. Pragmatic strategies that determine the use of sentential adverbs in the specified contexts of resolved affirmativeness are identified. The article notes grammatical and communicative differences between sentences with predicatives and sentential adverbs. For instance, the standard rhematic emphasis of the predicative enables it to foreground the interpretation rather than the situation being evaluated. Conversely, the sentential adverb does not normally act as an emphasis carrier. It is shown that the difference in the communicative organisation of utterances with the grammatical units under study prevents their interchangeability if the syntactic structure requires interpretative component (de)actualization. For example, for a sentential adverb, the position of the interrogative statement component with a focus on evaluation is closed.