Means of Expressing Causality in Russian and English Legal Texts

The article concentrates on the study of means of expressing causality in Russian and English legal texts. Legal texts are characterized by the use of different means which serve logical cohesion. Structures with semantics of reason are frequently employed. The sources for the research are Russian and English textbooks on Civil Procedure. Aanalysis of the lexical and grammatical means of expressing causality in Russian and English has been carried out. The article considers functional words and notional words with causative meaning. In both languages the category of notional words with causative meaning is represented mostly by verbs. Nouns with causative semantics are used less often. Function words denoting causality in Russian include derivative prepositions and conjunctions. In English function words include conjunctions and less frequently ˗ prepositions. The paper also examines non-finite verbs expressing causal relationship: adverbial participles in Russian and gerunds in English. Set phrases are registered as a means of expressing causality too. The means of expressing effect have been singled out. Apart from complex sentences with subordinates of cause there also exist complex sentences with syncretic meaning of cause. They are mostly sentences expressing both cause and explanation or cause and condition. The frequency of use of particular means with causative meaning depends on a particular language. Prepositional constructions with causal meaning are typical of Russian legal texts, while complex sentences with adverbial clauses of reason are common in Legal English.