Avoiding Agency or Is Russian a Non-Egotistical Language?

1. Avoiding AgencyorIs Russian a Non-Egotistical Language? Dagmar Divjak (dagmar.divjak@arts.kuleuven.be) Laura A. Janda (janda@unc.edu)

2. Russian No modal verbs (except мочь ‘be able’) Many impersonal constructions: мне холодно/48лет English Lots of modal verbs Personal subject-headed constructions : I’m cold/48 yrs old A striking difference Often Russian Dative Experiencer + Impersonal verb constructions correspond to English Nominative Agent + Personal verb constructions e.g. Мне хочется спать = I feel like sleeping

3. Some theoretical background • Do these grammatical differences influence thought? • Thinking for speaking (Dan Slobin) • Is the organization of thought influenced by specific organizational properties of an individual language? • Speaking a language requires paying attention to those properties that are grammaticalized in that language, e.g. number, gender, tense, aspect ...  Speakers of different languages might be thinking differently to this extent.

4. Russian DAT + Vfin + Vinfin + ACC expresses enjoyment, necessity, opportunity: Мне хотелось бы порадовать моих девчонок. English NOM + Vfin + Vinfin + Obj for corresponding expressions: I’d like to make my girls happy. A grammatical difference Do Russian and English speakers think differently when speaking about these experiences? If so, in which way(s)?

5. A typical interpretation • Wierzbicka (1988: 233): the unknown • Limitations of human reason/knowledge  dependence on fate, destiny • Uncontrollable passions govern lives of people = some things are beyond human control • Israeli (1997: 21) • Some things come from outside the subject, are imposed upon him/her

6. Impersonal Constructions = ? • finite verb is “impersonal” • “every verb without an acting person or thing [canonically in the nominative] can be considered impersonal” OR all “3rd (n) sg verb forms and infinitives are impersonal forms” (KG 1990: 283-284, §285) • lack a subject with nominative case marking • accusative or dative required or possible • [with infinitive]

7. Disparity of Views in 3 Areas • Disagreement on the structure of impersonal constructions and function of their components • The construction as a whole: monopartite or bipartite? • The status of the infinitive: grammatical subject or not? • The function of the (accusative or) dative: semantic subject or not?

8. A Construction-based Proposal ! Status of infinitive and dative depends on the type of finite verb Bipartite structure possible • Infinitive can be subject of construction • Dative can take on subject-like function • different ways of encoding signal different sorts of relationships between the participants (CG) • analysis reconciles different insights put forward in literature [Guiraud-Weber (1984) or Bricyn (1990)]

9. Verbs used in the study • Nominative slot: infinitive = grammatical subject, dative = true experiencer: • (R) Грозило, идет, льстило, нравилось, опротивело, не светит • (E) Be in danger of, look good, be flattered to, enjoy, be sick of, be fated to • No nominative slot, dative takes on subject-like function, i.e. Agentive experiencer: • (R) Осталось, повезло, полагалось, пришлось, хотелось, удалось • (E) Have to, be lucky enough to, be supposed to, have to, feel like, manage to

10. An experiment: discourse cohesion • Trigger:Мне хотелось бы порадовать моих девчонок чем-нибудь необычным, сказочным. / I’d like to make my girls happy with something special, something fantastic. • 3 “Instigator” types: • Subject …Я - хороший отец, люблю своих детей, люблю доставлять им удовольствие./ I am a good father, I love my children and I like giving them pleasure. • Object …В школе они получили только пятерки и заслуживали награду. / They got the best grades in school and deserved a reward. • Circumstance …Новый год был близок, и надо было отметить этот день./ New Year’s day was near and it was necessary to mark that day.

11. Experimental design • 36 questionnaires per language • (E) college age, non-linguists, non-slavists, responded in class • (R) various ages, responded via email, most live in US • 6 benchmark sentences, 12 fillers, 6 triggers • Benchmark sentences: training, also test participant reliability (3 at beginning, 3 at end) • Filler sentences: to prevent participants from guessing what we were testing • Trigger sentences: contained the independent variables ! fillers and triggers presented in randomized order in every questionnaire to avoid order effects

12. Experimental design, cont’d. • Independent variables: 2 kinds • type of experiencer: 2 levels • True vs. Agentive Experiencer • type of instigator: 3 levels • Subject, Object, Circumstance ! 12 verbs, 3 different token sets per verb to avoid lexical effects • Dependent variable: discourse coherence, measured on 5-point Likert-scale (-2 to 2)

13. Statistical evaluation • Data: • 36 judgments for every factor level combination • every subject judged all 6 factor level combinations once • every subject got only one example from each token set • Data analyzed using both the Means Model (models means) and the Multinomial Model (models proportions) • No statistically significant contrasts: • speakers of Russian do not significantly prefer situations in which the circumstances are held responsible for need, opportunity etc. to do sth.

14. Discussion • Is there no difference in expectation pattern?  evidence from a corpus (BNC/RNC) • Is there a difference in expectation pattern that this design does not show? • Different type of task? • Different type of measure?

15. Many thanks to • Stef Grondelaers (K.U.Leuven, Belgium), Christina Hellman (SU, Sweden) and Stefan Gries (UCSB, USA) for discussing the experimental set-up; • Masja Koptjevskaja (SU, Sweden) and Eleonora Magomedova (UNC, USA) for scrutinizing the experimental items; • Our 72 participants for filling out the questionnaires; • Chris Wiesen (UNC, USA) for statistical analysis.