deletability of to in to, chto constructions.

[Oscar E Swan]

i agree with george fowler that townsend has some good things to say
about to, chto and such-like constructions (chs. 3-4), but i don't think
this is what emily tall was asking about. she wants to know, i think, why
one does not say such things as -ja ponimaju (*to), chto vy chitaete
po-russkij. i don't have an airtight explanation, but there is a good
rule of thumb. the stupider it sounds to say  "the fact or circustance
that", the better it is to delete -to-. it sounds relatively stupid to
say "i understand the fact
that you read russian", so leave out -to-. i think i might disagree with
townsend (p.183) that such constructions are derived from -to, schto- by
deleting -to-. i'm not sure -to- was ever there.

the companion part of this rule of thumb is that if it -does- sound all
right to say 'the fact that', then one generally must use -to-. For
example, one can be amazed at or interested in facts, so one tends to say
-interesujus' tem, chto vy chitaete po-russki-, and so on.

many verbs can break either way, e.g. uveren (v tom), uznat' (o tom),
and so on. as townsend says, formal writing tends to keep the factive
connector, informal style tends to leave it out.

I don't think the fact that a verb takes an oblique complement has
anything to do with to-deletability. consider bojus', rad, uveren, etc.


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Oscar E. Swan   Dept. of Slavic Languages & Literatures
1417 Cathedral of Learning   Univ. of Pittsburgh  15260
412-624-5707      swan+ at pitt.edu
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