MIRATIVITY QUESTION

[OLGA at HUMNET.UCLA.EDU]

russian has at least two particles, both fully stressed lexemes. one
express incredulousness (neuzheli) and the other expresses surprise at
smth contrary to the speaker's expectation (razve). both are added to
interrogatory utterances or can be said independently as a one-word
response. for a detailed analysis cf. valentina zaitseva's 1995 article
and refs therein: 'particles and the subtext' in vol. 3 of harvard
studies in slavic linguistics, ed. o. yokoyama.

russian also uses imperative forms to express a sudden unexpected
action, e.g. Vdrug      prigljanis' mne     eta   devuska
             suddenly   like-imper  to-me   this  girl-nom
                                                                                                        'Unexpectedly i took a liking to this girl.'
note that the lexical support (vdrug ' suddenly') is not obligatory. the
construction is colloquial.

nowadays, this usage of imperative is seen mostly in a complex
construction with two imperative verbs the second of which bears the
lexical meaning and the first (which is always 'voz'mi') seems to be an
aux whose function is to phraseologize mirativity. both, however, must
be in the imperative form, e.g.:

                                                                                        tut    on   voz'mi      (da)  i    skazi [...]
                                                                                        here   he   take/inper  and   and  say-imper
                                                                                        'at this moment he suddenly said [...]'

japanese has a particle that expresses the spekeaker's belief that smth
is unlikely (masaka). it is added to negative sentences that often also
contain a morpheme expressing conjecture; it can also be a one-word
response.

olga yokoyama
_____________________________________________________
Professor Olga T. Yokoyama
Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures
UCLA
115 Kinsey Hall o Box 951502   tel: (310) 825-6158
405 Hilgard Avenue             fax: (310) 206-5263
Los Angeles, CA 90095          olga at humnet.ucla.edu
USA

http://www.humnet.ucla.edu/humnet/slavic/slavic.html