Discourse and Word Order

Explicit second-person subjects in Russian imperatives: semantics, word order, and a comparison with English

“…This may explain some observations by Yokoyama (1986) and Moon (1995) with regard to differences in use between the informal subject ty and the formal subject vy. Yokoyama (1986: 249) and Moon (1995: 122) argue that when the action is only in the benefit of the speaker, and the interlocutor relationship is distant enough so that this benefit cannot be shared by the addressee in any practical or emotional way, the subject vy cannot be retained.…”

“…Keijsper 1985 for a critical discussion). A possible explanation is that in standard Russian the ŚV order may serve as an explicit mark of dependence on the preceding context (see Keijsper 1985: 149-156, andYokoyama 1986). This is for example the case in contexts where the occurrence of one situation explains another as in (23) (see Bonnot and Fougeron 1982: 315): 9 (23) Gde-to okolo časa on prosnulsja: TELEFON zazvonil.…”

“…She provides an analysis within the transactional model of discourse set forth in Yokoyama (1986). Moon sees a relation between the vocative-like use of the pronoun, for example, the use of the pronoun to attract attention or establish eye-contact, and the use of the subject in noncontrastive sentences.…”

“…In this paper, I will mainly focus on sentence stress (also called sentence accent) and word order with regard to the theme-rheme division of the sentence (cf. Yokoyama 1986, who also takes intonation into account). As is emphasized by Wenk (1992: 61) the theme-rheme division of the utterance cannot be equated with the degree of givenness of the information for the addressee (cf.…”

“…Finally, further research on the use of the imperative subject in Russian should also take intonation into account, for example along the lines of Yokoyama (1986), or Odé (2008. Although it is possible to describe the functions of the subject in abstraction from intonation, a description that also looks at intonation would refine the analysis given so far.…”