This paper investigates the evidential and argumentative uses and functions of the Russian discourse marker očevidno, with particular attention to the degree of epistemic reliability expressed by the marker. Očevidno is examined both as an evidential strategy – indicating the source or mode of information acquisition – and as an argumentative indicator supporting the speaker’s claim. The analysis is based on a sample of 200 occurrences drawn from the Social Media subcorpus of the Russian National Corpus, annotated according to three parameters identified as crucial for the analysis: type of evidentiality, type of datum and type of premises. The findings show that the degree of epistemic reliability depends on the interaction of these factors and that, even when the asserted content is not objectively reliable, the speaker may employ the marker to present a questionable statement as self-evident.
This article investigates Russian free conditional constructions with the particle by, which, in the absence of explicit contextual or shared-knowledge cues, display systematic illocutionary ambiguity. A single utterance may express either regret for an unrealized action (counterfactual reading) or a suggestion, exhortation, or reproach addressed to the interlocutor (potential reading). After outlining the theoretical background and data selection criteria, the study presents a qualitative and quantitative analysis of free conditional constructions with second-person subjects, based on the Russian section of the multilingual OpenSubtitles18 corpus, which provides pragmatically rich semi-authentic dialogic data. The analysis examines the interaction of clause type (declarative, exclamative, interrogative), verbal aspect (perfective vs. imperfective), and co(n)text, with particular attention to pragmatic alignment between speaker and addressee. A contrastive analysis with Italian – where counterfactuality and potentiality are grammatically distinguished – shows that Russian free conditionals systematically underdetermine illocutionary force, leaving it negotiable in discourse. The findings support the view that such underdetermination functions as a pragmatic resource rather than a deficiency and argue for a contrastively informed, language-specific rethinking of speech-act taxonomy.
An exponent of the young émigré generation settled in Paris in the interwar period, Viktor Mamčenko (1901-1982) stands out for his original lyrical voice. Taking into account key aspects of the author’s biography, the article examines his first publication, Tjažëlye pticy (1936), with particular focus on the influences exerted on his pre-Second World War poetry by Russian Symbolism and Russian Futurism. The analysis aims to emphasise the stylistic and thematic peculiarities of his formative literary production, shedding light on the nuanced artistic scene of the nezamečennoe pokolenie and laying the groundwork for an understanding of his evolution as an exiled writer. The paper also provides an overview of Viktor Mamčenko’s contemporary critics’ responses to his first collection of poems, offering insight into the reception of his creative experimentalism.
The paper provides a systematic diachronic analysis of the lexicalization in the plurals of four nouns: niz ‘bottom’; koška‘cat’; peregovor ‘discussion’ and vybor ‘choice’. The corpus-driven study was conducted adopting the procedure of behavioral profiles, which consisted of three phases: retrieving 401 concordance lines from the Russian National Corpus; annotating 84 senses according to a set of 57 linguistic features; visualizing and analyzing the co-occurrence information through a dimensionality reduction technique (MDS) in a two-dimensional space, where the distance between data points is indicative of their semantic similarity. During the annotation a distributional principle was established to distinguish the grammatical plural from the lexicalized plural. The semantic derivation underlying lexicalization was annotated as metonymic for most plurals. Considering both the distance between the original sense and the lexicalized sense and the sense level frequency, a defective paradigm seems to expand: paradigmatically, as in peregovory ‘negotiations’, or semantically, as in vybory ‘elections’, nizy ‘lower classes’, and koški ‘crampons’.
This article examines the autobiographical and cultural significance of Za radostta i ezika. Razgovor s pisma s Georgi Gospodinov (2023), the epistolary dialogue between Ivan Teofilov and Georgi Gospodinov. Through a close reading of the volume, the study reconstructs Teofilov’s intellectual and artistic trajectory from his childhood in Plovdiv to his activity as playwright, poet, translator and dramaturge under the Bulgarian socialist regime. Particular attention is devoted to the innovative theatrical experience of Burgas in the late 1950s and early 1960s, interpreted as a rare space of artistic freedom and aesthetic experimentation within a strongly ideological political system. The article also highlights the complex relationship between literature, censorship and political power in communist Bulgaria, emphasizing the role of individuals and cultural networks that helped preserve forms of spiritual and artistic resistance. Beyond its literary value, the volume emerges as an important historical and cultural testimony on Bulgarian intellectual life from the Second World War to the post-1989 transition.
