TY - JOUR

T1 - Chto budet, to (i) budet

T2 - 2018 International Conference on Computational Linguistics and Intellectual Technologies, Dialogue 2018

AU - Vilinbakhova, E. L.

PY - 2018/1/1

Y1 - 2018/1/1

N2 - This paper contributes to the debate on the analysis of linguistic tautologies—structures that state an unquestionable truth by virtue of their logical form and therefore require a reinterpretation to be informative. While there is a great number of studies of nominal tautologies of the form ‘Х is X’, clausal tautologies, i. e. conditionals ‘if P, P’, disjunctives ‘either P or not P’, free relatives ‘P, what P’, etc., are given less attention. This paper investigates one of such patterns, namely, correlative tautologies, where the subordinate clause precedes the main clause, that could be exemplified by the expression chto budet to (i) budet lit. ‘what will be that (EMPH) will be’. The data taken from the Russian National Corpus and Internet as well as dictionary definitions show that tautologies of this kind exhibit various peculiar properties. First, some correlative tautologies can receive opposite interpretations in different contexts, i. e. chto bylo, to bylo lit.’what has been that has been’ can mean both ‘this fact cannot be denied’ [Bylugina, Shmelev 1997] or ‘the past should be forgotten for the sake of the future’ [Active Dictionary of Russian]. Next, the particle i, which is commonly used in Russian correlatives, cf. [Mitrenina 2010], is acceptable for some tautologies but not licensed in others. I argue that for correlative tautologies the crucial ingredient is salience of the situation in question as presented by the speaker that, along with specific vs. generic readings available, results in four possible strategies of their interpretation.

AB - This paper contributes to the debate on the analysis of linguistic tautologies—structures that state an unquestionable truth by virtue of their logical form and therefore require a reinterpretation to be informative. While there is a great number of studies of nominal tautologies of the form ‘Х is X’, clausal tautologies, i. e. conditionals ‘if P, P’, disjunctives ‘either P or not P’, free relatives ‘P, what P’, etc., are given less attention. This paper investigates one of such patterns, namely, correlative tautologies, where the subordinate clause precedes the main clause, that could be exemplified by the expression chto budet to (i) budet lit. ‘what will be that (EMPH) will be’. The data taken from the Russian National Corpus and Internet as well as dictionary definitions show that tautologies of this kind exhibit various peculiar properties. First, some correlative tautologies can receive opposite interpretations in different contexts, i. e. chto bylo, to bylo lit.’what has been that has been’ can mean both ‘this fact cannot be denied’ [Bylugina, Shmelev 1997] or ‘the past should be forgotten for the sake of the future’ [Active Dictionary of Russian]. Next, the particle i, which is commonly used in Russian correlatives, cf. [Mitrenina 2010], is acceptable for some tautologies but not licensed in others. I argue that for correlative tautologies the crucial ingredient is salience of the situation in question as presented by the speaker that, along with specific vs. generic readings available, results in four possible strategies of their interpretation.

KW - Correlatives

KW - Microsyntax

KW - Pragmatics

KW - Russian language

KW - Semantics

KW - Tautologies

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85058047481&partnerID=8YFLogxK

M3 - Article

VL - 2018-May

SP - 775

EP - 790

JO - Компьютерная лингвистика и интеллектуальные технологии

JF - Компьютерная лингвистика и интеллектуальные технологии

SN - 2221-7932

IS - 17

Y2 - 30 May 2018 through 2 June 2018

ER -