Прагматический потенциал русских деепричастий в нарративе: корпусное исследование сквозь призму переводов
The Pragmatics of Russian Converbs in a Narrative: Corpus-Based Study through the Prism of Translations

Summary/Abstract: The pragmatics of Russian perfective and imperfective converbs is studied in the paper, based on works in linguistics and narratology within the modern Theory of Grounding. The research is focused on the pragmatic potential of Russian converbs that is realized in the stereoscopic space of a narrative, shaping its background (opposed to the foreground), designing its perspective. Firstly, the paper presents the analysis of trends in the research of Russian converbs and their text functions, both in Russia and abroad. The ideas of scholars who developed the Theory of Grounding in the USA and Europe are compared to the ones proposed by their colleagues in the USSR, especially to V. Vinogradov’s findings. Secondly, it is shown that the traditional dichotomy of “foreground” vs. “background” has not been sufficient for describing the complicated structure of a narrative. The “background zone” is proved to have its own hierarchy, and Russian converbs help to form its more or less prominent elements which draw the attention of the narrator and the narratee. Russian converbs have a number of features which determine the foregrounding or backgrounding effect of their use in a narrative.

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