On the subject of the subjunctive infinitive in Middle Russian and Modern Russian

Abstract

The article explores the subject valency filling of the subjunctive infinitive in Middle Russian and Modern Russian. Our research is based on the handwritten collections of zagоvory dated the 17 th and 18 th centuries and the materials from the National Corpus of the Russian Language. Usually, both in the modern Russian language and in the Middle Russian period, the subjunctive infinitive was used with agent subjects, referring to creatures with will and consciences. This kind of restriction can be overcome only through personification, as a result of which the non-agent subject is reinterpreted as an agentive one. The restriction on the compatibility of the subjunctive infinitive with non-agent subjects follows from its grammatical semantics: in the Middle Russian language, this verb form expressed an imperative meaning that could be realized if the subject of the action had will and consciousness and was able to control the situation. Over time, the subjunctive infinitive has lost its imperative semantics and in Modern Russian is used in contexts with evaluative meanings. Its usage only with agentive subjects has been preserved as a result of the lost imperative semantics.