(6c)
some of vines.the were already pick.PF.PPP.PL and empty.PL
*(by the students)
«Some vines were already stripped and deserted».
This analysis shows that the double interpretation which may be assigned to a construction depends on the discursive context. Let us compare the following utterances:
(7a)
cart.the is break.PF-PPP-SG.F repair.PF-PPP-SG.F
«The cart is broken/repaired».
(7b)
he saw cart.the and understand.PF.AOR that is
break.PF-PPP-SG.F (7c)
He saw cart.the and understand.PF.AOR that is
break.PF-PPP.SG.F and later repair.PF-PPP-SG.F
«He saw the cart and understood that it had been broken and later repaired».
From the preceding examples, it is clear that the aspectual properties of the participle can change according to the construction. Examples (7a) and (7b) are of the descriptive type and code the state of the entity. As in (6a), the participle behaves like an adjective, but of verbal nature, and which with the auxiliary constitutes a syntactic predicate. Thus, it seems difficult to speak of the «orientation» of a participle. On the other hand, (7c) belongs to the domain of passivisation, even though the agent is not specified: the participle is oriented toward the patient of the basic transitive verb. The comparison between examples (7b) et (7c) merits special attention as it shows how the adjunction of a coordinated participle
If this type of syntactic condition is not limited to Russian, as Maslov[19] affirmed, the data show that the interpretation of a given construction with
(8a)
windows were close.PF-PPP-PL
«We passed twice by the left tower wing of the castle. The first time the windows were shut».
(8b)
window was close.PF-PPP-SG.NEUTER
«At night Rita began a quarrel insisting that the window should be shut. They carried on for a long time and it was Rita who had the upper hand: the window was shut».
According to Knjazev, in (8a) the construction
The resultative state, which I have just defined, must not be confused with the
(9a)
open.PF.AOR drawer.the and understand.PF-AOR money.PL
was steal.PF.PPP
«He opened the drawer and understood: the money had been stolen».
(9b)
open.PF-AOR drawer.the and understand.PF.AOR were
steal.PF.APP.PL money.PL
«He opened the drawer and understood: someone had stolen the money».
Although these two forms may appear in the same context, each has its own meaning: (9a) denotes a resultative state as defined above; it permits therefore to draw attention to the patient and to the characteristic which is attributed to it by the passive predicate; if the verbal form is a reminder of the implied event, it is in order to signify that at its origin is an agent. On the contrary, (9b) is an overt expression of the perfect; it denotes a
It has often been pointed out that the periphrastic passive tends to be constructed with a perfective past participle, whereas the reflexive passive tends to use the imperfective form. On this subject Siewierska [1988: 247] notes that in Slavic languages, with the exception of Polish, the periphrastic passive including an imperfective participle rarely appears, and quotes Czech and Serbo-Croatian where the constructions are said to be used mainly in scientific texts. This affirmation is not wholly justified. In Russian, the contrast is not any clearer: the constructions with an imperfective past passive participle are sporadically attested [Maslov 1988; Poupynin 1996: 131] and are subject to strong lexical, syntactic and contextual constraints; they are allowed in varying degrees in Czech, Serbo-Croatian, Polish, and above all Bulgarian.
The «be»-perfective passive is claimed to convey both the meaning of a state resulting from a previous action and that of an action. The main argument for justifying such an analysis comes from a distributional property of the form, founded upon the compatibility of the perfective form with localisation markers. According