A familiar stranger (about the conjunction libo (English or) in modern Russian)

Abstract

The article provides a multidimensional characterisation of the conjunction libo (English or). The research is relevant due to the lack of a systematic and complete description of this conjunction in Russian studies. Nevertheless, it is an important means of expressing disjunctive relations. Libo was usually studied together with other disjunctive conjunctions, as well as in comparison with the conjunction ili (English or) although it is the second most frequent disjunctive conjunction. The research is based on the monographic method of studying function words used by the Far Eastern Syntactic School. Each such word is under scrutiny and can be considered as an organising unit of the surrounding syntactic context. The article analyses the constructional properties of the conjunction libo related to the morphological-syntactic characteristics of the word forms it connects. Moreover, the study focuses on the actual syntactic properties dependent on the peculiarities of the syntactic environment around this conjunction (such as generic words, particles, word order, intonation, etc). The research demonstrates that this conjunction is oriented to showing real options, therefore, in general, it cannot express alternative-suppositional and explanatory relations. The article characterises the pragma-stylistic properties of libo. It has been established that, like the conjunction ili, libo is stylistically neutral. Its differenfrom ili is primarily semantic although pragmatic factors are also relevant. The etymology of libo is explained. It is associated with the adjectival word form lyubo with which the conjunction retains a prototypical connection. As a result, the alternatives libo coordinates emphasise not only the different, but also the opposite. Based on the findings of the study, the key conclusion is that there is an ontologically opposed pair of conjunctions libo and ili in modern Russian. They reflect the speaker’s urge to present alternatives as compatible or incompatible.