Experience of linguistic research of the word правда as a syntactic word in the Russian language

Abstract

The article analyses syntactic constructions in which the word правда functions as a service word. The constructions under consideration include this word either as a word-conjunction, a conjunction combination in a complex sentence, or as an introductory word in a simple or parceled sentence, indicating different shades of the meaning of concession. The structural component, which includes the word правда as part of a complex sentence, in addition to self-concessive relations, can express comparative, concessive-restrictive, adjunctive-restrictive relations, which are the constituents of the semantic field of concession. On various examples it is shown that the syntactic qualification of the word правда is not stable and can vary with a preponderance either towards that of a linking word or an introductory word, however, also indicating the concessive semantics of the construction. The syntactic conditions of the word правда such as the combination with a contrast conjunction or particle, as well as the contact location of this word between the parts of a complex sentence or a separate sentence, when parceling occurs, indicate its syntactic function as a marker of concessive relations. An attempt of transforming the syntactic structure of the sentences under analysis in order to achieve their equivalent machine translation has been made.