NOMINATIVE SENTENCES IN THE TEXT. A CONTRASTIVE STUDY IN RUSSIAN AND FRENCH

Abstract

In this paper nominative sentences are considered as a class of sentences that covers different types and functions in the text: the naming type with a direct naming function; the being type, which combines the naming function and affirming the presence or existence of an object/subject, and attribute and event types, which have a predicative nature. The above types of sentences allow us to determine the specificity of semantic links of nominative sentences with the text and with the peculiarities of its temporal forms organization. Th e naming type has no temporal paradigm and it is accompanied by the change of temporal referentials, i.e. by the alternation of the narrative mode and the mode of the subject’s perception. The other three types of nominative sentences do have a temporal paradigm. The contrastive method of research allows us to consider the debatable issue of article types in French, including its zero form, which plays a special role in the coherence of the text. Depending on the sentence type and its connection with the context, a translator chooses the corresponding type of the utterance.