The role of the copula in periphrastic passives in Russian

Abstract

One of the most interesting properties of the periphrastic passive construction in Russian is the optional realization of the copula verb be. Although the presence of the copula does not affect the grammaticality of the construction per se, there are semantic effects related to the presence/absence of the copula verb in a passive sentence. One of the clearest differences concerns the temporal interpretation of a sentence: a passive sentence without a copula corresponds to a present interpretation, whereas the same sentence with the copula realized has a past interpretation. This is in accordance with the grammatical pattern of copula realization in Russian: the present tense copula in nominal predicates is not overtly realized. This chapter shows that copula realization in Russian is conditioned only by a temporal interpretation, just as the traditional view has it, and is not related to a stative vs. eventive interpretation of passive sentences, as has been proposed by Paslawska and von Stechow (2003).