Funkcii passiva v russkom i finskom jazykah

Abstract

The aim of the study is compare the functions of the passive in Russian and Finnish from the theoretical point of view. The analysis is based on a functional view of natural language, regarding language in the first place as an instrument of verbal interaction for communicative purposes. The thesis argues that the basic and primary pragmatic function of the passive in Russian and Finnish is in defocusing of an agent, on which basis the comparison has been made. Common to both languages is that the identity of an underlying agent in the syntactically agentless passive clause is implied by referring to the agent through the use of obligue cases and by various lexical and pragmatic means. In both languages the means for identifying the agent are very similar, as is the motivation to blur the agent by using the passive. Passives without an overt agent in Russian and passives in Finnish have a very strong functional correspondence when used to thematize an element with an object or locative semantic function, according to his contextual dependence in creating coherence in a text. The agentive passive in Russian is used mainly in written styles, in particular in scientific and official texts, in which an agent appears to be communicatively less important than an action and which in general are characterized by expressions in which the role of the actor is suppressed. The Finnish passive has a secondary function, labelled in the thesis the interpersonal function. This is the use of passive forms instead of personal verb forms to avoid personal reference, to defocus the speaker, the hearer or both.