SEMANTICS AND SYNTAX OF RUSSIAN ADVERB SRAZU ‘IMMEDIATELY’

The object of the paper is Russian adverb srazu ‘immediately’ in two meanings: ‘at once’ (cf. srazu ujti ‘to leave at once’) and ‘directly or closely’ (cf. stojat’ v ocheredi srazu za devushkoj v sinej kurtke ‘to stand in the line directly behind the girl in the blue coat’). Semantic links between these meanings are discussed. It is demonstrated that srazu ‘directly or closely’ keeps a slight indication to the time of an event. It is shown that srazu ‘immediately’ in both meanings has two semantic actants. The first one is expressed by the predicate subordinating the adverb (srazu ← ujti ‘to leave ← at once’; stojat’ → srazu za devushkoj ‘to stand → directly behind the girl’); this is quite common for adverbs. It is argued that the second semantic actant is expressed by a noun group (cf. srazu posle svad’by ‘immediately after wedding’, srazu za devushkoj ‘directly behind the girl’), but on the syntactic level this noun group and the adverb are dependent of the same predicate. Traditional grammar assigns analogous adverbs with two semantic actants to adverbial prepositions; cf. vokrug (doma) ‘around the house’, daleko ot (doma) ‘far from (the house)’. It is argued that according to economy principle adverbial prepositions should be described as a group of adverbs.