VOT VED’ AND NADO ZHE! THE TRANSITION PATH FROM SYNTACTIC CONSTRUCTION TO SECONDARY INTERJECTION

The object of the article is the elucidation of the origins of secondary interjections. These interjections presumably originate from standard syntactic constructions that have been subjected in discourse to the elliptization of a number of components that convey a specific communicative situation. The transition of syntactic constructions to secondary interjections occurs in two stages. In the first stage, constructions are reconstructed for the purposes of more generalized description and begin to be used in discourse as metatextual units to prepare the interlocutor for the perception of unusual information. Stereotypical use in this position leads the construction to lose several components and to these being idiomiatized, that is, they turn into communicative formulas. These formulas serve to introduce unusual information and convey the attitude of the speaker to the same. At the second stage, communicative formulas are used in dialogue as a reaction of the interlocutor to the received information. In this position, the construction loses some further components and serves only to express the surprise of the subject at the perceived information — that is, it is transformed from a communicative formula into a secondary interjection.