SYSTEM MISTAKES IN NON-STANDARD TEXTS: KTO PRISHLI — PLURAL FORM OF PREDICATE WITH SUBJECT KTO

The correct (prescriptive) or incorrect usage of grammatical constructions is regulated by the tradition of codification. The standardizing practice is based on the analysis of reference texts and the logic of the language’s grammatical system. Therefore, the same phenomena can be interpreted as corresponding to or deviating from the norm, depending on the corpus of sources taken as the basis of a normative description. The article uses the data from the Russian Learner Corpus, the Russian National Corpus and the Internet to analyze the cases of plural predicates with the subject kto — ranging between those accepted by recommendation norm (apart from its most rigorous version represented in school practice) and peripheral ones, typical of everyday and colloquial speech.

Grammatical, semantic and pragmatic reasons for the predicate coordination in the plural have been discovered. Among the factors defining the choice of plural predicates are the supporting components in the context of the plural form (determinative t’e; quantifier vs’e; the predicate of the main clause or of the independent statement in the pretext — in echo-questions or parallel constructions; the predicate of the subordinate clause, depending on the relative construction kto prishl’i; the supporting name or substantive at the top or in the nearest context, including the position beyond the limits of the statement); the semantics of multiple subject of action; the semantics of the predicate (not presuming taking actions alone); the type of grammar construction, including the model under consideration (e.g. kto, kak n’e tur’isty, znayut or on’i kto uyehal’i, a kto ostal’is’).