CONVERBS AND PARTICIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGICAL VERBS IN THE “NARRATIVE REMARKS” IN THE NOVELS BY DOSTOEVSKY (concerning the problem of the grammar of Dostoevsky's idiostyle)

The paper considers text functions of converbs and participles (infinite forms) of psychological verbs that are supposed to characterize the internal state of an experiencer, and explores them in a single text position — within postpositive narrative remarks following the direct speech of fictional characters in the novels by Dostoevsky. Functional and semantic analysis of text extracts combines with analysis of corpus data (Russian National Corpus). The text extracts under consideration fall into first-person remarks and third-person ones. The paper proves the idea that psychological converbs and participles in Dostoevsky’s texts serve as a means to construct the position of a narrator with an external point of view. Such a narrator doesn’t possess “omniscience” and is distant from the figures of the character described and readers of the fiction. The paper regards converbs and participles of emotive verbs, verbs of internal states and external manifestation of emotions. These infinite forms are often followed by subjective indicators of definiteness / indefiniteness, certainty / uncertainty and can take part in formation of external view of narrator in different degrees. Thus, the infinite forms of verbs of emotionmanifestation function for external point of view (narrator), the forms of verbs of internal state — for internal one (character), whereas the latter followed by subjective indicators form an external point of view (narrator). Also, the paper analyzes converbs of reflexive emotives and passive participles of transitive emotives, as they are very frequently used in Dostoevsky’s remarks. Emotives semantically occupy an intermediate position among the three mentioned groups of verbs and are normally used for making an external point of view. The paper pays special attention to first-person remarks paradoxically containing grammatical marks of narrator’s external point of view.