Typology of one-member sentences and peculiarities of their translation (on the example of Russian, English and Kabardian-Cherkessian languages)

This article provides a comparative analysis of one-member sentences in three languages with different structures: Russian, Kabardian-Cherkessian, and English. This sentence type has varying degrees of prevalence in the three languages studied and is more characteristic of certain linguistic styles – fiction and colloquial. The theoretical difficulties linguists face when interpreting one-member sentences are highlighted. These sentences are compared in terms of structure and semantics. The study analyzes 300 examples. The study allowed us to draw a number of conclusions. In Kabardian, the noun in a nominal sentence functions as the principal member (subject) that relies on intonation and case. If the suffix -щ is added to the noun, the sentence becomes predicative. When translating Russian impersonal sentences into Kabardian-Cherkessian, they are often transformed into personal verbal complexes, whose subject does not imply a specific person and is incorporated into the verb structure in the form of the third person singular. Russian one-member sentences are predominantly translated into English as two-member sentences, whereas the translation of these sentences into Kabardian-Cherkessian possesses a number of specific characteristics. A comparative analysis of definite-personal sentences in Russian and Kabardian-Cherkessian revealed that both languages demonstrate a high degree of syntheticity in such sentences. The main difference is that in Russian, the person is determined by an inflection (ending), whereas in Kabardian, it is determined by affixation. The analysis of the translation of one-member sentences from the experimental material into English allows us to conclude that only nominative (nominal) sentences fully correspond to similar Russian sentences and partially to sentences in the Kabardian-Cherkessian language.

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