Streszczenie:
The article states that communication in Old Russian as well as in modern Russian
discourse is characterized by the use of mono-functional and poly-functional
indirect speech acts. Moreover, the important aspect that helps to specify the illocutive
functions of indirect speech acts in Old Russian is their verifiability: the
verbal or non-verbal response of the interlocutor as well as the frame constructions,
which introduce direct speech (preposition). These constructions are also used in
the middle of the utterance (interposition) or at the end of the utterance (postposition).
The author of the chronicles observes the communicative purposes of
both the speaker and the interlocutor, indicating that the given utterance should
be regarded as an indirect speech act. By analyzing the use of mono-functional
indirect speech acts in the original dialogue fragments of the Tale of Bygone Years,
the author works out their typology. The groups of interrogative and non-interrogative
indirect speech acts have been singled out, each of them having certain
typical characteristics. The semantics of non-interrogative utterances in most
cases is connected with the expression of indirect meanings of time and aspect of
verbal forms. The use of interrogative utterances as indirect speech acts is mostly
connected with the changes not only in the illocutive function, but also in the propositional
meaning of the predicative unit: interrogative utterances with negations
should be interpreted as affirmative non-interrogative utterances and vice versa. The author comes to the conclusion that the use of modern mono-functional
indirect speech acts is traditional, since it is identical to their functioning in Old
Russian.
