This MA thesis presents constructions with arbitrary agents; with Slovene part focusing on constructions with reflexive verbs (Včasih se je dobro pilo in jedlo) in which the activity is more important than the agent itself whether the agent is arbitrary, indefinite or hidden in the syntax, but still referring to man or people (People used to drink and eat well). Sentences containing an arbitrary agent are analysed from the morphological, syntactic and pragmatic points of view. They are presented separately in both Slovene and Russian; the Russian language features two types of sentences, namely sentences with indefinite personal agents and those with arbitrary ones, neither of which has been found in Slovene for the purposes of this thesis.
The theoretical part in Slovene is based on research done by A. Žele, M. Uhlik, J. Toporišič and M. Golden, while the Russian theoretical part is based on research by J. P. Knyazev, E. V. Paducheva, E. N. Nikitina and V. V. Babaytseva. Moreover, the material for the empirical part has been taken from the Slavic parallel corpus ParaSol and verifies how the sentences with an arbitrary agent are translated from Slovene into Russian by highlighting semantic groups of verbs which are most frequently used in the sentences studied. The thesis further analyses two novels and their translations the former being Levitan by the Slovenian writer Vitomil Zupan, and the latter being Daniel Stein, Interpreter by the Russian female novelist Ludmila Ulitskaya. The thesis puts forward a number of constructions with arbitrary agents taken from the above mentioned novels and their respective translations. The contrastive analysis shows there are relatively few sentences expressing arbitrary agents, while there is an array of possibilities for their translation.
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