Семантика и прагматические особенности местоимения неизвестности какой-то Semantika i pragmatičeskie osobennosti mestoimenija neizvestnosti kakoj-to

The aim of this paper is to analyse the semantics and pragmatic uses of the Russian indefinite pronoun of unknown reference kakoj-to. The analysis is based on data from the Russian National Corpus.The paper shows that the semantic specificity of kakoj-to and its maximal distancing from a purely attributive function when combined with concrete nouns—where it approaches the role of an indefinite article—gives rise to a range of pragmatic effects. When used with abstract nouns and qualitative adjectives, kakoj-to acquires a pronounced pragmatic value, since the vagueness or indeterminacy of the property correlates with the gradability of qualitative adjectives, thereby providing a basis for the pragmatic evaluation of the relevant feature and, in particular, for the mitigation of negative adjectival characterisations. This highlights differences in the distribution of semantic and pragmatic load among the devices expressing indefiniteness in the languages under comparison.