A permi nyelvek személytelen szerkezeteinek disztribúciója az ágens háttérbe szorításának mértéke alapján

Distribution of Permic Impersonals on the Basis of Agent Demotion Impersonality, from a functional-semantic viewpoint, is closely related with the demotion of the agent (cf. SIEWIERSKA 2008a, GIVÓN 1990). The aim of this paper is to outline some types of imper-sonal expressions which are used in Permic languages, e.g. in Zyrian, in Permyak and in Udmurt. Ac-cording to SIEWIERSKA (id.: 121), impersonality is associated with agent defocusing, which may in-volve: (a) the non-elaboration or under-elaboration of the agent, (b) the demotion of the agent fromits prototypical subject and topic function or (c) both demotion and non-elaboration. In my study, I give a distribution of each subclass, using functional and structural criteria to de-scribe the types in question. As a result, I provide a hierarchy of impersonals, which is based on proto-typicality. The hierarchy can be expressed as follows: indefinite pronoun > generic noun = Pl3 impersonal> predicative noun = modal construction> causa-tive construction = Gen+reflexive > participle > meteoverb = impersonal passive > reflexive