The article presents the main criteria for identifying the meaning of a sentence: conditional, unconditional or concessive. In Russian we consider the concession, since unlike Chinese, Russian lacks the term 'unconditional'. However, the semantics in sentences with these meanings are very similar, as detailed in the introduction. The goal of the study was to conduct a comparative analysis of the principles used to distinguish between conditional and unconditional meanings in Chinese, conditional and concessive meanings in Russian. Conditionals in Chinese and Russian, unconditionals in Chinese and concession in Russian are the focus of this study. In order to distinguish between conditionality and unconditionality, we selected the constructions with both meanings. The existence of these constructions was proved by analysing authoritative sources and sentences from Chinese and Russian literature. Examples of these sentences are taken from the CCL corpus of the Chinese language and the RNC of the Russian language. Nowadays, in Russian Sinology there are only generalised descriptions of conditional constructions in Chinese (for example, V.I. Gorelov's 'Grammar of the Chinese Language' and T.V. Ivchenko's 'Complete Grammar in Diagrams and Tables'). Furthermore, Russian linguists have not conducted a detailed research on unconditional constructions in Chinese. Here, a comparison with the Russian language is made to provide a more complete description of how conditions, unconditionality, and concessions are constructed in languages. The scientific novelty of this study lies in its comprehensive analysis of the peculiarities of conditional constructions in Chinese, considering not only the presence of a condition, but also the absence of grounds for achieving a result (unconditionality). The novelty also lies in Chinese conditional and unconditional constructions with Russian conditional and concessive constructions. As a result, three criteria for distinguishing between conditional and unconditional constructions were identified.
Timofey Vasil'evich Dudanov (Thu,) studied this question.