The habitual construction byvalo in Russian

Abstract This study examines the Russian habitual expression byvalo , focusing on its semantic, syntactic, and functional properties within the framework of Functional Discourse Grammar (FDG). Using data from the Russian National Corpus (RNC) and supplementary sources, we analyze byvalo in relation to FDG’s theory of layers. It is concluded that there is ample evidence that byvalo functions on the layer of the Episode, and some evidence that it functions on the layer of the State-of-Affairs. In some cases, the tests developed to determine the layer status of habituals are inconclusive. Further research into such cases may provide more insight into habituality and its relationship to the theory of the layers proposed by FDG.