Journal of Slavic Linguistics

Word order in heritage Russian under different dominant languages

Tania Ionin — 2023-12-24

This paper reports on an experimental study that examines the relationship between word order and information structure in the Russian of adult English-dominant and Hebrew-dominant heritage speakers of Russian. The objectives of the study were: (a) To examine whether the relationship between word order and information structure is acquirable by heritage speakers; and (b) To examine whether there is transfer from the dominant language in this domain. The results of an acceptability judgment task show that heritage speakers performed quite similarly to monolinguals; there was improvement with proficiency, but no evidence of transfer from the dominant language. The mapping between word order and information structure is found to be quite robust in heritage language acquisition.

Noun complement clauses with a demonstrative determiner in Russian

Mikhail Knyazev — 2023-12-15

A lesser-known type of noun complement clause construction in Russian is discussed, in which N + čto-clause is preceded by the distal demonstrative tot. The construction involves a non-anaphoric non-deictic use of tot, which depends on the presence of a declarative (or relative) CP. Special distributional properties of the construction are discussed, such as its compatibility with non-attitude nouns like ‘advantage’. A compositional analysis is proposed based on the idea that demonstratives uniformly take two arguments. It is argued that the properties of the construction are captured in a structure proposed in Hankamer & Mikkelsen 2021, with D taking CP as a complement and subsequent raising of D to a little d around the NP.

The structure and meaning of label numerals

Marcin Wągiel — 2023-11-20

This paper investigates the so-far neglected label use of numerals, as in player number five, and its relationship with the quantifying and the arithmetical function. The paper examines the conceptual nature of labeling and explores label constructions from a cross-linguistic perspective. In particular, the paper investigates marking patterns concerning derived label numerals in Slavic and classifier constructions in Japanese as well as data from Maltese and Wymysorys (Germanic). The paper argues that the arithmetical meaning is basic whereas the quantifying and the label meanings are derived by unrelated mechanisms. In order to account for the data, the paper proposes a morphosemantic analysis combining compositional semantics with Nanosyntax.

Russian èto in wh-questions

Aldan Yerbalanov — 2023-12-15

This paper deals with the semantic and syntactic analysis of the particle-like element èto in wh-questions, which occurs either preceding the fronted wh-pronoun or following it, the two options being available under slightly different pragmatic conditions, although resulting in similar interpretations. We compare these instances of èto to those occurring in cleft-like sentences, which have received most of the attention in the generative literature, and conclude that they are essentially the same creature, namely, an adverb adjoining to a clausal projection above the TP. Our analysis is informed by the interpretation of the relevant sentences in Russian and by parallels existing between èto and other focus-sensitive particles in Russian, Czech, and Polish.

The interaction between theme vowels and secondary imperfectives in Slovenian

Marko Simonović — 2023-12-24

Our analysis targets two Slovenian secondary imperfectivizers characterized by comparable frequency and surface form, eva and ava. We consider arguments in favour of various morphological segmentations in an attempt to establish their structure. Both are argued to end in the theme vowel a, which also contains the hiatus-repairing floating segment ^v. In eva, the theme vowel ^va is preceded by the surviving morpheme e from the original perfective verb. In the case of ava, the theme vowel ^va is combined with the morpheme av, which also occurs in various different environments. We further argue that the surviving morpheme e from eva is not a theme vowel, but rather a derivational affix -- just like av.

Non-conservative construals with percentage quantifiers in Slavic

Marcin Wągiel — 2023-11-20

The paper investigates non-conservative, as opposed to conservative, interpretations of sentences with percentage quantifiers corresponding to ‘fifty percent’ in Slavic. Based on the results of a questionnaire study in Slavic languages with (Bulgarian and Macedonian) and without definiteness marking (BCMS, Czech, Polish, Russian, Slovak, and Slovenian), we make the novel observation that word order is a main and sometimes the only means to distinguish between conservative and non-conservative readings. We argue that for the non-conservative reading to arise the percentage quantifier has to appear in a low position, VP-internally, in order to be part of the predicate and to take the VP’s extension as its first argument.

Colloquial emphatic negation in Russian and morphology of negative concord

David Erschler — 2023-12-24

Alongside the standard negation, colloquial Russian has grammaticalized an alternative negation marker, xuj ‘dick’ and its euphemisms, that has negative force but does not license ni-phrases in its scope. Adopting the overall approach of Zeijlstra (2004) to negation and negative concord, I explore the properties of this construction to provide novel evidence that both semantic licensing and morphological concord are implicated in forming ni-negative indefinites in Slavic. Specifically, I interpret the inability of the negator xuj to license ni-negative indefinites as evidence that ni-negative indefinites undergo morphological concord with Neg⁰, which is spelled out as the standard negator ne.

Morphosyntactic variation in numerically-quantified noun phrases in Bulgarian

Roumyana Pancheva — 2023-12-15

Bulgarian masculine nouns have a special form – a ‘count’ form – different from singular and plural, which is used in numerically-quantified nominal phrases. The count form is analyzed here as accusative singular. Several empirical arguments are offered in support of this unusual account, and potential challenges are addressed. The account places Bulgarian among an understudied group of languages, where singular vs. plural marking on nouns in numerically-quantified nominal phrases varies by noun class.

Subjunctive Questions in Serbian

Despina Oikonomou — 2023-12-24

We discuss Subjunctive Questions in matrix and embedded environments focusing on Serbian. Subjunctive Questions, which are common in Balkan languages, ask regarding the addressee’s prioritizing state whereas Indicative Questions ask regarding the addressee’s epistemic state. We argue that the source of prioritizing modality is subjunctive mood which is analysed as a prioritizing modal operator anchored to the matrix event (Hacquard 2006). Unlike non-interrogative subjunctives, we argue that subjunctive mood in questions is licensed due to the interrogative operator and not due to the embedding predicate (Bhatt 1999). In this way, we are able to account for the wider distribution of Subjunctive Questions compared to non-questions. Finally, we discuss the special pragmatic properties of Subjunctive Questions which are associated with the directive character of the possible answers.

Defective pronouns in the history of Russian: null subjects and object clitics

Nerea Madariaga — 2023-12-24

In this paper, I present a unified account for the change in referential null subjects and accusative clitics in Russian. Clitics and null subjects are minimal defective pronouns. In Old Russian, long verb movement was the key for licensing these elements. The reorganization of the verbal system around aspectual distinctions by Middle Russian and the consequent loss of long verb movement modified this cue; null subjects became overtly realized, while object clitics disappeared altogether, and were replaced by null objects, free from any requirement of prosodic support. As for null subjects, learners were able to reanalyse the corresponding gaps as either (i) bound by null topics, or (ii) c-commanded by coreferent antecedents (“finite control”). Thus, Modern Russian started to qualify as a partial null subject language.

Subject island and discontinuous spellout in Russian

Daria Belova — 2023-12-24

This paper deals with asymmetries in split DPs and PPs in mono- and bi-predicative clauses in Russian. The properties of splitting XPs were experimentally investigated in three steps of comparing acceptability: full PP movement vs. PP wh split, PP split vs. DP split, and full DP movement vs. DP wh-split. The results show that in simple clauses split DPs are compatible with the left branch extraction transformation while PPs are not and that in dependent clauses the discontinuous spellout transformation is the only way both types of XPs can undergo splitting. These conclusions help to explain the differences in subject and object DPs’ opacity in simple and dependent clauses found in Polinsky et al. (2013) and Belova (2021a).

Phi-feature resolution under coordination outside of the grammar

Paulina Lyskawa — 2023-12-23

It is commonly assumed that the person/number/gender (phi) features of a coordinate structure are computed grammar-internally from the phi-features of its conjuncts. For example, traditional instructions for grammatical gender resolution in Polish state that a conjunction that contains [MASCULINE HUMAN] formal features controls virile agreement on the verb, and non-virile elsewhere. Given the existence of multiple exceptions, the instructions represent a robust empirical tendency, rather than a categorical rule. Based on this behavior, as well as conceptual considerations, the paper argues that resolution is a grammar-external mechanism: it is the architecture of the grammar that conspires to not provide a possible locus of resolution internally. Instead, the external systems need to handle the under-determined output of the grammatical derivation.

Mass-Count Distinction and the Russian Singulative Suffix -in-

Ljudmila Geist — 2023-12-24

The paper addresses the morphosyntax and semantics of the Russian singulative -in-. This suffix attaches to a mass noun denoting an aggregate to derive a count noun naming the natural unit that the aggregate consists of (gorox ‘peas’ vs. goroš-in-a ‘pea’). We propose that -in- realizes two functional heads bundled together – the categorizing n⁰ and a higher head Div⁰ that has a unit-making function and is responsible for the derivation of a count noun. Semantically, -in- functions as a mass-to-count operator that applies to aggregates and yields atomic predicates, by triggering division into natural units.

Serbo-Croatian secondary imperfectivisers consist of theme vowels

Marko Simonovic — 2023-12-24

Building on the proposal in Marković (2018: p.77) that Serbo-Croatian secondary imperfectivisers, such as iva and ava, are in fact bimorphemic, we develop an autosegmental analysis of these morphemes and their allomorphs, showing that they consist of two theme vowels, i-a and a-a, respectively. We show that both [v] and [j] in these affixes behave as glides and that [v] in iva and ava is the exponent of floating features affiliated with the theme vowel a, whose underlying representation is /va/. The theme vowel i is shown to consist solely of the feature [+high]. These autosegmental representations allow us to explain the allomorphy of the two productive secondary imperfectivisers in Serbo-Croatian, but also the less productive apophony patterns. In addition, the autosegmental analysis of the theme vowels allows us to reduce the number of the theme vowel classes in Serbo-Croatian from 13 to 10.

Remnant licensing and structural economy in VP ellipsis

Ivona Kucerova — 2023-12-15

Remnant licensing in verb phrase ellipsis (VPE) occurs via remnant movement out of the ellipsis site or base generation outside it. The paper examines a counterexample from two types of Czech auxiliaries: higher ones in T that must be deleted in spite of being generated outside the ellipsis site, and lower ones in v/Asp that can become remnants. We assume spell-out domains determine ellipsis size (Rouveret 2012, Bošković 2014), and remnant licensing is a function of the structural position of the functional material w.r.t the phase head licensing VPE (Aelbrecht & Harwood 2015). However, we propose a new structural economy condition that blocks syntactic merger of higher syntactic CP/TP structure when a vP phase corresponds to a proposition, which is conditional on v having a tense feature with anchoring properties. In such cases, higher functional material is banned from being a remnant because it is not built in syntax, and vP alone must enter a mutual entailment relationship with an ellipsis anaphor.