JSL Volume 14 No.1

Contents

Articles

David Hart Cognitive
Events in the Development of the Russian Suppletive Pair god – let ‘year’     3

Vsevolod Kapatsinski
Sex Associations of Russian Generics     17

Nerea Madariaga
Why Russian Semi-Predicative Items Always Agree     45

Reviews

Ronelle Alexander
Robert Greenberg. Language and Identity in the Balkans: Serbo-Croatian and its Disintegration     79

Alina Israeli
Alan Timberlake. A Reference Grammar of Russian     91

Franc Marušič and Rok Žaucer
Janez Orešnik and Donald D. Reindl, eds. Slovenian from a typological perspective (Sprachtypologie und Universalien¬ forschung (Language typology and universals))     123

Article Abstracts

David Hart

Cognitive Events in the Development of the Russian Suppletive Pair god – let ‘year’

Abstract: The semantic development of the suppletive pair god – let ‘year’ was due to a specific communicative deficiency that arose among speakers of Old Russian as a result of the adoption of Christianity in Rus’ and to metonymical devices that were triggered in answer to the perceived expressive want. These devices were authorized by a general constraint of compatibility on the shift of meaning from source to target. Suppletion developed as a result of the incompatibility of some aspects of the newly polysemous godъ and numerical quantification.

Vsevolod Kapatsinski

Sex Associations of Russian Generics

Abstract: This article explores whether Russian generic nouns and pronouns have sex associations, what factors influence the formation of sex associations, and whether ways for changing sexist language developed by American feminists are viable for Russian, as well as whether such change is currently likely. Social implications of the data are also explored.

Nerea Madariaga

Why Russian Semi-Predicative Items Always Agree

Abstract: In this paper an explanation is provided for the fact that the Russian semi-predicative items odin ‘one, alone’ and sam ‘-self, same’ must obligatorily undergo Case Agreement (i.e., they must show up in the same case as the argument they refer to) and that unlike regular predicatives they cannot check instrumental case. It is argued that this fact is due to the quantificational nature of these items. My analysis is based on a “predicational” analysis of the semi-predicatives odin and sam as the head of a QP inserted in an apposition adjoined to V' or Pred'. Semi-predicatives cannot be assigned inherent instrumental case there because Pred0 [+inst] can only select an AP or NP (but not a QP or DP). In particular, it is argued that the quantificational nature of these items relates them not only to predicatives but also to some adverbs and to regular quantifiers.