JSL Volume 7 No.2
Contents
Reflections
Daniela S. Hristova
Total Fears 171
Articles
Alina Israeli
'Same' and 'Different' in Russian 179
John Moore and David M. Perlmutter
Case, Agreement, and Temporal Particles in Russian Infinitival Clauses 219
Yuri Novikov and Tom Priestly
Gender Differentiation in Personal and Professional Titles in Contemporary Russian 247
Irina A. Sekerina
The Scrambling Complexity Hypothesis and Processing of Split Scrambling Constructions in Russian 265
Sandra Stjepanovic
Scrambling: Overt Movement or Base Generation and LF Movement? 305
Reviews
Robert A. Orr
H. Schuster-Šewc. Grammar of the Upper Sorbian Language: Phonology and Morphology 325
Gilbert C. Rappaport
Robert D. Borsley and Adam Przepiórkowski, eds. Slavic in Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar 331
Article Abstracts
Alina Israeli
'Same' and 'Different' in Russian
Abstract: The article analyses the syntactic, semantic and pragmatic factors governing the use of expressions meaning 'the same' and 'different' in Russian. It demonstrates that one of the factors is the number of items: one item (similarity) or two items (sameness). It also demonstrates that the six basic and two deictic ways to say 'the same' and the three ways to say 'different' represent either a sentence-external reading or a sentence-internal reading. This criterion partially overlaps with the treatment of the entities compared as co-equals, since only a sentence-internal reading may allow such treatment in the cases of similarity, sameness and difference. Other factors in the case of sameness may include the unexpectedness of the second mention of the item, reminding of the previous use or the perceived inappropriateness of the second use, and whether or not the entity is shared.
John Moore and David M. Perlmutter
Case, Agreement, and Temporal Particles in Russian Infinitival Clauses
Abstract: In this paper we argue that the Russian particles bylo, byvalo, and budet, when they occur in infinitival clauses with dative subjects, are not auxiliaries but adverbial temporal particles. This analysis accounts for the fact that they are morphologically invariant, that is, do not agree with their dative subject. We provide five arguments for this analysis, based on the placement of negation, aspectual restrictions, bylo and byvalo in finite clauses, their occurrence with other auxiliaries, and their use as modifiers of adjectives. Our analysis has implications for the general analysis of infinitival clauses in Russian. We argue, contra recent claims, that Russian infinitivals are not tensed. Our account also has consequences for the treatment of second-dative phenomena.
Yuri Novikov and Tom Priestly
Gender Differentiation in Personal and Professional Titles in Contemporary Russian
Abstract: A short sociolinguistic study was conducted among Russian immigrants and visitors to Canada to determine the influence of various factors, such as age, sex, education, social status, and the location of longest residence in the former Soviet Union, on the choice of gender in feminine personal and professional titles, in specifiers of unchangeable masculine nouns, and in past-tense verbal forms. The influence of age and longest place of residence in the former Soviet Union were shown to be significant for nouns, while the education factor was more likely to affect the use of feminine adjectival and preterit verbal forms in the specification of unchangeable masculine nouns.
Irina A. Sekerina
The Scrambling Complexity Hypothesis and Processing of Split Scrambling Constructions in Russian
Abstract: This article investigates the processing of discontinuous constituents in Russian which result from Split Scrambling. Two experiments are reported, an on-line chunk-by-chunk self-paced reading study and a norming sentence completion questionnaire. The experimental findings provide evidence for the processing complexity of Split Scrambling compared to phrasal XP-Scrambling, as reflected in increased reading times in Experiment 1 and avoidance of discontinuous constituents through morphological means, such as novel nominalizations, in Experiment 2. These results support the Scrambling Complexity Hypothesis (SCH).
Sandra Stjepanovic
Scrambling: Overt Movement or Base Generation and LF Movement?
Abstract: In this paper I have tried to tease apart two approaches dealing with the last-resort problem of scrambling within the Minimalist framework, in particular, that of Fukui (1993) and Saito and Fukui (1992; 1998) on one side and Boskovic and Takahashi's (1998) on the other. I have shown that the latest version of Saito and Fukui's account, Saito and Fukui (1998), is empirically problematic. Boskovic and Takahashi's (1998) theory, which involves the base generation of scrambled elements in their surface positions and their LF movement to positions where they receive theta-roles, does not run into these problems.
