Journal of Slavic Linguistics

Contents
From the Editor     173

In Memoriam Jens Norgard-Sørensen     177

In Memoriam Charles Townsend     181

Reflections

Steven Franks
The Slavic Linguistics Society Comes of Age     189

Articles

Masako Fidler and Václav Cvrček
A Data-Driven Analysis of Reader Viewpoints: Reconstructing the Historical Reader Using Keyword Analysis      197

Frank Y. Gladney
On Forming Deverbal Nouns and Adjectives     241

Julia Kuznetsova and Tore Nesset
In Which Case Are Russians Afraid? Bojat’sja with Genitive and Accusative Objects     255

A. Kate White
The Cognate Boost: A Study of Picture Naming across Proficiency Levels with L2 Learners of Russian     285

Reviews

Krzysztof E. Borowski and Alexandra Fisher
Elżbieta Kaczmarska and Motoki Nomachi, eds. Slavic and
German in contact: Studies from areal and contrastive linguistics.     313

Katarzyna Dziwirek
Jacek Witkoś and Sylwester Jaworski, eds. New insights into 
Slavic linguistics.     319

Elisabeth Elliott
Keith Langston and Anita Peti-Stantić. Language 
planning and national identity in Croatia.     323

Olga Mitrenina
Anna Bondaruk, Gréte Dalmi, and Alexander Grosu, eds. Advances in the syntax of DPs: Structure, agreement, and case.     331

Abbreviations     343

Article Abstracts

Masako Fidler and Václav Cvrček

A Data-Driven Analysis of Reader Viewpoints:
Reconstructing the Historical Reader Using
Keyword Analysis

Abstract: This study uses corpus-linguistic methods to examine the relation- ship between language usage patterns and divergence in text interpretation. Our target of analysis is a set of texts (Czechoslovak presidential New Year’s addresses from 1975 to 1989), which contemporary readers consider repeti- tious and devoid of content. These texts were statistically contrasted with corpora from two different periods: one from the totalitarian period and the other from the contemporary (post-totalitarian) period. The comparison was based on the Difference Index, the most recent effect-size estimator, which was used to enhance the interpretation of keyword analysis outcomes. The two analyses yield significantly different results: the data from the analy- sis using the contemporary corpus were commensurate with contemporary readers’ impressions; those from the analysis using the totalitarian corpus fluctuated in tandem with (and sometimes in anticipation of) political and social changes during the 15-year period and suggested an interpretation of the texts by a reader more familiar with totalitarian texts.

Frank Y. Gladney

On Forming Deverbal Nouns and Adjectives in Russian

Abstract: Some deverbal nouns and adjectives govern their complements as nouns and adjectives. In vladelec jazykov ‘polyglot’ genitive case is assigned by the Adnominal Genitive Rule, and in zabyvčiva na imena ‘forgetful of names’ na is required similarly as in the gloss. With other deverbal nouns and adjec- tives, e.g., vladenie jazykami ‘a command of languages’ and zabyvajuščaja imena ‘who forgets names’, the form of the complement is governed by the embed- ded verb; compare vladeet jazykami and zabyvaet imena. To capture this affinity, the noun phrase is represented as a noun headed by the noun suffix /-ij/ and containing a verb phrase corresponding to vladeet jazykami, and the adjective phrase is represented as an adjective headed by the adjective suffix /-ušč/ and containing a verb phrase corresponding to zabyvaet imena. These underlying representations give syntax the task of uniting /vlad/ with /-ij/ and /zaby/ with /-ušč/, matters traditionally relegated to a morphology component of the grammar. To relegate them to syntax is to enter uncharted territory.

Julia Kuznetsova and Tore Nesset

In Which Case Are Russians Afraid? Bojat’sja with
Genitive and Accusative Objects

Abstract: The present article investigates case usage with the verb bojat’sja ‘be scared’ in Russian. Many verbs with -sja never combine with objects in the accusative case. The verb bojat’sja historically was among them, but this verb is undergoing a shift and is currently used with both genitive and accusative objects. This study examines the parameters that motivate this change. Using data from the Russian National Corpus and an experimental study, this arti- cle shows that the accusative case is more likely to appear when the object is individuated. It is furthermore demonstrated that the use of accusative objects depends on register: Less restricted registers, such as newspaper texts and answers in the experiment, show higher use of accusative objects.

A. Kate White

The Cognate Boost: A Study of Picture Naming across
Proficiency Levels with L2 Learners of Russian

Abstract: The purpose of this study was to investigate the “cognate boost” in Russian. Based on the Revised Hierarchical Model of bilingual memory and the theory of nonselective language storage in bilinguals, it was assumed that cognates would facilitate the performance of L1 English learners of L2 Russian in a picture-naming task, though this effect would be modulated by proficiency level. Twenty-two college-level learners of Russian from two pro- ficiency levels were asked to complete a picture-naming task in Russian. Half performed a task with cognates present and half without. An analysis of re- sponse time and accuracy showed that cognates facilitate the performance of lower proficiency speakers, while higher proficiency speakers are not affected. These results support the theories mentioned previously and show a cognate effect despite the differing orthographies of English and Russian. This paper presents the results of the quantitative and qualitative analyses and their im- plications for theories of language acquisition and storage.

Contents
From the Editor      1

Articles

Radovan Lučić
Observations on Collective Numerals in
Standard Croatian      3

Anna­Maria Meyer
“Thanks from the mountain!”: Humorous Calques in
Ponglish as an Output of Language Contact and Language Creativity       33

Traci Speed
Manner/Path Typology of Bulgarian Motion Verbs       51

Oscar Swan
Polish Gender, Subgender, and Quasi-Gender       83

Reviews

Ronelle Alexander
Paul­Louis Thomas and Vladimir Osipov. Grammaire du
bosniaque, croate, monténégrin, serbe.       123

Mijo Lončarić
Grant H. Lundberg. Dialect leveling in Haloze, Slovenia.       147

Ludmila Pöppel
A. N. Baranov and D. O. Dobrovol’skij. Osnovy frazeologii
(kratkij kurs): Učeb. Posobie.       153

Submission Guidelines and Style Sheet       161

Article Abstracts

Radovan Lučić

Observations on Collective Numerals in Standard Croatian

Abstract: In present-day Croatian there is quite a large discrepancy between the actual usage of numerals and their description in major normative works. This discrepancy seems to be most present in the case of collective numerals, which are normally described as quantifiers for the elements making up a group of mixed gender. The actual usage of many instances of declensions and agreement of collective numerals often remains unexplained. In the clas- sic Hrvatska gramatika (Barić et al. 2005: 219), for example, seven different forms are given for the dative as well as the locative case and four different forms for the genitive. When or how exactly a specific form is used remains unclear. Most Croatian grammars pay very little attention to the agreement of collec- tive numerals and give only nominal agreement in the genitive and some re- marks on possible verbal agreement in the singular and the plural. Conditions for the choice between the alternatives are generally not discussed. This paper attempts to distinguish between the morphological and semantic principles of classification. Furthermore, it describes and discusses the declension, distri- bution, and agreement of collective numerals in present-day spoken Croatian. This is done without adopting a theoretical stance: this study is limited to the comparison of the treatment of collective numerals in different grammars, and the investigation of the extent to which this treatment reflects the actual usage as found in hits sampled from the Internet and the Croatian National Corpus (HNK).

Anna-Maria Meyer

“Thanks from the mountain!”: Humorous Calques in Ponglish as an Output of Language Contact and Language Creativity

Abstract: Since the enlargement of the European Union beginning in 2004, there has been a huge wave of migration to the United Kingdom from Poland. The UK, unlike other EU countries, allowed full access to its labor market to nationals of eight accession countries, including Poland. The diaspora formed new communities and a new contact variety emerged among them, common- ly referred to as “Ponglish.” Although Ponglish has enjoyed some attention within linguistics, the humorous, “technically incorrect” literal translations of Polish words and phrases into English, usually by Poles with a rather high proficiency in English, have remained unexamined to date. This article ana- lyzes the phenomenon of literal translations in Ponglish in detail, based on a number of websites dedicated to the subject, and attempts a classification.

Traci Speed

Manner/Path Typology of Bulgarian Motion Verbs

Abstract: This study examines the Bulgarian motion verb system in terms of what information is typically conveyed by motion verbs in addition to motion itself. The theoretical framework is Talmy’s (1985) typological theory, which divides languages into low-manner verb-framed languages and high-manner satellite-framed languages according to what additional information is typi- cally conflated with motion in a motion event. Bulgarian motion verbs empha- size path of motion to a greater extent than do most other (non-Balkan) Slav- ic languages. Non-Balkan Slavic languages more often use verbs of motion expressing manner in combination with (satellite) prefixes indicating path, while Bulgarian focuses on verbs which express the path of motion, some of which are Bulgarian innovations. These verbs are often prefixed, but the pre- fixes may be fused to the root to the extent that an unprefixed form of the verb does not occur, and prefixation here is no longer productive. Typical examples include the frequent use of the path verb izljaza ‘to exit, go out’ when speakers could also use izletja ‘to fly out’ or izmâkna ‘to sneak out’. This variation in the Bulgarian motion verb system brings Bulgarian closer to the other Balkan languages (especially Greek, with its parallel motion event conflation), and is viewed here as a possible instance of Balkan Sprachbund influence.

Oscar Swan

Polish Gender, Subgender, and Quasi-Gender

Abstract: The question as to how many genders there are in Polish has ab- sorbed linguists for well over half a century. Almost everyone approaching this question has applied a different criterion to the exclusion of other criteria in order to obtain an answer, and answers have ranged from every number from three though nine, or even more. One matter that has never been given due importance is the evidence of third-person pronouns which, in both nom- inative and accusative cases, would seem to have come into existence partly in order to be able to refer to nouns by their gender. All told, evidence points to the existence of four main Polish grammatical genders, consisting of the traditional three (masculine, feminine, neuter) and the Polish innovative one of “masculine personal.” These comprise a tightly knit coherent system. Other gender candidates can be considered to be either “subgenders” (masculine animate and masculine depreciative) or “quasi-genders,” of which there are around half a dozen. The existence and behaviors of the quasi-genders, i.e., nouns that would appear to belong to one gender but can act like another (an example being “facultative animate” nouns, i.e., referentially inanimate nouns that behave as if animate) shows that users of the language remain sen- sitive to mismatches between declension-type, gender, and sexual or animate reference, and will allow referential reality to assert itself against grammati- cal gender in accordance with Corbett’s observation as to the increasing insta- bility of agreement targets the farther they are from the agreement controller.

If we take an Indo-European-type three-gender system (as in German, Polish, or Russian, ignoring subgenders), we find that the meanings we can identify for the personal pronouns are “male,” “female,” and “neither male nor female.” Thus the meaning of the pronouns matchespart of the meaning of prototypical nouns ofthe corresponding genders; it reflects the core meaning of the genders. (Corbett 1991: 245–46)

Contents
From the Editor     165

In Memoriam Roman Laskowski     167

Articles

Christina Bethin
Contraction in Russian Dialects: Evidence for
Paradigm Contrast     171

Franc Marušič and Rok Žaucer
The Involuntary State/feel-like Construction:
What Aspect Cannot Do     185

Ksenia Zanon
Two Russian Hybirds     215

Reviews

Peter Arkadiev
Leonard H. Babby. The syntax of argument structure.     259

Robert Orr
Andreii Danylenko. Slavica et Islamica: Ukrainian in Context.     277

Adam Szczegielniak
Anna Bondaruk. Copular clauses in English and Polish:
Structure, derivation, and interpretation.     293

Article Abstracts

Christina Bethin

Contraction in Russian Dialects: Evidence for Paradigm Contrast

Abstract: Contraction of VjV sequences to V as in aja > a, aje > a, ojo > o, uju > u, eje > e, ije > i is found in northern and central Russian dialects, primarily in non-past verb forms and in adjectives. The focus of this paper is on the manifestation of this process in verbs and specifically on the resistance to contraction found in the 2pl forms. There are several different explanations in the literature for the exceptionality of 2pl forms, but they are not entirely convincing. I propose a new and more comprehensive explanation for the resistance to contraction in this category based on the notion of paradigm contrast.

Franc Marušič and Rok Žaucer

The Involuntary State/feel-like Construction:What Aspect Cannot Do

Abstract: The hyperintensional South Slavic involuntary state/feel-like construction is interesting in that it is restricted to a peculiar syntactic frame (dative subject and reflexive-impersonal or reflexive-passive verb) but has no overt element encoding its desiderative meaning and its intensionality. Recently it received two very different analyses. For Marušič and Žaucer (2006a), the construction is biclausal, with its desiderative meaning coming from a phonologically null verb. For Rivero (2009), its “modal” meaning arises from a viewpoint-aspect imperfective operator in a monoclausal structure. The aspect-based account poses a challenge for the theory of null verbs, since it cancels what had been considered a rare attestation of the theory’s logical possibility of having a null matrix verb. It also poses a challenge for the sententionalist view of hyperintensionality, since it posits that the latter can arise outside a clausal complement. This paper demonstrates that the aspect-based account is problematic in several respects and reinstates the null-verb analysis.

Ksenia Zanon

Two Russian Hybirds

Abstract: This paper reports on a peculiar phenomenon in Russian which involves both a Y/N marker (li) with a wh-word. Under consideration are the two incarnations of this construction—herein called Hybrid Wh-coordination (HWh) and its reverse counterpart (rHWh). In the former the Y/N marker precedes the wh-word (and the coordinator), while in the latter this order is permuted. This surface difference has deeper underpinnings, since the two constructions do not behave in identical fashion with respect to various diagnostics. Hence they are not amenable to the same treatment. I will argue for a biclausal genesis of HWh questions. The rHWh cases, on the other hand, are ambiguous between biclausal and monoclausal structures, depending on the nature of the wh-word. The paper offers novel empirical generalizations, cataloguing previously unreported facts associated with hybrid coordination, as well as some theoretical contributions, bearing on the status of Across-The-Board extractions (ATB), quantifier raising (QR), li-placement, and the distribution of topicalized constituents (TC). In particular, the paper presents arguments in favor of QR in Russian. It is argued that the clauseboundedness restriction can be repaired under ellipsis. ATB movement is analyzed as a process of extraction out of each participating conjunct. The placement of li is understood as a result of PF reordering, which is distinct from Prosodic Inversion. Finally, D-linked wh-phrases are analyzed on a par with TCs.

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Contents

Articles

Bradley Larson
Russian Comitatives and the Ambiguity of Adjunction     11

Mila Schwartz and Miriam Minkov
Russian Case System Acquisition among Russian-Hebrew
Speaking Children     51

Remark

Natalia Fitzgibbons
Every Kid Doesn’t Speak English     93

Reviews

Nerea Madariaga
Nikita Mixajlov. Tvoritel'nyj padež v russkom jazyke XVIII veka.     105

Ora Matushansky
Olga Kagan. Semantics of genitive objects in Russian.     115

Radek Šimík
Lydia Grebenyova. Syntax, semantics, and acquisition of
multiple interrogatives: Who wants what?     129

Article Abstracts

Bradley Larson

Russian Comitatives and the Ambiguity of Adjunction

Abstract: There is a conundrum in the study of comitative constructions in Slavic. It has long been an assumption that the construction is best analyzed through two structurally distinct representations: noun modification by a comitative prepositional phrase and verb modification by a comitative prepo-sitional phrase. Another analysis has been proposed that derives the distinc-tions in the construction not from differential attachment sites but rather via differential movement of comitative phrase and its host. In this view, the comitative phrase always adjoins to the host DP, but is sometimes stranded by movement. This paper presents empirical and theoretical arguments against these analyses using data from Russian. It is shown that both differ-ential attachment site analyses and differential movement analyses cannot account for the construction. This conundrum is avoided by adopting a “de-composed Merge”-style analysis to derive structural ambiguity in the con-struction. Under this analysis the ambiguity is an effect of attachment type, not movement or attachment site. This analysis also provides a new avenue to capture the facts that pertain to plural pronoun comitatives. Russian is the test case here for the sake of concision; however the analysis should extend to the rest of the Slavic languages.

Mila Schwartz and Miriam Minkov

Russian Case System Acquisition among Russian-Hebrew Speaking Children

Abstract: The aim of this exploratory study is to examine bilingual Russian–Hebrew-speaking children’s performance on the complex Case System in Russian. The speech of six early sequential bilinguals and three simultaneous bilinguals is analyzed for the quality and quantity of errors. Monolin¬gual data came from two sources. The first source was the error rate of case and number by two normally developing monolingual Russian-speaking children, col-lected recently in the former Soviet Union. The second source was qualitative reports on error types made by monolingual children in the course of Case System acquisition. The following research questions were ex¬amined: (i) Are there differences between bilingual children and age-matched monolingual Russian-speaking children in Russian Case System acquisition? (ii) Are there differences between simultaneous and early sequential bilin¬guals in Russian Case System acquisition? Speech of bilingual children was recorded individu-ally and monthly over a seven-month period, 20 minutes per month per child. Error analysis of the bilingual speech was conducted regarding the following target variables: noun oblique cases (Genitive, Da¬tive, Accusative, Instru-mental, and Prepositional), noun number (singular and plural), and the three declensions. The results show quantitative differ¬ences between simultaneous bilinguals, early sequential bilinguals, and mon¬olin¬guals in Russian Case System acquisition.

Natalia Fitzgibbons

Every Kid Doesn’t Speak English

Abstract: This paper provides arguments based on Czech, Polish, Russian, and Serbo-Croatian that distributive universal subjects of negated sentences allow the surface scope interpretation on the order SUBJECT > NEGATION, contrary to Zeijlstra 2004. This observation agrees with theories of negative concord that take negative concord items as universal quantifiers taking scope above sen-tential negation. The arguments are based on available scope interpretations and correlations between word order and scope.