Journal of Slavic Linguistics

Contents

Reflections

Jan Louis Perkowski
A Note on Serendipity     3

Articles

Stephen M. Dickey
Expressing Ingressivity in Slavic: The Contextually-Conditioned Imperfective Past vs. the Phase Verb stat' and Procedural za-     11

Marjorie J. McShane
The Ellipsis of Accusative Direct Objects in Russian, Polish and Czech     45

Kjetil Rå Hauge
The Word Order of Predicate Clitics in Bulgarian     89

Reviews

Liliane Haegeman
Sue Brown. The Syntax of Negation in Russian. A Minimalist Approach     139

Charles E. Townsend
Milena Sipková. Stavba vety v mluvenych projevech: Syntax hanáckych nárecí      167

Article Abstracts

Stephen M. Dickey

Expressing Ingressivity in Slavic: The Contextually-Conditioned Imperfective Past vs. the Phase Verb stat' and Procedural za-

Abstract: This article discusses different modes of expressing ingressivity in the Slavic languages – the grammatical expression of ingressivity (by means of imperfective verb forms) and its lexical expression (by means of the use of stat' as an ingressive phase verb or perfective procedural verbs prefixed with za-) – and relates them to one another as two competing systems. It is shown that these phenomena are in complementary distribution: languages that imploy the contextually-conditioned imperfective past to a high degree only imploy stat' and za to express ingressivity to a very low degree or not at all, and vice-versa. More specifically, the contextually-conditioned imperfective past is characteristic of the extreme western end of Slavic (Czech, Slovak, Sorbian, Slovene), whereas stat' and za are characteristic of an eastern group of languages (Russian, Ukrainian, Belorusion, Bulgarian); two languages (Polish and Serbo-Croatian occupy a transitional position between the two groups. Finally, the respective modes of expressing ingressivity are discussed within the theory of Slavic aspect developed in Dickey 1997.

Marjorie J. McShane

The Ellipsis of Accusative Direct Objects in Russian, Polish and Czech

Abstract: This article explores the ellipsis of configurational Accusative direct objects whose antecedents are Accusative or Nominative noun phrases. Ellipsis potential is shown to vary significantly among the three Slavic languages under study, according to the continuum Russian > Polish > Czech. Within each language, however, patterns of ellipsis are largely predictable based on the interaction of syntactic, lexico-semantic, and discourse factors.

Kjetil Rå Hauge

The Word Order of Predicate Clitics in Bulgarian

Abstract: First published in 1976 as no. 10 in the series Universitet i Oslo. Meddelelser. Slavisk-baltisk institutt. The clitics are introduced and listed in section 1. Section 2 deals with the question of movable clitics, and section 3 with the relative ordering of clitic pronouns and their cooccurence constraints. The present tense of the auxiary verb/copula sâm, the future particle ste, the negative particle ne, the question particle li, and the particle da are discussed in sections 4 - 8. Section 9 takes up questions in connection with stressed auxiliary verb forms, and conclusions are given in section 10.

Contents

Reflections

Charles E. Townsend.
Slavic Linguistics: From Jers to Dostoevsky to Jers and Theta-Roles     161

Articles

George Cummins
Indefiniteness in Czech     171

Maaike Schoorlemmer
Complex Event Nominals in Russian: Properties and Readings     205

Ludmila Veselovska
Possessive Movement in the Czech Nominal Phrase     255

Reviews

Sue Brown and Catherine Chvany
A.A. Kibrik, I.M. Kobozeva, I.A. Sekerina. Fundamental'ny napravlenija sovremennoj amerikanskoj lingvistiki. Sbornik obzorov. [Basic trends in contemporary American linguistics: A collection of essays]     301

Article Abstracts

George Cummins

Indefiniteness in Czech

Abstract: In Czech there are no articles; determination (definiteness and indefiniteness), a linguistic universal, is known to be submerged in the wider domains of discourse context, sentence intonation, word order, and lexical quantification. The following study examines the interaction of these domains in the expression of indefiniteness, with spe cial attention to word order, speaker-knowledge entailments, and the four quantifiers nejaky, jakysi, jeden, and jakykoliv. It is shown that in some environments nejaky 'a; some' approaches the status of an indefinite article. In certain word-order contexts this quantifier is obligatory with animate subjects.

Maaike Schoorlemmer

Complex Event Nominals in Russian: Properties and Readings

Abstract: Derived nominals in Russian and many other languages come in types with different interpretations, different relations to the underlying verb and different argument realizations. This paper argues for an approach to these distinctions along the following lines:

In order to make sense of the nominalization data the first task is to distinguish between result nominals, Simple Event Nominals and Complex Event Nominals (CENs, Grimshaw 1990). This includes a discussion of the argument structure of the underlying verbs, of the derived nominals and their various argument realizations;

The second task is to clarify the origin of different readings of CENs, like 'manner of action', 'fact', 'event'. I contest the idea that argument realization is crucial in determining the various readings (Paduceva 1980, 1984). Instead, my claim (following Vendler 1967) is that context is the only factor relevant to the interpretation;

It is the status of the nominal as a CEN or result nominal that will in turn determine how the various arguments may be realized.

The context determination of the available reading extends to al possible noun phrases in a particular context. It turns out that in any context (i.e. reading) a CEN may occur in any argument realization.

Ludmila Veselovska

Possessive Movement in the Czech Nominal Phrase

Abstract: In this paper I demonstrate the semantic, morphological, and syntactic restrictions on possessive formation in Czech. Referring to the distinctions between possessive (poss) and genitive (gen) I argue that poss are nps while gens are dps in Czech and their complementary distribution is evidence for a syntactic movement which I call Possessive Movement. I propose that the potential of n to take an argument is encoded as a weak subcategorization feature +a of n. Referring to the Unlike Feature Condition I propose that if a cannot be satisfied at LF within the smallest np domain, it is transferred as strong to the N's functional projection d. The checking of the feature a of n takes place

a) at LF at the n level by an n-complement of form dp,

b) in syntax at the d level by spec-head relation between the d and np in spec(dp).

Contents

Articles

Ljiljana Progovac
Event pronominal to     3

Richard Schupbach
Intra-Linguistic Borrowing in Russian     41

Roumyana Slabakova
L2Acquisition of an Aspect Parameter     71

Andrew Spencer and Marina Zaretskaya
Pri-Prifixation in Russian      107

Reviews

Ronald Feldstein
Christina Y. Bethin. Slavic prosody: Language change and phonological theory     137

Gunter Schaarschmidt
Kevin Hannan. Borders of language and identity in Teschen Silisia     145

Jens Nørgård-Sørensen
Björn Hansen. Zur Grammatik von Referenz und Epizodizität     149

Article Abstracts

Ljiljana Progovac

Event pronominal to

Abstract: The primary goal of this paper is to provide an analysis of the demonstrative to in Serbo-Croatian when used to refer to events. To is argued to be an event pronominal with three basic functions, also exhibited by regular pronouns: deictic, anaphoric and bound-variable function. In its deictic use, to is argued to head a distinct functional projection, which projection is associated with quantification over events. In its anaphoric use, to refers to a previously mentioned event. In its bound-variable use, to is proposed to be the spell-out of the bound event pronominal, which constitutes a syntactic reflex of the semantic analysis of adverbials as predicates of events (see Davidson 1967). It is a virtue of this analysis that it can unify the three uses of the event pronominal to, explaining both the similarities and the differences. To the extent to which this is the only way to unify the three uses of to, the paper provides indirect support not only for the underlying quantification over events/states, but also for the syntacticization of certain aspects of this quantification.

Richard Schupbach

Intra-Linguistic Borrowing in Russian

Abstract: When languages come into contact, they influence, not only each other's vocabularies through borrowing, but they may also influence each other's grammatical structures. In cases of "high contact" one normally observes morphological simplification, i.e., "koineization" (Trudgill's term). Conversely, one expects "complication", to accompany "low contact" or peripheralization of a dialect (Andersen 1988). The present work concerns a case of "high contact" and resulting borrowing, not between different languages, but between different styles of a single language (see Bartsch 1987: 196f). As Trudgill predicted, "high-contact situations come in many different forms, and we will not expect to find simplification in those (very many) contact situations where childhood bilingualism and second-variety acquisition are the norm. In these situations, on the contrary, we are liable, although not certain, to find intensive borrowing and interpenetration of linguistic systems, with possible resulting complication. (Trudgill 1989: 232)" [Italics are mine, RS] This, along with reinterpretation of function, is what we observe as a result of inter-stylistic borrowing of derivational models in Russian. In this case the resulting "complication" is not only quantitative (Style Y takes on a new affix from Style X ); but it is qualitative as well.

Roumyana Slabakova

L2Acquisition of an Aspect Parameter

Abstract: The article studies a contrast in the aspectual marking of telicity in English and Slavic languages (most examples are from Bulgarian). A solution based on a syntactic decomposition of eventive verbs into a causal subevent and a resultative state subevent is proposed. A template approach to aspectual composition is outlined. The differences in English and Slavic aspectual usage are argued to be due to the null versus overt character of the telic morpheme and its phrase structure position. An experimental study, based on this parametric difference, and investigating the competence of Slavic native speakers acquiring English is presented. Results are interpreted in the light of current theories of second language learners' access to Universal grammar.

Andrew Spencer and Marina Zaretskaya

Pri-Prifixation in Russian

Abstract: We examine one of the traditional Russian Aktionsarten ('sposoby dejstvija'), the attenuative PRI- verb (e.g. priotkryt´ 'to open a little'). This is universally claimed to be a type of quantitative Aktionsart. However, we advance morphological, syntactic and semantic arguments against this assumption. PRI- verbs readily give secondary imperfectives, which is uncommon with true Aktionsarten. They also permit 'unselected objects' as in prisypat´ jamu 'to partly fill in a pit' (cf. *sypat´ jamu). This is never found with genuine Aktionsarten but is characteristic of a type of lexical derivation based on lexical subordination at the level of semantic representation. Finally, a careful investigation of the meaning of PRI- verbs show that they do not express quantification over their objects but instead quantify over a resultant state. This fits in well with an analysis as lexical derivation but is incompatible with current thinking on the semantics of quantitative Aktionsart.

Contents

Articles

Maria Babyonyshev
The Possessive Construction in Russian: A Crosslinguistic Perspective     193

Frank Y. Gladney
On the Syllabification of High Vowels in Late Common Slavic     235

Daniel Humphries
"Concrete Accomplishment" in Macedonian Imperfectives     251

Virginia Motapanyane
Preverbal Focus in Bulgarian     265

Olga Miseska Tomic
Non-First as a Default Clitic Position     301

Reviews

Steven Franks
Uwe Junghanns and Gerhild Zybatow, eds. Formale Slavistik     325

Ladislav Zgusta
Katja Sturm-Schnabl,ed. Der Briefwechsel Franz Miklosich's mit den Südslaven - Korespondenca Frana Miklosica z Juznimi Slovani     359

Article Abstracts

Maria Babyonyshev

The Possessive Construction in Russian: A Crosslinguistic Perspective

Abstract: The paper examines the syntactic and semantic properties of the Russian prenominal possessive construction. Evidence is offered for an analysis in which the possessive is inserted into the derivation as a nominal (not an adjective), and the "possessive form" is created when the N° undergoes head-movement in overt syntax and (eventually) adjoins to the possessive D°. It is shown that within such an analysis a number of semantic and lexical peculiarities of the construction are explained and, moreover, that they closely resemble the properties of N-to-D raising recently discussed for Romance languages in Longobardi 1994, 1996.

Frank Y. Gladney

On the Syllabification of High Vowels in Late Common Slavic

Abstract: Surface and intermediate [j] and [w] in Late Common Slavic are phonetic realizations of /i/ and /u/ as determined by the rules of syllabification, although in some cases syllabification is governed by the lexical specifications of individual morphemes rather than by their phonetic properties.

Daniel Humphries

"Concrete Accomplishment" in Macedonian Imperfectives

Abstract: In most Slavic literary languages prefixed perfective verbs have one corresponding derived imperfective built with one of the two historical imperfectivizing suffixes: -a+ and -ova+. Macedonian, however, derives two imperfectives for many prefixed perfective verbs and in many cases there is a substantial difference in meaning between these competing forms. This paper argues that a new grammatical category, concrete accomplishment, is responsible for such differences. In conclusion, historical causes are suggested for the development of this phenomenon, as well as predictions concerning its future.

Virginia Motapanyane

Preverbal Focus in Bulgarian

Abstract: Bulgarian preverbal focus involves overt movement to scope positions within TP or CP. In the framework of checking theory, this paper argues that the two strategies of focus movement follow from [focus] merging in T (when [focus] is abstract) or in C (when [focus] is morphological). Ensuing double feature checking on T or C leads to TP/CP configurations with multiple specifier structures. The distribution of [focus] on functional heads in structures with multiple specifiers accounts for crosslinguistic variation (e.g., exclusion of clefts, ban on wh-in-situ, multiple wh-movement). These facts support the hypothesis that [focus] acquires formal status and becomes visible for computation only in conjunction with the formal features [tense] and [wh].

Olga Miseska Tomic

Non-First as a Default Clitic Position

Abstract: The paper discusses the two cliticization strategies of the clitics in Macedonian tensed clauses: procliticization and encliticization. It is argued that, whenever a [+V, -N] host is available, the clitics are both syntactically and phonologically oriented towards that host­they are true verbal clitics, which form an extended local domain with the verb, to the extent that, when the verb moves, the clitics go with it as free riders. Otherwise, the clitics are oriented towards the head of the clause, but share a restriction with second-position clitics­like the latter, they cannot appear in clause-initial position. The second strategy is actually a default strategy, resorted to when a [+V, -N] host is not available. Accordingly, in Macedonian, the non-first position is a default clitic position.

Contents

Articles

Ilija Casule
The Functional Load of the Short Pronominal Forms and the Doubling of the Object in Macedonian     3

Sung-ho Choi
Aspect and Negated Modality in Russian: Their Conceptual Compatibility      20

Lawrence E. Feinberg
An Automorphic Approach to Paradigm Structure: Toward a New Model of Russian Case Morphology     51

Keith Langston
Pitch Accent in Croatian and Serbian: Towards an Autosegmental Analysis     80

John R. Leafgren
Bulgarian Clitic Doubling: Overt Topicality     117

Remark

Vladimir Orel 'Freedom' in Slavic     144

Reviews

Robert Orr
Laura A. Janda. Back from the brink: A study of how relic forms in languages serve as source material for analogical extensions     150

Gilbert C. Rappaport
David K. Hart. Topics in the structure of Russian: An introduction to Russian linguistics      164

Gary H. Toops
Marek Nekula. System der Partikeln im Deutschen und Tschechischen: Unter besonderer Berucksichtigung der Abtonungspartikeln     175

Article Abstracts

Ilija Casule

The Functional Load of the Short Pronominal Forms and the Doubling of the Object in Macedonian

Abstract: The article analyses the causation of the doubling of the object in Macedonian (where it reaches its most extreme development in comparison to the other Balkan languages) and argues that it is due to fundamental, intralinguistic systemic develop-ments. In addition to the well-known factors, both synchronically and diachronically extensive syntactic and other argumentation is provided to substantiate the claim that the preverbal and sentence-initial position of the short pronominal forms is crucial in the development of the doubling of the object in Macedonian. The article claims that the position of the clitics is a result of a major historical syntactic change in the order of the constituents in Macedonian, whereby it was transformed from a SOV language into a SVO language, leaving the pronominal clitics on the left side of the verb as a consequence of this transformation. This restructuring gave the short pronominal forms a greater functional load (as markers of finiteness, transitivity, definiteness, etc) thus strengthening their syntactic position within the doubling of the object.

Sung-ho Choi

Aspect and Negated Modality in Russian: Their Conceptual Compatibility

Abstract: This paper examines aspectual choice in the context of two negated modal predicates, ne moã´ and nel´jza. It argues the following points: first, a quantity of empirical data disconfirms the traditional view of the association of morphological aspect (imperfective vs. perfective) with the "kind" (deontic vs. dynamic) or "degree" (non-necessity vs. impossibility) of modality. Second, lexical aspect, in particular the aspectual property of [telicity], plays a role in determining aspectual selection in these contexts. Third, ne moã´ behaves differently from nel´zja with respect to aspectual semantics; these two show the differences in usage and criteria conditioning aspect. It is demonstrated that this stems from the fact that the ne moã´ construction may be "agentive", while the nel´zja construction may not. Fourth, while for the syntagm"ne moã´ + telic infinitive" aspect selection is based upon the topological nature of the telic situation, for the syntagm "nel´zja + telic infinitive" aspect selection is determined by the modal meanings. The modal domain relevant for aspectual choice, however, turns out to be the "direction" of modality; "abductive" impossibility triggers the use of the imperfective, and "deductive" impossibility, the use of the perfective. Finally, it is suggested that the proposed correlation between aspect and negated modality may well be explained in terms of conditional relation holding between states of affairs.

Lawrence E. Feinberg

An Automorphic Approach to Paradigm Structure: Toward a New Model of Russian Case Morphology

Abstract: Previous approaches to Russian case morphology have generally assumed that form directly follows function, at least in the sense that the shape of desinences and paradigms may be specified in terms of a small set of semantic or syntactico-semantic features. This paper proposes that the relationship between case function and form is indirect&emdash;mediated by a template or master paradigm in which morphosyntactic properties such as Nom and Loc are encoded as positions in abstract space according two coordinates, anterior/posterior and exterior/interior. Nom, defined as anterior and exterior, constitutes the base line of the system, consistent with its status as "zero case". Morphological marking is primarily a function of distance from nom along each of the template dimensions, with secondary marking occurring where the basic hierarchy is attenuated: loc (posterior-interior) is most marked according to the primary hierarchy and instr (posterior-exterior) according to the secondary. Actual paradigms represent variant interpretations of the template, ranging from optimal (threefold asymmetrical: nom-acc/gen-loc-dat/instr) to minimal (direct/oblique). While previous analyses of Russian declension are content to specify case mergers and paradigms, the automorphic model allows us to motivate both the direction of syncretism and the division into paradigms. In this way many long-standing quandaries, such as how to accommodate gen2/loc2 within the overall system of forms, find plausible solutions.

Keith Langston

Pitch Accent in Croatian and Serbian: Towards an Autosegmental Analysis

Abstract: Pitch accent systems, such as that of standard Croatian and Serbian (Cr/S), pose a number of problems for any phonological analysis. Although an approach operating with nonlinear representations seems best suited to this type of system, relatively little research has been done on Cr/S within this framework. The most promising attempts to provide an autosegmental account of Cr/S accentuation are represented by the work of Zec and Inkelas. While adopting certain aspects of their approach, the present study argues that some of the basic assumptions of their analysis need to be reconsidered. An alternative analysis is proposed which differs from this previous work in a number of respects, including the identification of the tone-bearing unit in Cr/S and the way in which phonological and morphological rules interact, both issues of some general theoretical significance.

John R. Leafgren

Bulgarian Clitic Doubling: Overt Topicality

Abstract: The phenomenon in Bulgarian referred to here as "clitic doubling", in which a direct or indirect object is formally represented not by a single NP, but rather by a clitic personal pronoun cooccurring in one and the same clause with some other, coreferential NP type, is interesting not only for its formal characteristics, but also for its distributional, functional properties. This article presents an analysis of the function of this construction which both accounts for its distribution in a data base of literary prose fiction and explains why attempts to account for clitic doubling using notions such as definiteness, emphasis, and word order are almost, but not quite, successful. The proposed analysis, which assigns to clitic doubling the function of overtly marking the topicality of the object, also bears on the important linguistic issue of optionality in language and on the definition of "topic".

Vladimir Orel

'Freedom' in Slavic

Abstract: The Slavic word for 'freedom' is reconstructed as *sveboda and its etymologies are evaluated. A new solution is suggested, based on the hypothesis of an original adjective *svebodú 'wildly growing'. This form is compared with Slav *sverûpú 'wildly growing, wild, furious, fierce' with a similar derivational structure and original meaning. While the first component of *svebodú is identified with IE *suªe- , Slav *svoj¸, its second part, *-bodú, is compared with Slav *bodú, *bodakú and other words for 'thorn' and 'thistle'. Thus, *svebodú happens to be fairly close to *sverûpú, with its second component identical with Slav *rûpú 'thorn, burdock, thistle'. Both words describe the state of wild growth as 'having one's thorns to oneself' but their further semantic development is different. In *svebodú the original meaning 'wildly growing' changes into 'independent' and 'free', and then an abstract noun *sveboda is created from feminine nominative singular of this adjective.