Journal of Slavic Linguistics

Contents

From the Editors     1

Catherine V. Chvany
Reflections: Slavic Linguistics: The View from France     2

Articles

David R. Andrews
The Russian Color Categories Sinij and Goluboj     9

Tania Avgustinova
On Bulgarian Verb Clitics     29

Dunstan P. Brown and Andrew R. Hippisley
Conflict in Russian Genitive Plural Assignment      48

Herbert Galton
The Phonological Influence of Altaic on Slavic     77

Tracy Halloway
King Focus in Russian Yes-No Questions     92

Cynthia Vakareliyska
Na-Drop in Bulgarian     121

Remarks and Replies

Rémi Camus
Eshche raz = n + 1: Repetition as Counting Off     151

Alexis Manaster-Ramer On Three East Slavic Non-Counterexamples to Stieber's Law     164

Reviews

Osten Dahl
Jens Norgard-Sorensen. Coherence theory: The Case of Russian     171

Edmund Gussman
Christina Y. Bethin. Polish syllables: The role of prosody in phonology and morphology     178

Article Abstracts

David R. Andrews

The Russian Color Categories Sinij and Goluboj

Abstract: Earlier relativist notions about color naming have yielded to the recognition that color categorization is a linguistic universal. The first comprehensive argument for universality is made by Berlin and Kay (1969), who propose a total possible inventory of eleven basic color categories. Subsequent work in bilingualism and prototype theory has led to refinements of Berlin and Kay's original thesis. This paper, which includes a formal color experiment, examines the treatment of the Russian color terms sinij 'dark blue' and goluboj 'light blue' within the framework of this research. The experiment includes informants from four groups: 1) Soviet Russians; 2) adult emigre acutes; 3) young adults who emigrated during childhood; and 4) Americans tested in English. Results suggest that sinij and goluboj are bona-fide basic terms in standard Russian and that this treatment is fixed by adulthood. Among the younger emigre acutes, however, there is definite evidence of semantic shift, the result of interference from English blue. The experiment helps confirm the theory of basic color categories as well as its addenda and revisions.

Tania Avgustinova

On Bulgarian Verb Clitics

Abstract: An analysis of clitic word order is proposed, based on the division of Bulgarian verb-complex clitics into core and peripheral with respect to the clitic cluster formation. Taking into account inherent prosodic properties, the treatment of the "movable" core clitics is separated from that of the peripheral strictly proclitic and strictly enclitic elements, which allows for attribution of apparently problematic clitic placements to the interaction of the two types.

Dunstan P. Brown and Andrew R. Hippisley

Conflict in Russian Genitive Plural Assignment

Abstract: Inflectional endings are assigned in languages by general principles, but these can come into conflict. We address the question of how such conflict is resolved. A particularly complex example is the Russian genitive plural, where we find that with soft-stem nouns there is a conflict between exponent assignment according to declension class and a default exponent assignment for soft-stem nouns. What is specially interesting is that the conflict here can be resolved by reference to subsystems over and above the paradigm, such as stress. We present an explicit account of the conflict and its mediation by basing our study on default inheritance. For this purpose we make use of the lexical knowledge representation language DATR. This allows us to demonstrate in the output provided that the correct forms are indeed predicted by our theory.

Herbert Galton

The Phonological Influence of Altaic on Slavic

Abstract: Slavic, as represented by Old Church Slavonic, exhibits a curious parallelism of "hard" and "soft" declensions based on the final consonant of the stem, which may be neutral or palatal. Many endings then begin with back versus front vowels. This is a most un-Indo-European feature, for IE is supposed to have had only one set of endings per declensional type, and suggests some strong phonetic influence on the emerging Slavic language, which is most likely to have come from the Huns or Avars, probably Turkic -speaking peoples, who dominated the Slavs between ca. 400-800 A.D. In their agglutinative language, front or back vowels in the stem require corresponding front or back vowels in all suffixes, and the process of attachment also affects the intervening co nsonants. In some consonants, such as velars and laterals, this effect is particularly marked, and there is a curious back counterpart of front /i/, a vowel like the Russian /y/, which is quite un-Indo-European. Its source as well as that of the three suc cessive palatalizations which set off Slavic from its Baltic matrix is probably to be sought in an Altaic influence which asserted itself in Slavs seeking to imitate the speech habits of their Altaic masters and military commanders. The grammatical system was not imitated on anything like this scale, but more words than commonly realized were borrowed, including the very name of the Slavs.

Tracy Halloway King

Focus in Russian Yes-No Questions

Abstract: This paper examines the structure of li yes-no questions and the distribution of focused elements in them. Li is a clitic complementizer which assigns a focus feature. If Spec-head agreement occurs, a maximal projection moves to SpecCP, where it is the focus of the question and hosts the clitic. If no maximal projection moves to SpecCP, then the verb in I^0 undergoes head-movement to C^0 in order to host the clitic. In these verb-initial structures, the entire clause is questioned. If the clause contains a focused constituent marked by stress, then that constituent is the focus of the question; the resulting reading is similar to what would result if the focused constituent had moved to SpecCP. However, if there is no stressed, focused constituent, the result is a "simple" yes-no question.

Cynthia Vakareliyska

Na-Drop in Bulgarian

Abstract: The article examines the syntactic phenomenon of na-drop, its distribution, and its implications for the nature of object doubling in Bulgarian. Na-drop is the optional omission in colloquial Bulgarian of the dative marker na from the object NP in a dative reduplicative sentence. That the dative pronominal clitic (PC) in such constructions operates as the sole dative marker for the reduplicated object NP suggests that Bulgarian doubling PCs in general may have a strong case-marking function. Testing with 23 native speakers shows that na-drop is tolerated well beyond its historical environment (doubling of 1sg and 2sg long-form pronouns). The subjects as a group found na-drop acceptable, to varying degrees, throughout the personal pronoun paradigm and with reduplicated object nouns and personal names. A major factor influencing acceptability was the position of the reduplicated object NP in the sentence. Tentative results also suggest a higher tolerance of na-drop in impersonal sentences.

Rémi Camus

Eshche raz = n + 1: Repetition as Counting Off

Abstract: English translation of a sample entry from the Dictionnaire des mots du discours en russe contemporain, providing a full description of the discouse functions of the collocation eshche raz.

Alexis Manaster-Ramer

On Three East Slavic Non-Counterexamples to Stieber's Law

Abstract: Three examples from East Slavic which have been cited as evidence that analogy can produce new phonemes are reexamined. It turns out that in each case the forms in question can be naturally explained as borrowings from a dialect in which the "new" phonemes had arisen by regular sound change into dialects without these phonemes.

Contents

Articles

Edna Andrews
Interpretants and Linguistic Change: The Case of -x- in Contemporary Standard Colloquial Russian     199

Christina Bethin
Neo-Acute Length in the North Central Dialects of Late Common Slavic     219

George Fowler and Michael Yadroff
The Argument Status of Accusative Measure Nominals in Russian     251

Steven Franks and Katarzyna Dziwirek
Negated Adjunct Phrases are really Partitive     280

Kevin Hannan
Analogical Change in West Slavic Be     306

William Mahota
The Genitive Plural Endings in the East Slavic Languages     325

Stefan M. Pugh
More on Glides in Contemporary Standard Russian: The Loss of Intervocalic /j/ and /v/     343

Reviews

Henrik Birnbaum
On the Ethnogenesis and Protohome of the Slavs: The Linguistic Evidence     352

Charles E. Townsend
Terence R. Carlton. Introduction to the Phonological History of the Slavic Languages     375

Article Abstracts

Edna Andrews

Interpretants and Linguistic Change: The Case of -x- in Contemporary Standard Colloquial Russian

Abstract: The following analysis deals with the appearance of /x/ in nominal lexemes where it would seem to be unmotivated (cf. kartoxa, Toxa, etc.). The occurrence of /x/ has several potential motivations, including: 1) the morphophonemic consonantal alternation x/s#; or 2) examples of the nominal suffix -x. The solution to this problem is established as a result of a detailed semantic analysis of all /x/-based nominal suffixes ({-ix-(a)}, {-ux-(a)}, { -ox-(a)}, {-ax-(a)}, and {-x-(a)}) and a description of derivational rules for lexemes in /x/. In order to present this analysis in its proper theoretical framework, the principles of linguistic sign theory, and, in particular, Peircean categories of inference and signs, are applied in articulating the specific principles that define diachronic linguistic change. The conclusions include statements concerning productivity of morphemes and the interrelationship between form and meaning.

Christina Bethin

Neo-Acute Length in the North Central Dialects of Late Common Slavic

Abstract: The shift of stress known as the neo-acute retraction took place in the context of emerging prosodic differences in Late Common Slavic (LCS). By recognizing that LCS dialects were differentiating in terms of whether they took the mora or the syllable as their prosodic domain, and by recognizing differences in syllable structure and their metrical implications, it is possible to account for the reflexes of the neo-acute retraction in the various dialects of LCS in a fairly principled way. The chronology of tone loss and the neo-acute retraction is particularly important in the North Central LCS dialects because this area does not preserve pitch accent, though differences in compensatory lengthening have been attributed to the effect of accent. I propose that what has been called "neo-acute lengthening" before weak jers in the North Central dialects was actually pretonic lengthening, and that it represents an attempt to maintain a certain metrical organization, the trochaic metrical foot, which was emerging in this area of LCS.

George Fowler and Michael Yadroff

The Argument Status of Accusative Measure Nominals in Russian

Abstract: This paper is a contribution to the theory of bare-NP adverbs based on an analysis of Accusative measure nominals in Russian. Duration phrases are classified into three discrete groups: arguments (with verbs like provesti `spend [time]'), quasi-arguments (with verbs in pro- and certain other prefixes), and non-arguments (other Accusative duration phrases), on the basis of the features [+, - theta-role] and [+, - referential]. It is established that case must be assigned to duration phrases independently of the verb. Two possible competing analyses of the mechanism of case assignment are proposed. One analysis relies upon a base-generated functional category of Case, with a distribution parallel to prepositions. The second analysis posits a null preposition that assigns case to duration phrases.

Steven Franks and Katarzyna Dziwirek

Negated Adjunct Phrases are really Partitive

Abstract: This article examines genitive measure adverbials (adjuncts), which occur in various Slavic languages in the context of sentential negation. Although this phenomenon resembles the genitive of negation, it is argued that such adverbials do not result from the genitive of negation rule, and are instead partitives. Polish and Russian data are employed to support this idea on semantic grounds, the "optionality" of both depending on whether or not there is a partitive interpretation. The primary mode of argumentation, however, is comparative. The claim that genitive adjuncts are really partitives is supported by a range of data drawn from a variety of Slavic languages. These data show that for any given language the status of the genitive adjunct construction is comparable to that of the partitive construction rather than to that of the genitive of negation construction. This state of affairs is obscured in Russian, where the three phenomena are equally felicitous. If one looks beyond East Slavic, however, the felicity of the genitive of negation and partitive diverges, making it possible to identify the true nature of these genitive adjuncts.

Kevin Hannan

Analogical Change in West Slavic Be

Abstract: The remodeling of present indicative be in dialects of Polish, Czech, and Slovak illustrates two different processes of analogical change. First, as seen in a variety of paradigmatic patterns from dialects of Silesia, Little Poland, Moravia, and Slovakia, 3rd-person forms were reinterpreted as the root of the paradigm. Second, preterite enclitics served as a model for new present-tense 1st-person enclitics -ch, -chmy. The geographic spread of these developments, which date to the late 15th and the 16th centuries, suggests the influence of southern Polish dialects. Such examples of analogical change present a means of typologically distinguishing the dialects which are spatially located within the center of the West Slavic dialect continuum from the peripheral dialects.

William Mahota

The Genitive Plural Endings in the East Slavic Languages

Abstract: Although Belorussian, Ukrainian, and Russian all have the genitive plural desinences {-ov}, {-ej}, and -O, their distribution in these languages varies substantially. This is in part due to analogical leveling to {-ov} in neuter and feminine substantives in Belorussian, and to the different ways in which stem-final hard and soft consonants correlate with the selection of desinences in each language. The consequences of the analogical spread of {-ov} are both morphophonemic (restriction of vowel-zero alternations in certain Belorussian stems, accentual modifications in Ukrainian), and semantic (markedness reversal and semantic marking with an unexpected desinence in all three). The spread of {-ov} to nouns of all genders both in the standard languages and in the dialects also represents the final stage of the loss of gender distinctions in the oblique plural cases of these languages, a process which was completed in the other oblique cases several centuries ago.

Stefan M. Pugh

More on Glides in Contemporary Standard Russian: The Loss of Intervocalic /j/ and /v/

Abstract: The loss of the glide /j/ in intervocalic position is a common occurrence in colloquial Russian; data show that this phenomenon is not restricted to substandard speech. The fricative /v/ enters into a close relationship with /j/, e.g., in Flier's "glide shift". This paper shows that the loss of /v/ in intervocalic position closely parallels the loss of /j/. Therefore it is more appropriate to regard /v/ as a glide like [w] rather than an obstruent, as is traditional in Russian phonemics.

Contents

Articles

Leonard Babby
A Theta-Theoretic Analysis of -en- Suffixation in Russian     3

Ronald Feldstein
The Nature and Use of the Accentual Paradigm as Applied to Russian     44

Frank Gladney
R stanovitsja 'stands up' and +i Imperfective Thematization     61

Eric P. Hamp
OCS velii-velikyi and -ok"-      80

Marvin Kantor
On the "Desire" to Hunt     83

Margaret Mills
On Russian and English Pragmalinguistic Requestive Strategies     92

Ljiljana Progovac
Locality and Subject-like Complements in Serbo-Croatian     116

Oscar Swan
Notionality, Referentiality, and the Polish Verb Be     145

Adger Williams
The Argument Structure of sja-Predicates     167

Review

Herbert Galton
Boris Hlebec. Aspects, phases and tenses in English and Serbo-Croatian     191

Article Abstracts

Leonard Babby

A Theta-Theoretic Analysis of -en- Suffixation in Russian

Abstract not available

Ronald Feldstein

The Nature and Use of the Accentual Paradigm as Applied to Russian

Abstract not available

Frank Gladney

Russian stanovitsja 'stands up' and +i Imperfective Thematization

Abstract: Russian stanovitsja 'stands up' is the -i- imperfective of stanet, not the -sja intransitive of stanovit. It is like saditsja 'sit down' and lozhitsja 'lie down', which are likewise -i- imperfectives (cf. sjadet, ljazhet), not, as the accent shows (cf. sadit, -lozhit), -sja intransitives. With stanet, stanovitsja shares thematic -n-, which conditions thematic -ov- as it does in ischeznovenie, dunovenie, etc. Although thematic -i- has imperfectivizing force in the prefixed imperfectives nosit, -vodit, -vozit, and -xodit, it does not have it with prefixed -stanovit. Hence in prefixed use sta- has tended to replace -nov- with productive thematizations.

Eric P. Hamp

OCS velii-velikyi and -ok"

Abstract: Building on Mares's demonstration that velii and velikyi are equally old and differ as +/-definite, *-ko- is thus seen to be semantically empty, i.e. the element I have identified in ú-stem adjectives and jabl"ko. This *-ko- with an alternant *-Hko- is then equated with IE *-H{o}k{^w}o- (BSLP 68, 77-92, 1973) 'facing, appearing', and this equation then explains the suffix of adjectives of extent such as vysòk", shiròk". A new etymology of Albanian plak 'old man', with a different *-ko-, is given.

Marvin Kantor

On the "Desire" to Hunt

Abstract not available

Margaret Mills

On Russian and English Pragmalinguistic Requestive Strategies

Abstract not available

Ljiljana Progovac

Locality and Subjective-Like Complements in Serbo-Croatian

Abstract: Verbs in Serbo-Croatian fall into two basic classes: those which select opaque complements (henceforth I-verbs, or Indicative-selecting verbs), and those which select transparent complements, allowing for domain extension (henceforth S-verbs, selecting Subjunctive-like complements). I-verbs are mostly verbs of saying and believing, whereas S-verbs are mainly verbs of wishing or requesting. The following dependencies are clause-bound with I-verbs, but can cross clause boundaries with S-verbs: lincensing of Negative Polarity Items, clitic climbing, and topic preposing. In addition, wh-movement in questions and relative clauses uses different strategies with I- and S-verbs.

The transparency of S-verbs correlates closely with their inability to select independent (uncontrolled) tense in their complements. I will propose that S-verbs allow domain extension by virtue of licensing deletion of Infl and Comp material in their comp lements at the level of Logical Form (LF). Such deletion will be possible with S-verbs, whose complements have recoverable Tense features, but not with I-verbs, whose complements host independent Tense. I will assume that the same mechanism can explain do main extension with subjunctive clauses in general.

Oscar Swan

Notionality, Referentiality, and the Polish Verb 'Be'

Abstract not available

Adger Williams

The Argument Structure of sja-Predicates

Abstract not available