Pros and Cons of a Type-Shifting Approach to Russian Genitive of Negation (original) (raw)
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The Semantics of Russian Genitive of Negation: The Nature and Role of Perspectival Structure
Semantics and Linguistic Theory, 2015
An affirmative AES obligatorily has a postverbal subject, while in a negative NES, where the difference is marked by case, the word order can vary. A common view among Russian linguists is that NES's are impersonal, but not AES's 3 : "These sentences are impersonal only when negated. If one removes the negation, they become personal" (Peškovskij, 1938, p.334). Examples (5-8) illustrate alternating pairs and cases where either Gen or Nom is obligatory. (5) a. NDS: Stok talyx vod ne nabljudalsja. Runoff-NOM.M.SG melted water NEG was.observed-M.SG 'No runoff of thawed snow was observed.' b. NES: Stoka talyx vod ne nabljudalos'. Runoff-GEN.M.SG melted water NEG was.observed-N.SG 'No runoff of thawed snow was observed.' (= There was no runoff.) (6) a. NDS: Moroz ne čuvstvovalsja. Frost-NOM.M.SG NEG be.felt-M.SG 'The frost was not felt.' (E.g. we were dressed warmly). b. NES: Moroza ne čuvstvovalos'. Frost-GEN.M.SG NEG be.felt-N.SG 'No frost was felt (there was no frost).'
The Genitive of Negation in Russian
This paper discusses the genitive of negation in Russian, one of the most well-studied case alternations that exists in the language and the most well-known diagnostic for unaccusativity. Direct objects and subjects of unaccusative predicates may occur in the genitive case under sentential negation, alternating with accusative and nominative, respectively. When these Noun Phrases (NPs) appear in the genitive, they tend to receive an indefinite, non-specific, or existential interpretation. Recent semantic analyses of this construction argue that such NPs are best treated as properties of type <e,t>, which are the result of a type-shifting operation. In this paper, we examine five different types of approaches in analyzing this construction and show that in spite of the range of proposals that exists, a number of issues remain. The genitive of negation presents a puzzle that lies at the heart of the syntax-semantics interface. Putting together the syntactic and semantic generalizations that have been noted for this construction in a coherent way can shed light on the overall architecture of the grammar.
The Russian genitive of negation: Theme-rheme structure or perspective structure
Journal of Slavic Linguistics, 2002
Abstract. In recent work we have come to challenge assumptions that we shared (Borschev and Partee 1998a) with Babby (1980) concerning the role of Theme-Rheme structure in accounting for the nominative-genitive alternation in negated existential sentences (the NES construction, in the terms of Babby (1980), the classic work which we are building on). The challenge is exemplified most clearly in our “kefir example”:(i)[Ja iskal kefir.] Kefira v magazine ne bylo.[I looked-for kefir.] Kefir-GEN-m-sg in store NEG was-n-sg '[I was ...
Genitive of negation and scope of negation in Russian existential sentences
Annual Workshop on Formal Approaches to …, 2002
Introduction As noted by Brown (1999), there is general agreement in the literature on Russian" genitive of negation"(GenNeg) that GenNeg occurs only when the NP in question is within the scope of sentential negation (NEG). The apparent optionality of GenNeg within the scope of negation is a point of difficulty, with authors divided about whether the choice between Genitive and Nominative or Accusative in such cases is accompanied by some difference in syntactic structure and/or in semantics or pragmatics. ...
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In many languages, existential sentences have a special syntactic shape, different from regular subject-predicate sentences. This has traditionally been thought of as a distinct construction, rather than an instance of verbal diathesis, although there have long been approaches which have suggested that either of two arguments of be might become the subject, or subject-like (Chvany 1975, Moro 1997). In Russian, with its “freedom” of word order and lack of articles, the difference between existential and “plain” sentences is not ...
Existential sentences, BE, and the genitive of negation in Russian
Existence: Semantics and syntax, 2007
The Genitive of Negation (Gen Neg) in Russian involves alternation of Genitive with Nominative or Accusative under conditions which have been debated for many decades. What gives the construction its name is that Gen Neg occurs only under sentential negation; other allegedly crucial factors include topic–focus structure, unaccusativity, perspectival structure, the lexical semantics of the verb, and the referential status of the NP. Here we focus on Subject Gen Neg sentences, which on our account (following Babby and many ...