Journal of Slavic Linguistics最新文献

The paper presents two experiments which studied processing of different case forms of Russian nouns in a sentential context. Target sentences contained a preposition requiring a particular case, and in different experimental conditions, we used a noun in the correct case or in several other cases after it. Many previous studies have compared case forms in isolation, both in Russian and in other languages, but our study revealed that different factors played a role in a sentence: grammaticality and trans-paradigmatic syncretism of case affixes. The former finding was expected, while the latter was novel. Trans-paradigmatic syncretism is discussed in several theoretical approaches and usually assumed to be purely accidental. Its relevance for processing is important both for theoretical morphology and for psycholinguistics.

An analysis is presented for the prosody of four groups of forms (infinitive, present tense, passive participle and the deverbal noun) of the most numerous theme-vowel class in Neo-Štokavian (characterised by the theme vowel i). A cyclic analysis of en-participles and je-nominalisations is proposed, showing that the latter contain the former. As noted in traditional grammars, this approach is challenged by the fact that je-nominalisations typically have the prosodic pattern of the infinitive, while the en-participle displays a neutralisation of lexical prosody. The analysis demonstrates that en-participles are indeed contained in je-nominalisations, but do not trigger a phonological cycle in them, which is why tonal contrasts survive.

Slavic verbal prefixes are traditionally divided into lexical and superlexical types. Lexical prefixes are base-generated below the verb, while superlexical prefixes are generated within the verb's functional projection. However, this analysis incorrectly predicts their linearization. We propose that all verbal prefixes correspond to argument-structural effects, generated as heads of a voice projection. Our PF analysis follows Embick & Noyer (2001), with heads linearizing bottom-up, accompanied by local dislocation. Default dislocation is string-vacuous; inversion occurs only when the head participates in allomorphic realization. Strict implementation of this algorithm precisely yields the observed surface order.

This paper offers new insights into the status of secondary imperfective morphology and its interaction with different classes of aspectual affixes based on the analysis of their compatibility with basic perfective and basic imperfective VP idioms in Polish. We provide new evidence in favor of the vP-external status of secondary imperfective morphology and we propose a new architecture of aspectual morphology in Polish in which there are two classes of vP-external superlexical prefixes: high and low. The former are projected in several functional projections above secondary imperfective morphology while the latter are projected below it in a single dedicated functional projection.

This paper examines how grammatical categories are structured in classes with different degrees of syntactic deficiency, paying special attention to pronouns. We take Cardinaletti & Starke's (1999) tripartite classification of pronouns as a starting point of our discussion and show that their three-way distinction is not sufficient to fully capture the phenomenon, based on old and modern Slavic data. We also demonstrate that their "Minimize Structure" principle is challenged by diachronic data from Slavic.

Assuming that features on functional heads are variables (Borer 2005), we expect to find syntactic operations and functional elements that target and manipulate these variables beyond matching and valuation in agree. We argue that such syntactic operations and functional elements exist. This paper presents such a functional element: a polarity operator manipulating features of a nominal functional head it modifies. The empirical motivation for our proposal comes from parallel systematic homophony over the same set of functional interpretations and features within the nominal extended projection in West Slavic (here, Czech and Polish) and Arabic dialects, primarily Levantine Arabic.

This paper addresses the issue of control and raising properties in Russian dative modal constructions with the overt modal element of obligation/necessity nužno 'need'. Using traditional syntactic tests to distinguish raising from control (Davies and Dubinsky 2008), I show that the subject of the lower clause under nužno can be either an overt DP (raising) or PRO controlled by the matrix subject, confirming the correlation between structural selection and interpretive possibilities. Similar to English ambiguous verbs (e.g., begin, threaten), the modal element nužno can participate in different syntactic structures. I ague that syntactic differences are attributed to the unspecified semantics of nužno, resulting in two possible interpretations of the same modal construction.

Crosslinguistic work on the meanings of intonational tunes across clause types remains rare. Rudin (2018a) notes an apparent correlation between the behavior of declarative and imperative sentences with rising terminal contours. Languages in which 'rising declaratives' comprise non-canonical biased questions allow for 'rising imperatives', interpreted as suggestions, while languages in which rising declaratives comprise canonical neutral questions disallow rising imperatives. Bulgarian and Macedonian, closely related languages which differ in the status of their rising declaratives, provide an ideal test case for investigating this correlation. Initial investigation of these two Balkan Slavic languages lends support to the prediction that rising imperatives occur only in languages whose rising declaratives are biased questions.

The current work offers an analysis of definite marker placement in Bulgarian, deriving it through postsyntactic movement of D to a head bearing nominal features, with locality defined in terms of feature-relativized closest c-command. In addition to capturing previous observations about the distribution of the definite marker, the analysis is supported by novel evidence from exceptionally inflectionless modifiers in the language. The account is in line with a more general formulation of postsyntactic movement in terms of c-command, and highlights the relevance of exceptionally inflectionless elements to morphosyntactic theory.

This paper is concerned with multiple source left branch extraction in Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian, where left branch elements of multiple NPs are extracted. It shows that while multiple source left branch extraction is possible, it exhibits ordering restrictions. It demonstrates that these locality effects are based on an important fact that has also been noticed on completely different grounds for Case in left branch extraction by Dadan (2020): left branch elements enter feature-sharing with the elements they modify not in their base position, but after they undergo movement. It is argued that the observed locality effects can be accounted for in a system based on Bošković's (2007) proposal that movement is driven by the presence of an uniterpretable uK feature on the moving element, as well as Bošković's (2020, 2021) proposal that uK disrupts labeling (Chomsky 2013).