Microsyntax meets macrosyntax: Russian neg-words revisited

Abstract

This paper offers a new analysis of Russian syntactic idioms consisting of stressed general negation n´e- fused with a wh-word (k-word). The elements from this class take infinitival complements and select dative subjects. The clauses with Russian neg-words like mne negde spat’ ‘I have no space to sleep’ and their affirmative counterparts represent the modal existential construction conveying the meaning ‘p is (not) available & X can (not) do q’. I argue that while the perspective of checking Russian modal existentials on a class of embedded wh-infinitives is important, it must be complemented by a comparison of idioms of the mne negde spat’ type with two productive sentence patterns—dative-predicative and dative-infinitive structures. The former are control structures, where dative subjects are matrix clause elements, while the latter have raising properties. Syntactic idioms display mixed properties: on the one hand, they match the overt syntax of dative predicatives, on the other hand, show residual raising effects and license derived non-animate subjects. Like root dative-infinitive structures, syntactic idioms express the meaning of external (alethic) modality, but the same type of modality can be expressed by some dative predicatives. The clauses with neg-words originated as embedded dative-infinitive structures, a type marginally acceptable in Modern Russian, while the dative-predicative construction extends its coverage and assimilates neg-words. The neg-words are derived by the movement of k-words into the matrix clause. If a case-marked k-word raises to a non-argument position, it loses morphological case and the neg-word is reanalyzed as a predicative. If a case-marked k-word raises to the subject position, the neg-word inherits the case of the k-word, which is possible only for dative k-words komu and čemu.