Ukr _lysta_

[Todd Armstrong]

It seems to me that in Polish there is a similar situation.  For example,
one says "Zapale papierosa;" "Znalazlem grzyba."  In both cases, one would
expect the accusative inanimate (for 'cigarette' and 'mushroom') but finds
instead the accusative _animate_ ending.

Todd Armstrong
Russian Dept.
Grinnell College
armstron at ac.grin.edu


>Dear Loren:
>
>        The form _lysta_ in your example is not a genitive singular, but
>the expected accusative singular. A small group of semantically inanimate
>masculine nouns are grammatically animate, _lyst_ among them.
>        Note the recent book by Diana Wieczorek, _Ukrainskij perfekt na
>-no, -to na fone polskogo perfekta,_ Wroclaw: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu
>Wroclawskiego, 1994 (= Slavica Wratislaviensia 83).
>
>Best regards,
>
>Michael Flier
>
>
>On Mon, 13 Nov 1995, Loren A. Billings wrote:
>
>> Dear colleagues,
>>
>> This is the first of several queries I'll be posting in the next day or two
>> having to do with an impersonal construction in Ukrainian (Ukr) and Polish
>> (Pol).  I'd appreciate it if you'd pass these along to Ukr or Pol specialists
>> at your deptartments who are off-line.
>>
>> In the sentence _Mnuiu oderzhano lysta_, the last word appears to be in the
>> GEN.SG; is this so?  Why?
>>
>> Loren Billings
>> billings at mailer.fsu.edu
>>
>----------------------- End forwarded message -----------------------