Russian possessive question

[Loren Billings]

Wayles (and other SEELangs colleagues):

Olga Yokoyama (olga at humnet.ucla.edu) has been arguing for years that
non-reflexive possessive pronominals (_ego_, _ee_, and _ix_) are used in
such examples as the one below if one empathize with the (potential)
antecedent of the reflexive.  Obviously, _attestat_ is not a very
empathy-laden entity.  The example Yokoyama gave me was the ff:  _Ona
poshla k ee zaveduiushchei_ 'she's gone to (see) her boss', where the
speaker does not empathize with the clause's subject _ona_.  Many scholars
disagree with Yokoyama, however.  Paducheva, for example, told me once that
she (_ona_, not _ta_) just doesn't see this.  Yokoyama admits that there
seems to be some very pervasive proscription going on.  I'm posting a copy
to Yokoyama so she can correct any misattributions I make here.

Best,  --Loren (billings at mailer.fsu.edu)

>---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
>Sender:       "SEELangs: Slavic & E. European Languages & literatures list"
>              <SEELANGS at CUNYVM.BITNET>
>Poster:       "E. Wayles Browne" <ewb2 at cornell.edu>
>Subject:      Russian possessive question
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>I recently saw an Attestat zrelosti. It contains the line:
>Nastojashchij attestat daet ego vladel'cu pravo postuplenija v vysshie
>uchebnye zavedenija Sojuza SSR.
>And the same thing in Ukrainian, since this was from the Ukr. SSR:
>Cej atestat daje joho vlasnykovi pravo vstupu v vyshchi uchbovi zaklady
>Sojuzu RSR.
>Can someone tell me why it is "ego vladel'cu/joho vlasnykovi" and not
>"svoemu vladel'cu/svojemu vlasnykovi"?
>
>Wayles Browne, Assoc. Prof. of Linguistics
>Department of Linguistics
>Morrill Hall, Cornell University
>Ithaca, New York 14853, U.S.A.
>tel. 607-255-0712 (o), 607-273-3009 (h)
>fax 607-255-2044 (write FOR W. BROWNE)
>e-mail ewb2 at cornell.edu (1989 to 1993 was: jn5j at cornella.bitnet //
>jn5j at cornella.cit.cornell.edu)

Loren A. Billings
Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics
Florida State University
362 Diffenbaugh Building
Tallahassee, FL 32302-1020

Office Fax:    (904)644-0524
Office phone:  (904)644-8391
Home phone:    (904)224-5392

billings at mailer.fsu.edu