Russian possessive question

[Olga T. Yokoyama]

Julia Trubikhina wrote:

Correct me if I am wrong, but it seems to me that in Yokoyama's example
"ona poshla k ee zaveduiushchei" "ee", in fact, is less formal than
"svoei" (just the opposite to the previous example): many natives will
use it in spoken Russian but it doesn't sound right to me.

>>>>> I agree that this ex is less formal than 'k svoej' would be
(except that we should be able to define "formal" in some linguistically
meaningful way that would be consistent with the fact that in some cases
reflexives are felt to be less formal while in other cases they are felt
to be more formal). It is also true that in many contexts the reflexive
option would be preferred in a sentence like "Ona posla k ...". It is
also quite true that the non-reflexive options can often be heard in
colloquial R. Note moreover that the third option of no possessive at
all is also well attested. These exx cannot be discussed out of context
because the lexical and pragmatic surrounding of the possessive (or the
zero) makes all the difference. Discourse grammar attmepts to account
for the variation taking all these factors into consideration and
controlling them in a principled way. Prescription (in this case, the
well-known perscriptive rule that requires reflexive possessvie pronouns
under coreference with a 3rd person subject) is not part of discourse
grammar but part of normative grammar. In the case of R possessives, the
normative grammar does not capture the actual usage (which is not
limited, in fact, to colloquial R, as there are plenty of examples in R
literature that violate this normative rule). This is not at all unusual
in the case of discourse-controlled phenomena.

Olga Yokoyama