More on Ukrainian _vono_ and _joho_

Fri Aug 29 01:03:29 UTC 1997

I was hoping nobody would bring up pronouns, but Wayles Browne
<ewb2 at cornell.edu> did.  In fact, pronominals were what originally got me
interested in the Ukrainian -no/-to construction.  I need to add one other
complication to Wayles's otherwise accurate posting:

----------------------

I wrote,

>(III)  The reason I write "neut.sg." in scare quotes in (f) and (h) is
>that, at least in Ukrainian, there is good reason to distinguish real
>neuter-singular agreement--i.e., with a real neuter noun, as in (i)--with
>non-agreement, as in (h) and (j).
>
>i.   Vikno                bulo zastavlene              (kvitamy)
>     [window]neut.nom.sg. [was cluttered]neut.sg        flowers
>
>j.   Vikno                bulo zastavleno              (kvitamy)
>     [window]neut.acc.sg  [was cluttered]non-agreement  flowers

----------------------

Then Alina Israeli <aisrael at american.edu> asked,

>How do we know that it is Nom i (i) and Acc in (j) and not vice versa?

----------------------

Then I answered that nominal expressions with no inherent agreement
features (e.g., quantified expressions like _pivkimnaty_ "1/2 room")
REQUIRE the non-agreeing form (in -no/-to).

----------------------

Then Wayles wrote the following (I've added the asterisks to indicate
confirmation of Wayles's suppositions):

>Ukrainian doesn't distinguish nominative and accusative on neuter
>nouns, but it does distinguish them on neuter pronouns (vono = nom.,
>joho = acc.). If Loren is correct (and I believe he _is_ correct),
>sentence i with a pronoun will be
>i'      Vono bulo zastavlene (kvitamy).
>and not
>i''    *Joho bulo zastavlene (kvitamy).
>
>And sentence j with a pronoun will be
>j'      Joho bulo zastavleno (kvitamy).
>and not
>j''    *Vono bulo zastavleno (kvitamy).
>Can a Ukrainian-speaking list member confirm this?

----------------------

Now for my own rejoinder:  (Incidentally, I happen to have the services of
a native Ukrainian speaker as a houseguest this month, so all this is
empirically confirmed.)

The "other complication" I refer to above is that _vono_ can be both a
referential personal pronoun (i.e., "it" referring back to some
neuter-singular nominal expression such as _vikno_ "window") or it can be
pleonastic (also referred to as "expletive" and "dummy", Russ.
"psevdomestoimenie", in the linguistic literature).  Pleonastic
pronominals, as in English _It's dark_, where _it_ does not refer back to
any neut.sg. thing, but is a place-holder in the syntax.  Ukrainian and
Russian make use of _vono_ and _ono_ as a pleonastic nominal, as the
examples in (m) and (n) (respectively).

(m)  ^S^co  vono         zna^cyt',       ^s^co na vstupi
     what   it           means           that  on onset
     (acc.) neut.nom.sg. pres.(non-agr.)          masc.loc.sg.

     v    nove ^zyttje [sic.] meni    perebihaje  dorohu
     into [new life]          me      runs.across road
          neut.(acc.)sg.      dat.sg. 3.sg.       acc.fem.sg.

     ocja skotyna v  ljuds'kij podobi?
     [this beast] in [human    form]
     fem.nom.sg.     fem.loc.sg.

     "What does it mean that, on the onset of (my) new life,
     my path is crossed by this beast in human form?"
     [Billings (1993:3), citing Simovy^c (1919:213)]

(n)  Ono          i    ponjatno,  v  ix     kongresse dojarok     net.
     it           even understood in [their congress] milkmaids   none
     neut.nom.sg.      (non-agr.)    masc.loc.pl.     fem.gen.pl.

     "It goes without saying; their congress has no milkmaids."

The example in (n) was uttered at a Communist Party congress by a milkmaid
who had recently visited the United States Congress.  (I type it from
memory, Bob Rothstein, U. Massachusetts, Amherst, supplied it to me.  I've
misplaced the reference.)

In both languages the use of _vono_ or _ono_ is quite colloquial (some
would even call it substandard).  Still, this phenomenon is attested.

Now, in a Ukrainian participial clause, the syntactic subject can be
occupied by pleonastic _vono_, as the following example shows:

(o)  --  ^Cerez   vikno                  vydno.
         through  [window]neut.(acc.)sg. visible

     --  Ni, vono         vikno          zastavleno kvitamy!
         no  it           window         cluttered  flowers
             neut.nom.sg. neut.(acc.)sg. non-agr.   fem.inst.pl.

     "You can see through the window."
     "No, the window is cluttered/obstructed with flowers!"

The use of overt pleonastics, as the preceding interchange shows, carries
emphatic force; this is discussed in Franks (1995, chapter 7).  I just
elicited this example (but numerous other examples appear in Kurylo 1930,
my copy of which is stored somewhere in South Carolina!).

That isn't all, as the following gem of an example shows:

(p)  Ty      jomu    stry^zeno, a   vono    tobi    holeno.
     you     him/it  cut.hair   but it      you     shaven
     nom.sg. dat.sg. non-agr.       nom.sg. dat.sg. non-agr.

     "You [tell] him/her 'shorn', and s/he [tells] you 'shaven'."
     [Billings & Maling (1995:216), citing Matvijenko (1936:43)]

Example (p) describes a disagreeable person, who, no matter what you tell
him/her, always says the opposite.  Here _holeno_ in the second clause
isn't really the predicate agreeing with _vono_; rather, there is a missing
verb "said" in each clause.  (In colloquial English this example might be
glossed, "And I'm like 'haircut' and s/he's like 'shave'.")  The use of
_vono_ here refers to a human but with extreme distaste shown toward
him/her, hence the lack of gender in the referential pronouns.

Suffice it to say, Wayles Browne's comment was accurate.  It doesn't just
stop there, however.  These issues are discussed at length in Billings &
Maling (1995), which can also be accessed on the Web at the following URL:

<http://clover.slavic.pitt.edu/~jsl/index.html>

REFERENCES:

BILLINGS, Loren (1993)  "A note on expletives in Ukrainian
     -no/-to passives."  _The Slavic syntax newsletter_ 3, 1-8.

BILLINGS, Loren and Joan MALING (1995)  "Accusative-assigning
     participial (-no/-to) constructions in Ukrainian, Polish
     and neighboring languages:  An annotated bibliography."
     Part 1 (A-M) _Journal of Slavic linguistics_ 3:1, 177-217.
     Part 2 (N-Z) _Journal of Slavic linguistics_ 3:2, 396-430.

FRANKS, Steven L. (1995) _Parameters of Slavic morphosyntax._
     New York: Oxford Univ. Press.

KURYLO, O. B. (1930) "Pro ukrajins´ki bezpidmetovi konstrukciji
     z prysudkovymy dijeprykmetnykamy na -no, -to."  _Zbirnyk
     sekciji hramatyky ukrajins´koji movy_ 1: 1-39. [Kyjiv:
     Naukovo-doslidnyj instytut movoznavstva pri
     Vseukrajins´kij akademiji nauk.]

MATVIJENKO, O. (1936) "Pasyvni prysudky na -no, -to i -nyj, -tyj
     v ukrajins´koji movi (Materialy do problemy: hramaty^cnyj
     rid, aktyvnyj ta pasyvnyj stan)."  _Movoznavstvo_ 8: 21-47.

SIMOVY^C, Vasyl´. ([1919]/1986) _Hramatyka ukrajins´koji movy._
     (= Ukrajins´ki hramatyky, 5. O. Horba^c [Horbatsch], ed.)
     Munich: Ukrajins´kyj vil´nyj un-t, Filosofi^cnyj fakul´tet.