[Lingtyp] Optional determination?

[Juergen Bohnemeyer]

Thanks, Michael! Great examples! Indeed, I kinda figured that the constraint against that word order would be of a more categorical nature in Spanish (and other Romance languages) than in Russian. – Best – Juergen

Juergen Bohnemeyer (He/Him)
Professor, Department of Linguistics
University at Buffalo

Office: 642 Baldy Hall, UB North Campus
Mailing address: 609 Baldy Hall, Buffalo, NY 14260
Phone: (716) 645 0127
Fax: (716) 645 3825
Email: jb77 at buffalo.edu<mailto:jb77 at buffalo.edu>
Web: http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~jb77/

Office hours Tu/Th 3:30-4:30pm in 642 Baldy or via Zoom (Meeting ID 585 520 2411; Passcode Hoorheh)

There’s A Crack In Everything - That’s How The Light Gets In
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From: Michael Daniel <misha.daniel at gmail.com>
Date: Saturday, August 31, 2024 at 11:55
To: Juergen Bohnemeyer <jb77 at buffalo.edu>
Cc: LINGTYP at listserv.linguistlist.org <lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>
Subject: Re: [Lingtyp] Optional determination?
Dear Juergen,

this does not relate to the essence of your question, but let me indicate, at the empirical level, that your grammaticality judgment seems too strong in the case of Russian. Consider the following excerpt from a poem by Federico Garcia Lorca, in the best known translation by Anatolij Geleskul:

Так дай хотя бы подняться к высоким этим перилам!
О дайте, дайте подняться к зеленым этим перилам.

(Note that in the original, the inverse order is indeed impossible

–Dejadme subir al menos
hasta las altas barandas,
¡dejadme subir!, dejadme
hasta las verdes barandas.

- but should I now step carefully about my own judgements)

Michael

--
Михаил Даниэль
Я осуждаю агрессию моей страны против Украины.
Michael Daniel
I condemn my country's aggression in Ukraine.


сб, 31 авг. 2024 г. в 03:14, Juergen Bohnemeyer via Lingtyp <lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org<mailto:lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>>:
Dear all — I’m wondering to what extent it makes sense to talk about determiners and determination as a grammatical process in languages in which the would-be determiners are syntactically optional. In other words, is there such a thing as optional determination?

Consider for example Russian:


(1)                  Я прочитал эту зеленую книгу

‘I read this green book’

(2)                  Я прочитал зеленую книгу

‘I read a/the green book

(3)                  *Я прочитал зеленую эту книгу

Argument positions can be filled by non-maximal projections* as in (2), unlike in Germanic and Romance, so that can’t be a basis for talking about determination in Russian. But what about (3)? Despite Russian having fairly free word order, the order in (3) seems all but ungrammatical. But is it parsimonious to invoke determination to account for this ordering constraint? Has anybody looked into this, in Russian or any other language without obligatory determination, or found any other kind of (strictly empirical) evidence of a categorical difference between maximal and non-maximal nominal projections in such languages?

(*I’m looking at this in theory-neutral terms, so I’m disregarding here the DP analysis.)

Thanks! – Juergen



Juergen Bohnemeyer (He/Him)
Professor, Department of Linguistics
University at Buffalo

Office: 642 Baldy Hall, UB North Campus
Mailing address: 609 Baldy Hall, Buffalo, NY 14260
Phone: (716) 645 0127
Fax: (716) 645 3825
Email: jb77 at buffalo.edu<mailto:jb77 at buffalo.edu>
Web: http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~jb77/

Office hours Tu/Th 3:30-4:30pm in 642 Baldy or via Zoom (Meeting ID 585 520 2411; Passcode Hoorheh)

There’s A Crack In Everything - That’s How The Light Gets In
(Leonard Cohen)
--

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