30.241, Diss: Russian; General Linguistics; Morphology; Syntax: Tatiana Philippova: ''Prepositional Repercussions in Russian: Pronouns, Comparatives and Ellipsis''

[The LINGUIST List]

LINGUIST List: Vol-30-241. Wed Jan 16 2019. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 30.241, Diss: Russian; General Linguistics; Morphology; Syntax: Tatiana Philippova: ''Prepositional Repercussions in Russian: Pronouns, Comparatives and Ellipsis''

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Date: Wed, 16 Jan 2019 10:27:17
From: Tatiana Philippova [philippo at post.bgu.ac.il]
Subject: Prepositional Repercussions in Russian: Pronouns, Comparatives and Ellipsis

 
Institution: Ben-Gurion University of the Negev 
Program: Department of Foreign Literatures and Linguistics: Linguistics 
Dissertation Status: Completed 
Degree Date: 2018 

Author: Tatiana Philippova

Dissertation Title: Prepositional Repercussions in Russian: Pronouns,
Comparatives and Ellipsis 

Dissertation URL:  https://ling.auf.net/lingbuzz/004016

Linguistic Field(s): General Linguistics
                     Morphology
                     Syntax

Subject Language(s): Russian (rus)


Dissertation Director(s):
Idan Landau
Nomi Erteschik-Shir

Dissertation Abstract:

The dissertation deals with Russian morphosyntactic phenomena involving
adpositions. It is mostly devoted to a study of the distribution of the
so-called pripredložnye ‘adprepositional’ pronouns in Russian. Their seemingly
chaotic distribution proved to be hard to account for. Especially puzzling was
the fact that beyond the P-object environments these pronouns, ‘n-forms’,
appear only in the genitive standard DP of the Russian phrasal comparative, in
which no preposition appears. 

I offer a uniform analysis of n-form distribution in Russian, which maintains
the intuition that they are ‘adprepositional’ (occur in P-object positions).
However, I refine the generalization stressing that n-forms are only licensed
in the complement of P-heads, making a crucial distinction between a vaguely
defined group of prepositions and lexemes that are syntactically P-heads. Only
‘prepositions’ that are P-heads license n-forms in their complement. 

I examine a large group of prepositions in detail, arguing that only some are
P-heads. The ‘comparative puzzle’ is solved by proposing that the phrasal
comparative involves a null P-head, licensing the genitive n-form in the
standard DP. Lexemes labelled prepositions in traditional grammars of Russian
are shown to split into three classes. Class I lexemes are P-heads, the only
‘true’ prepositions in a sense. Class II lexemes are structurally ambiguous
between N-heads or P-N combinations (the complement being an argument of the
nominal head), and a lexicalized P-head composed of syntactically inactive N-
and P-elements. Class III lexemes are never P-heads: they are P-N
combinations, transitive adverbs (A-heads) or gerunds (V-heads). 

This part of the dissertation has implications for the typology and
morphosyntax of pronouns and case. It may inform studies aimed at classifying
adpositions across languages. The classification of ‘prepositions’ developed
here may prove relevant for understanding the non-homogeneous behavior of
different prepositions in specific constructions. 

The remaining part of this dissertation delves deeper into the syntax of the
genitive standard of comparison in Russian phrasal comparatives. I show that
the standard DP and the DP it is contrasted with belong in the same clause.
This favors the simple, Direct Analysis of the standard DP, under which it
does not involve any silent structure. I offer a new generalization, the
Oblique Correlate Constraint, that imposes morphosyntactic restrictions on the
standard DP. I show that the constraint quite straightforwardly falls out from
a more complex, Reduced Clause Analysis, positing abstract structure behind
the standard. Looking at other languages, I suggest that the presence of such
a constraint in their phrasal comparative may signal that they should be
analyzed as reduced clauses. This adds to the growing body of literature on
the structure of phrasal comparatives across languages and contributes to the
notorious debate on whether phrasal standards of comparison should be analyzed
as simple DPs or as reduced clauses.




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