Existential Sentences, Be, and the Genitive of Negation in Russian
نویسندگان
چکیده
The Genitive of Negation (Gen Neg) in Russian involves alternation of Genitive with Nominative or Accusative under conditions which have been debated for many decades. What gives the construction its name is that Gen Neg occurs only under sentential negation; other allegedly crucial factors include topic-focus structure, unaccusativity, perspectival structure, the lexical semantics of the verb, and the referential status of the NP. Here we focus on Subject Gen Neg sentences, which on our account (following Babby and many Russian scholars) are normally Existential sentences. We address the problem raised by certain Gen Neg sentences with the copula byt’ and referential subjects which appear to be negations of Locative rather than Existential sentences. We review why Babby exempted some sentences with byt’ from his analysis, and present challenges raised by the two present tense forms of the verb. These problems lead to a re-examination of the distinction between Existential and Locative sentences, and of the distinction between sentential and constituent negation. We identify three distinct approaches to these issues, exploring their strengths and weaknesses. We do not argue conclusively for one approach but identify open questions which we believe need answers before the issues can be resolved.
منابع مشابه
Pros and Cons of a Type-Shifting Approach to Russian Genitive of Negation
In our work on the Russian Genitive of Negation (Borschev and Partee 1998a, 1998b, 2002a, 2002b, 2002c, Partee and Borschev 2002, 2004b, In press), we address the semantics of the Genitive of Negation construction and the interplay of lexical, compositional, and contextual factors. In this paper we focus on one interesting semantic proposal that has arisen recently (Kagan 2005, Partee and Borsc...
متن کاملThe Russian Genitive of Negation: Theme-Rheme Structure or Perspective Structure?
In recent work we have come to challenge assumptions that we shared (Borschev and Partee 1998a) with Babby (1980) concerning the role of Theme-Rheme structure in accounting for the nominative-genitive alternation in negated existential sentences (the NES construction, in the terms of Babby (1980), the classic work which we are building on). The challenge is exemplified most clearly in our “kefi...
متن کاملProperty-Denoting NPs and Non-Canonical Genitive Case
In this paper, I discuss the semantics of certain instances of non-canonical genitive Case in Russian. I use the term non-canonical genitive Case to refer to the phenomena whereby an object of the verb is assigned genitive Case, rather than accusative. More specifically, I discuss two phenomena: Genitive of Negation and Intensional Genitive. The paper is organized as follows. First, I introduce...
متن کاملNegation, Intensionality, and Aspect: Interaction with NP Semantics
In Section 2, we review (briefly and superficially) some of the basics of NP interpretations, the semantics of the relevant operator-like elements, and their interaction. Then we look at how some natural languages encode certain relations between NPs and certain operators, giving us a window on some aspects of the “logic of natural language”. There we find a puzzle in the Russian “genitive of n...
متن کامل