Existential Sentences, BE, and the Genitive of Negation in Russian

Partee, Barbara H.; Borschev, Vladimir

doi:10.1007/978-1-4020-6197-4_6

Cited by 97 publications

(25 citation statements)

References 32 publications

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“…As can be seen by comparing (9a) with (9b) and (9c), a DE is observed in affirmatives, whereas (9d) to (9f) illustrate the lack of any such effect in negatives; in particular, (9f) is grammatical, even though the DP is definite. In other words, affirmative existentials in Russian behave like those in English, exhibiting a definiteness effect, whereas negative existentials differ from English, showing no definite/indefinite contrast (see Borschev & Partee, 1998;Padučeva, 2000, amongst others It is also important to note that with weak DPs, the preferred word order in an existential (under neutral intonation) is 'locative -est'/net -subject' , as in (9a) and (9d); in contrast, with strong DPs in negative existentials, the usually preferred word order is 'subject -net -locative' , as in (9f) (see Partee & Borschev (2007) for an overview and discussion). Thus, the word order in the negative existential in (9f) sounds somewhat more natural than (9e).…”

Section: Cross-linguistic Differences In the Definiteness Effectmentioning

confidence: 99%

Restrictions on definiteness in second language acquisition

White

Belikova

Hagstrom

et al. 2012

LAB

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In this paper we investigate whether learners of L2 English show knowledge of the Definiteness Effect (Milsark, 1977), which restricts definite expressions from appearing in the existential there-insertion construction. There are crosslinguistic differences in how restrictions on definiteness play out. In English, definite expressions may not occur in either affirmative or negative existentials (e.g. There is a/*the mouse in my soup; There isn't a/*the mouse in my soup). In Turkish and Russian, affirmative existentials observe a restriction similar to English, whereas negative existentials do not. We report on a series of experiments conducted with learners of English whose L1s are Turkish and Russian, of intermediate and advanced proficiency. Native speakers also took the test in English, Turkish and Russian. The task involved acceptability judgments. Subjects were presented with short contexts, each followed by a sentence to be judged as natural/unnatural. Test items included affirmative and negative existentials, as well as items testing apparent exceptions to definiteness restrictions. Results show that both intermediate and advanced L2ers respond like English native speakers, crucially rejecting definites in negative existentials. A comparison with the groups taking the test in Russian and Turkish confirms that judgments in the L2 are quite different from the L1, suggesting that transfer cannot provide the explanation for learner success.

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Section: Cross-linguistic Differences In the Definiteness Effectmentioning

confidence: 99%

Restrictions on definiteness in second language acquisition

White

Belikova

Hagstrom

et al. 2012

LAB

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“…Partee and Borschev 2007). Existential sentences are notorious for their integrated theme-rheme-structure.…”

Section: Cognitive Motivation Of Sp-inversionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Subject-Predicate inversion and its cognitive sources

Paducheva¹

2010

Russ Linguist

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In Russian, as well as in several other languages, fronting of a constituent that occupies the final position in a sentence is often accompanied by Subject-Predicate inversion:(1) a. Ребенок требует любви и заботы. b. Любви и заботы требует ребенок.(2) a. Мой брат живет в Казани. b. В Казани живет мой брат.Word order in (1) and (2) should be examined relating to intonation, particularly in connection with the location and type of phrasal accents, i.e. in the context of 'linear-accentual structures' of the sentence. There are several types of transformations in Russian, which change the linear-accentual structure. One of them is 'thematic preposition', i.e. fronting of a constituent accompanied by a change of phrasal accent from a falling rhematic pitch to a raising thematic one, cf.(2). The analysis focuses on sentences consisting of theme and rheme, where we deal with a kind of compound rheme consisting of more than one word, i.e. verb and 'rhematic centre'. In the present paper, the following explanation of the Subject-Predicate inversion is put forward. The old subject NP and the remnant of the old predicate VP unite into a new rheme, since a two-component structure constitutes the most natural way of organizing the communicative structure of a sentence. In this way a sentence with a fronted constituent acquires a new two-component linear-accentual structure. Now, the nominative NP in the constituent-initial position would have contributed to the disintegration of the newly born rhematic constituent-it is Subject-Predicate inversion that provides integration.Аннотация В русском языке, как и в ряде других, перенос слова (или составляющей) из конца предложения в начало часто требует изменения относительного расположе-ния подлежащего и сказуемого (точнее-группы подлежащего и группы сказуемого): E. Paducheva ( ) 125080,

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“…In concomitance with negation, the pivot may take genitive case, as is notoriously the case with the Russian genitive of negation (Babby 1980, Borschev and Partee 1998, 2002a, 2002b, Partee and Borschev 2007.…”

Section: Temmentioning

confidence: 99%

Existentials and locatives in Romance dialects of Italy

Bentley¹

2015

Existentials and Locatives in Romance Dialects of Italy

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This chapter discusses various existing definitions of existential sentence or existential construction and introduces the definition adopted in the volume. This is McNally’s (2011) definition, which is enriched with an explicit reference to the context-dependence of existentials. The chapter then outlines the principal semantic and morphosyntactic features of existential and locative there sentences in Romance, and in typological perspective, providing examples of such constructions from a wide variety of languages. It explains the scope and objectives of the volume, alongside the methodology adopted in the Manchester project on existentials, from which the volume stems. It offers a reader-friendly introduction to Role and Reference Grammar, the linguistic framework in which the analysis is couched. The acknowledgements and an outline of the volume conclude the chapter.

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Existential Sentences, BE, and the Genitive of Negation in Russian

Cited by 97 publications

References 32 publications

Restrictions on definiteness in second language acquisition

Restrictions on definiteness in second language acquisition

Subject-Predicate inversion and its cognitive sources

Existentials and locatives in Romance dialects of Italy

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