The small clause in Russian
Subtitle: structure and history
By: by Kyongjoon Kwon .
Series: Collections of the Harvard University Archives
Published: 2010
Language: eng
Number of pages: 395
Description: This dissertation investigates the syntax of small clauses in Russian. The study of small clauses in Russian has been concerned mainly with primary predication due to the case alternation between nominative and instrumental cases in post-copular nouns. This study aims to contribute to an ongoing debate about whether there are one or two BE's. A central claim of this thesis is that there are two different BE's, which are distinct not only in structure and but also in semantics, and that the two-BE hypothesis should be extended to secondary predication, that is, to small-clause complementation. It is proposed that elements that relate two components in small clause complements are divided into high and low predicators by their positions in FPs and PredPs, respectively. Case concord between members in small clauses are viewed as structurally conditioned at small-clause bases in FPs, as evidenced both in primary (equative sentences) and secondary predications (double accusative constructions). In contrast, the head of PredP can check its complements' case features, which are lexically determined by each low predicator.

A primary objective of this thesis is to support the two-predicator hypothesis by examining the historical development of the Old Russian double accusative construction. This construction, which itself has a structure FP with a null high predicator, has evolved into sentences with overt high and low predicators or with predicate instrumental cases. After an examination of diachronic data and reconstruction based upon them, this thesis advances a diachronic implication that structures with high predicators, i.e., FPs, may evolve into those with low predicators, i.e., PredPs, but not vice-versa. The distinct semantics associated with these structures is explained as an epiphenomenal corollary. Small-clause based FPs are claimed as exhibiting "no threshold effects," whereas asymmetrical PredPs can cope well with change-of-state semantics.
Notes: "May 2010."

Thesis (Ph.D., Dept. of Slavic Languages and Literatures)--Harvard University, 2010.

Includes bibliographical references.