Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin - Faculty of Language, Literature and Humanities - Department of Slavic and Hungarian Studies

Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin | Faculty of Language, Literature and Humanities | Department of Slavic and Hungarian Studies | Staff & faculty | Prof. Dr. Roland Meyer | subjekte-en | Corpus Linguistics and Diachronic Syntax: Subject Case, Finiteness and Agreement in Slavonic Languages

Corpus Linguistics and Diachronic Syntax: Subject Case, Finiteness and Agreement in Slavonic Languages

DFG-Project, HU Berlin and University of Regensburg, 2. phase 03/2013-02/2016, Project leader Prof. Dr. R. Meyer (in charge), Prof. Dr. B. Hansen, Prof. Dr. E. Hansack; Christine Grillborzer, M.A., Iryna Parkhomenko, M.A., Uliana Yazhinova, Dipl.Phil.

Deutsch         • Українська         • Русский

Corpora
Project description:

The nominative case on the subject and its agreement with a finite predicate stick so closely together in various languages, that their interrelatedness has been, to certain extent, treated as axiomatic in literature.

Not only Slavonic languages have phenomena that deviate from the canonical agreement and thus represent the particularly illuminative piece of evidence for the theory of subject properties and case licensing.

The project aims to clarify the origin and development of non-canonical ("peripheral") instances of subject case in the history of Slavonic languages. Thereby, we are using and further developing the current corpus linguistic methods. The project builds upon its first phase that was dealing primarily with overt vs. null subject realization in Slavonic languages. Based on the previously marginal goal of investigating the so called dative subjects, we now carry out the thorough analysis of the interaction between subject and case, as well as between agreement and finite predicate. Such procedure would wrap up the analysis of the Grammaticalization of non-canonical subjects in Slavonic languages with regard to the key properties of their spell out. We investigate on the one hand nominative arguments with missing or defective finiteness and agreement: nominative arguments with the infinitive in Czech and historically/dialectally in (North-)Russian; nominative arguments for non-agreeing, with regard to their finite features partially neutralized passive participles (resultatives) in Old and Middle Russian and their counterparts in Polish and Ukrainian. On the other hand we look at non-nominative (quirky) subjects in Russian and Serbo-Croatian; as these partly occur in the constructions of the first group and compete with nominatives for subject case, both aspects of the problem shall be analyzed conjointly. The earlier assumptions about nominative objects shall be examined both theoretically and empirically.

The area of the comparative linguistic investigation in this phase also includes Ukrainian and Bosnian/Serbian/Croatian (BSC) – languages that manifest, as to the project topic, particularly significant phenomena in resultative and modal constructions. The required diachronic annotated corpora can be provided readily and reliably due to the already existing resources and the experience gathered during the first project phase.  

The project offers a contribution to both Slavonic and General linguistic investigation on subject, finiteness, agreement, modality and passivization. By the realization of digital, annotated resources (corpora) with the public access online, and by the consequent implementation of quantitative techniques, the progress in technology for diachronic linguistics of Slavonic languages and beyond them shall be achieved.