Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin - Sprach- und literaturwissenschaftliche Fakultät - Institut für Slawistik und Hungarologie

16.01. Mariia Privizentseva (Potsdam): Split constructions by base generation: Evidence from reciprocals, NCIs, and indefinites in Russian [hybrid]

Cross-linguistically reciprocals often consist of two parts that may be placed next to each other or split by further material. Analyses differ in whether the split is derived by movement (Sigurðsson et al. 2022, Landau 2024, Messick & Harðarson 2024) or by base generation (Paparounas & Salzmann 2024). This research brings to light novel data on split reciprocals in Russian and shows that splitting in Russian is very restrictive in that only a subset of the prepositions can appear between the two parts of the reciprocal. I then demonstrate that there are two other phenomena that allow the same type of splitting: negative concord items and indefinite pronouns. On the basis of interpretative differences attested for negative concord items, I argue that split forms in all three constructions are derived by base generation. I then suggest that prepositions that allow splitting are part of the nominal extended projections and that the notion of extended projection is best formalized by inheritance of features from the base to the top (see Grimshaw 1991, Keine 2020).