Kolloquiums Slawistische Linguistik: Sommersemester 2023
3.5. Ora Matushansky (CNRS-Paris 8): On the complexity of becoming feminine in Russian
Russian feminitive formation is systematically suprasegmental on the basis of diminutive and agentive suffixes. Thus the most productive suffix [k]/[ok] is segmentally identical to the diminutive [k]/[ok] with a stress shift to the left (Halle 1973, Beard 1987), and gendered pairs of agentive suffixes (-nik-/-nic-, -ščik- (-čik-)/ -ščic- (-čic-), -ec-/-ic-, etc.) involve the same stress shift in the feminine, concurrent with a change in the vowel and/or the consonant of the suffix. I will argue that this phenomenon can be handled by the assumption that these suffixes are internally complex. I will show that this approach also explains why Russian feminitives cannot be formed by the change in the noun class (unlike, e.g., sirviente/sirvienta ‘servant.M/F’ in Spanish) and provides an indication when feminine formation is agglutinative (e.g., učítelʲ/učítelʲnica ‘a teacher’) with potential affix telescoping (Haspelmath 1995) and when, substitutive (e.g., učeník/učeníca ‘a student’).
17.5. Cem Keskin (Potsdam): Blended subordination in Balkan Turkic induced by Slavic contact
The Turkic varieties of the Balkans use two main diametrically opposed subordination strategies: (i) the Turkic model, where typical subordinate clauses are prepositive, nonfinite, contain clause-final subordinators, etc. and (ii) the Indo-European model, where typical subordinate clauses are postpositive, finite, contain clause-initial subordinators, etc. In this talk, I will present several additional kinds of subordinate clause that Balkan Turkic uses, which allow for problematic mixtures of these two models (‘X-clauses’). Spread over a spectrum between the Turkic and Indo-European extremes, X-clauses can, for instance, be prepositive but contain clause initial subordinators. I will, then, hypothesize that X-clauses emerge due to uncertainties in the structural parameters of the Balkan Turkic subordination system. Such uncertainties are typical of complex systems undergoing change and arise in the present case due to the shift in Balkan Turkic away from Turkic towards Indo-European subordination in contact with Slavic languages.
28.6. Marco Biasio (Modena & Reggio Emilia): Three Puzzles about nel’zja in Contemporary Russian
This talk seeks to provide a unified solution for three structural puzzles involving the phi-invariant operator nel’zja in negative deontic utterances in Contemporary Russian. These include: a) the deontic-anankastic mismatch assigned to imperfective infinitive forms headed, respectively, by nel’zja (Mne nel’zja vstavat’ rano ‘I must not wake up early’) and a (presumably) null modal head (Mne ne vstavat’ rano ‘I don’t have to wake up early’); b) the identity reading contextually activated with generalized, non-referential Holders (Nel’zja perevestiPF / perevodit’IPF celyj tekst ‘It is impossible / forbidden to translate the whole text’ ≈ Ne perevestiPF / perevodit’IPF celyj tekst); and c) modal-aspectual mismatches where an aspectual infinitive head is wired with a set of apparently inconsistent accessibility relations, i.e., circumstantial with IPF (instead of PF) and strong deontic with PF (instead of IPF). It will be argued that these ‘puzzles’ do not run counter any theory of semantic composition, since they can be explained via non-trivial interaction of two main parameters, i.e., on the one hand, the quantificational force specified in the extended denotation of each aspectual operator and, on the other, the grammatically relevant distinction between primary and secondary ordering sources for both overt and covert modal operators. If time permits, a syntactic account of these semantic facts will be accordingly provided.
12.7. Luca Molinari (Venedig): A number that doesn’t count: grammaticalization and use of indefinite ‘one’ in three Slavic languages