Kolloquium Slawistische Linguistik: Wintersemester 2022/23
4.11.2022: Johannes Rothert (Potsdam): An experimental investigation of the case matching requirement in Polish ATB movement and RNR
I will present the results of an acceptability rating study that investigated the case matching requirement in Polish sharing constructions (SCs). I obtained judgments from native speakers on Polish examples of across-the-board (ATB) topicalization and right node raising (RNR) where the shared DP bore either (i) a matching case form, (ii) a syncretic case form, (iii) a case form unambiguously indicating the case assigned by the verb in the adjacent conjunct, or (iv) a case form unambiguously indicating the case assigned by the verb in the distant conjunct. The three main findings of the study can be summarized as follows: First, both constructions show the same pattern of acceptability ratings across the four investigated case patterns. Second, both constructions exhibit a case syncretism effect (i.e., syncretic case forms obviate the ungrammaticality of SCs with case mismatches). Third, both constructions also exhibit a case proximity effect (i.e., case forms only matching the case requirements of the verb in the linearly closest conjunct also obviate the ungrammaticality of SCs with case mismatches). Based on the results of my study, I argue that there is no case matching requirement restricting the range of well-formed SCs. Furthermore, I claim that ATB movement and RNR require the same kind of derivation. Of the theoretical approaches to the syntax of SCs discussed in the literature, the ellipsis approach is most compatible with the results of my study.
18.11.2022: Petra Charvátová (Olomouc) & Jeffrey Parrott (Zlín): Toward a typology of pronominal case and variation in Slavic
This talk will introduce a novel theoretically motivated research project on Bulgarian, a pronominal-case-only (‘pro-case’) language of the Slavic family. We propose to initiate fieldwork in Bulgaria starting in early 2023. Our goal in the presentation is to sketch the empirical landscape, point out some theoretical issues at stake, outline key hypotheses, and lay out our plans for the fieldwork.
Pro-case typology and variation remains understudied in contrast to ‘rich case’, where case affixes are found on determiners, adjectives, or nouns, e.g. as in Czech and German. Previous work has focused on Germanic—mainly pro-case English, Danish, and Swedish, among others. These findings have not been incorporated into leading theoretical models, despite case morphology and its relation to syntax being a core explanandum of morphosyntactic theory. Pro-case in South Slavic, namely Bulgarian and Macedonian, has not been investigated from a typological or theoretical perspective. Thus, we plan to conduct fieldwork across dialect areas in Bulgaria, using a standard questionnaire methodology for comparability with a significant recent study of Swedish. The project’s aims are to confirm the hypothesis that Bulgarian pro-case is the Swedish type, not the English/Danish type, to determine if Bulgarian dialects attest the variation and change patterns discovered in Swedish, and to adduce these empirical findings as evidence for a developing Late-Insertion theory of case.
23.11.2022: Ilja Seržant (Potsdam): Diachronic tendencies in argument flagging patterns of Slavic
I will present the preliminary results from our joint work in Seržant et al. (2022). In this pilot study, we explore the variation in the flagging patterns across 10 modern Slavic languages – covering all three major Slavic branches: South, West and East Slavic – and Old Church Slavic. The database comprises 825 entries and is based on translation tasks with 46 verb meanings that target verbs with middle-level transitivity prominence (Seržant et al. 2021). I analyze three main factors: the ratio of flagging alternations (vs. rigid government), transitivity prominence and ratio of nominative marking. I argue that despite high homogeneity in this domain across Slavic, there are clear genealogical and areal trends that explain the distribution of different flagging patterns across Slavic.
Seržant Ilja A., Björn Wiemer, Eleni Bužarovska, Martina Ivanová, Maxim Makartsev, Stefan Savić, Dmitri Sitchinava, Karolína Skwarska, and Mladen Uhlik (2021). Dataset for the Paper “Areal and Diachronic Trends in Argument Flagging across Slavic” [Data set]. Zenodo. http://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4749564
Seržant, Ilja A., Björn Wiemer, Eleni Bužarovska, Martina Ivanová, Maxim Makartsev, Stefan Savić, Dmitri Sitchinava, Karolína Skwarska, Mladen Uhlik, 2022. Areal and diachronic trends in argument flagging across Slavic. In: Eystein Dahl (ed.), Alignment and Alignment Change in the Indo-European Family. Oxford: OUP.
9.12.2022: Berit Gehrke (HU), Marcin Wągiel (Olomouc/Wrocław) & Radek Šimík (Prag): Non-conservative construals with proportional quantifiers: Theoretical and experimental considerations
Expressions involving percentage quantifiers (e.g. fifty percent) can give rise to conservative as well as non-conservative readings (e.g. The company hired fifty percent of the women. vs. The company hired fifty percent women.). While in languages with articles this distinction correlates with a morphosyntactic distinction (of the women vs. women), in languages without articles, such as most Slavic languages, there is no morphosyntactic difference (e.g. Czech padesát procent žen). Gehrke & Wągiel (to appear) argue that the main means to differentiate between the two readings in Slavic is by word order: non-conservative percentage quantifiers have to appear VP-internal, even when they are in subject position (e.g. Ve společnosti Spedex pracuje padesát procent žen. ‘There are fifty percent women working at the company Spedex.’). In an alternative account of the non-conservative reading (in German and other languages), Sauerland & Pasternak (2022) propose that it necessarily involves focus within the NP that the percentage quantifier combines with. In this talk, we present experiments on Czech which tested different hypotheses that these two accounts make.
10.2.2022: Nina Adam (Potsdam): Head-argument order and its consequences: How typically VO is West Slavic?
Slavic languages are traditionally mostly classified as VO, based on the neutrality and frequency of that order. However, comparisons with Germanic and Romance VO languages have yielded some striking structural differences, for example as described recently in Haider & Szucsich (2022). In my talk, I present our ongoing project Consequences of Head-Argument Order for Syntax, which collects crosslinguistic data to test hypotheses of correlations with VO/OV order. Part of the project is a case study on West Slavic, in line with Šimík and Jasinskaja’s (2022) claim that the Slavic languages need to be investigated individually, since they adhere to VO properties to different degrees. I present a set of features and their occurrence in Czech and Polish, and provide an outlook to an investigation of Upper Sorbian, which is unusual in being classified as OV, thereby complementing the sample.