Cover not available
Part of
On Diversity and Complexity of Languages Spoken in Europe and North and Central Asia
Edited by Pirkko Suihkonen and Lindsay J. Whaley
[Studies in Language Companion Series 164] 2014
► pp. 379–400

On the evolution of Russian subject reference

Internal factors

| Lomonosov Moscow State University
Personal pronouns in Russian have replaced verbal inflection forms as the main reduced referential devices marking subject. Some possible internal scenarios of this process are examined, namely the present perfect reconstruction in Old Russian and the semantic similarity between Old Russian present nominal clauses and present verbal ones. Further testing of both hypotheses is based on the detailed chronological survey on 50 Old Russian texts (about 2000 relevant verbal clauses) from the 11th till the 17th century with the help of statistical methods (Student’s t-test and Lilliefors test). The diachronic study of Old Russian documents disproves the hypothesis of initial perfect tense destruction but admits the possibility of semantic factors as a trigger to the subject reference alternation.
Keywords: Old Russian, perfect tense, personal pronouns, statistical methods, subject reference
Published online: 17 December 2014
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/slcs.164.13sid
References (25)
References
Borkovskij, Viktor I. & Kuznecov, Petr S. 2006 [1963]. Istoričeskaja grammatika russkogo jazyka (A Historical Grammar of Russian). Moscow: URSS.Google Scholar
Černyx, Pavel J. 1954. Istoričeskaja grammatika russkogo jazyka (A Historical Grammar of Russian). Moscow: Nauka.Google Scholar
Dahl, Östen. 1990. Standard Average European as an exotic language. In Toward a Typology of European Languages [Empirical Approaches to Language Typology 8], Johannes Bechert, Giuliano Bernini & Claude Buridant (eds), 3–8. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Dryer, Mattew. 2011. Expression of pronominal subjects. In The World Atlas of Language Structures Online, Ch.101, Matthew S. Dryer & Martin Haspelmath (eds). Munich: Max Planck Digital Library. [URL]Google Scholar
Eckhoff, Heine & Meyer, Roland. 2011. Conditions on null subjects in Old Church Slavonic, a contrastive view. Paper presented atthe 20th International Conference on Historical Linguistics, Osaka, July 25.
Givón, Thomas. (ed.). 1983. Topic Continuity in Discourse: A Quantitative Cross-language Study [Typological Studies in Language 3]. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gorškova, Klavdija V. & Xaburgaev, Georgij A. 1981. Istoričeskaja grammatika russkogo jazyka (A Historical Grammar of Russian). Moscow: Vysšaja škola.Google Scholar
Haspelmath, Martin. 2001. The European linguistic area: Standard Average European. In Language Typology and Language Universals: An International Handbook 2, Martin Haspelmath (ed.), 1492–1510. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Jakobson, Roman O. 1971[1935]. Les enclitiques slaves. In Selected Writings II, Roman Jakobson, 16–22. The Hague: Mouton. (Original publication: Atti del Congresso di Linguistica tenuto in Roma il 19–26 Settembre 1933. Firenze, 1935).Google Scholar
Keenan, Edward. 1976. Towards a universal definition of ‘Subject’. In Subject and Topic, Charles N. Li (ed.), 303–334. New York NY: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Kibrik, Andrej A. 2011. Reference in Discourse. Oxford: OUP. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2013. Peculiarities and origins of the Russian referential system. In Languages Across Boundaries: Studies in Memory of Anna Siewierska, Dik Bakker & Martin Haspelmath (ed.) Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Koivulehto, Jorma. 2002. Contact with non-Germanic languages II: Relations to the East. In The Nordic Languages: An International Handbook of the History of the North Germanic Languages, Oskar Bandle, Lennart Elmevik & Gun Widmark (eds), 583–594. Berlin: De Gruyter.Google Scholar
Kopotev, Mikhail V. 2011. Reconstruction and idiomacity: The origin of Russian verbless clauses reconsidered. Paper presented atthe 20th International Conference on Historical Linguistics, Osaka. [URL]
Levšina, Natalia G. 2012. Results of statistical analysis of the data in Pavlova 2010. Ms,University of Jena.
Lindseth, Martina. 1998. Null-subject Properties of Slavic Languages: with Special Reference to Russian, Czech and Sorbian. München: Sagner.Google Scholar
Lyons, John. 1977. Semantics. Cambridge: CUP.Google Scholar
Padučeva, Elena V. 1985. Vyskazyvanie i ego sootnesennost’ s dejstvitelnostiju: referenzial’nyje aspecty semantiki mestoimenij (The utterance and its relation to reality: referential aspects of pronoun semantics). Moscow: Nauka.Google Scholar
Pavlova, Elizaveta K. 2010. Vzaimosvjaz' meždu markirovaniem lica v glagole i v podležaščnom mestoimenii v russkom jazyke (Relationship between person marking on the verb and on subject pronoun in Russian). Year paper. Dept. of Theoretical and Applied Linguistics, Moscow State University.Google Scholar
Stone, Gerald. 1993. Cassubian. In The Slavonic Languages, Bernard Comrie & Greville G. Corbett (eds), 759–794. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
. 1993b. Sorbian. In The Slavonic Languages, Bernard Comrie & Greville G. Corbett (eds), 593–685. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Whorf, Benjamin Lee. 1956. Language, Thought and Reality. In Selected Writings of Benjamins Lee Whorf, John B. Carroll (eds)Cambridge MA: The MIT Press.Google Scholar
Xaburgaev, Georgij A. 1978. Sud’ba vspomogatel’nogo glagola drevnix slavjanskix analitičeskix form v russkom jazyke (The destiny of the auxiliary verbs in the Old Slavic analytic forms in Russian). Vestnik Moskovskogo universiteta. Philologija 1978(4): 42–53.Google Scholar
Zaliznjak, Andrej A. 2004[1995]. Drevnenovgorodskij dialekt (Old Novgorod dialect). Moscow: Jazyki slavjanskoj kul'tury.Google Scholar
. 2008. Drevnerusskie ènklitiki (Old Russian enclitics). Moscow: Jazyki slavjanskoj kul'tury.Google Scholar