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Publ 21947 Issue 5122 Page The Dative Dispositional Construction in Russian Dganit Jenia Kim Tal Siloni The article sheds new light on the so-called dative dispositional con- struction in Russian. We revise the characterization of the classes of verbs able to feed the construction, showing that its input is best de- fined in terms of the Theta System (Reinhart’s (2002, 2016) approach to thematic relations). To resolve controversies in the literature regard- ing the licensing conditions of the construction and its possible inter- pretations, we ran two surveys whose design and findings we report. We then discuss the properties of the construction comparatively, de- fine the operation deriving it, and provide evidence that the operation is lexical. This has consequences regarding the nature of the lexical component. Keywords: dative dispositional construction, argument structure, Ex- periencer, Theta System 1 Introduction Verbal alternations are pervasive across languages, and their study not only sheds light on ques- tions of argument structure, but also has consequences regarding the architecture of grammar and the division of labor between its components. This article concentrates on a verbal alternation common in Slavic languages. Specifically, it deals with the dative dispositional alternation in Russian, illustrated in (1b). (1a) involves a basic, unergative verb, while (1b) realizes the related verbal form in the dative dispositional construction (DDC).1 As is obvious and will be discussed in detail, the two verbal forms in (1) differ in both morphosyntactic structure and meaning.2 (1) a. Ja ploxo rabotaju. I.NOM badly work.PRES.1SG ‘I work badly.’ / ‘I’m working badly.’ For helpful comments, we would like to thank Irena Botwinik, Julia Horvath, Roni Katzir, Fred Landman, Aya Meltzer-Asscher, Eric Reuland, three anonymous LI reviewers, and the audience at the Interdisciplinary Colloquium of the Department of Linguistics at Tel Aviv University. We are grateful to Elena Shpigner, Slava Kim, and Senja Krol for their help with writing and distributing the questionnaires, and Lawrence Vriend, Julie Fadlon, and Simon Vriend for their help with the statistical analysis of the results. 1 The DDC is also known in the literature as the feel-like construction, the dative impersonal reflexive construction, the involuntary state construction, the dative existential disclosure, the desiderative inversion, and the dative habitual construction. 2 All examples provided in this article are in Russian unless otherwise specified. The abbreviations used throughout ס feminine, GEN ס distributive, FM ס dative, DIST ס auxiliary, DAT ס agreement, AUX ס accusative, AGR ס are ACC neuter, NOM ס negation, NEU ס masculine, NEG ס instrumental, MS ס infinitive, INST ס gerund, INF ס genitive, GER ס question, SG ס nonpast tense, QUEST ס plural, PRES ס perfective, PL ס past tense, PERF ס nominative, PAST ס singular. Linguistic Inquiry, Volume 51, Number 2, Spring 2020 237–279 ᭧ 2019 by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology https://doi.org/10.1162/ling_a_00341 237 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/ling_a_00341 by guest on 28 September 2021 238 DGANIT JENIA KIM AND TAL SILONI b. Mne ploxo rabotaetsja. I.DAT badly work.PRES.3SG.SJA ‘I don’t feel like working.’ / ‘I can’t work (due to my psychological circumstances).’ / ‘I evaluate my working negatively.’ The Russian DDC has received much attention in the literature (e.g., Benedicto 1995, Franks 1995, Maru'i? and äaucer 2006, Zeldowicz 2011, Rivero and Arregui 2012). Still, there is no consensus regarding its basic properties, that is, the environments in which the DDC is licensed and the interpretations it allows. Further, it is standardly assumed that pairs such as (1a–b) are derivationally related, but there is no agreement about what the relation is. For example, Franks (1995) suggests that the DDC is derived by a lexical operation on the base verbal entry’s ␪-grid. In contrast, Benedicto (1995), Maru'i? and äaucer (2006), and Rivero and Arregui (2012) propose that the derivation is syntactic, the VP projected by the base entry being embedded under a null (modal or psych) head. Up to now, nonsystematic searches in corpora and intuitions of authors and/or of a small number of speakers have been used in studies of the DDC, but these have not resulted in a clear description of the construction. Therefore, we carried out two surveys with a large number of native Russian speakers to resolve the basic controversies. Further, we explored and revised the definition of the set of verbs feeding the DDC. The new findings have led to a new analysis of the construction and its derivation, and have consequences regarding the nature of the lexical component. The article is organized as follows. In section 2, we present the basic morphosyntactic and semantic characteristics of the DDC, introduce the controversies regarding its distribution and interpretation, and briefly discuss the two surveys we carried out and their results. Section 3 deals with the set of verbs feeding the formation of the dative dispositional alternant. We show that the common view taking the input to be the set of unergative verbs is inaccurate, and we offer a revised characterization of the input. Section 4 focuses on the operation forming the DDC. We present representative syntactic analyses of the construction and show that in contrast to their claims, the input verb does not merge as is, nor does its argument. We then argue that our findings point in the direction of a lexical derivation. We define the operation and draw the theoretical consequences our analysis bears. Section 5 concludes. The online appendices discuss the two surveys in detail and give the full list of items they included (https://www.mitpressjournals.org /doi/suppl/10.1162/ling_a_00341). 2 The Dative Dispositional Construction 2.1 Morphosyntactic and Semantic Characteristics Compare (1a), repeated in (2a), with its corresponding DDC (1b), repeated in (2b). (2) a. Ja ploxo rabotaju. I.NOM badly work.PRES.1SG ‘I work badly.’ / ‘I’m working badly.’ Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/ling_a_00341 by guest on 28 September 2021 THE DATIVE DISPOSITIONAL CONSTRUCTION IN RUSSIAN 239 b. Mne ploxo rabotaetsja. I.DAT badly work.PRES.3SG.SJA ‘I don’t feel like working.’ / ‘I can’t work (due to my psychological circumstances).’ / ‘I evaluate my working negatively.’ The members of the alternation in (2) differ morphologically. First, unlike the verb in (2a), the verb in the DDC (2b) is suffixed with -sja, the so-called reflexive morpheme (parallel to the clitic se found in other Slavic languages and Romance). The suffix is realized as -sja following a consonant, and as -s’ following a vowel. This morphological marking is found on different types of verbs in Russian, most notably on reflexives, reciprocals, unaccusatives, middles, and passives (for a survey, see Gerritsen 1990). Second, while verbs in Russian agree with their nominative subject in number and person in the present (“nonpast”) tense (2a) and in number and gender in the past, the verb in the DDC invariably shows the “default” or “impersonal” 3rd person singular inflection in the present (2b), and singular neuter in the past. In fact, there is no nominative argument in (2b). While the sole argument in (2a) is a nomina- tive subject, in the DDC (2b) the corresponding argument bears dative case. Schoorlemmer (1993) and Benedicto (1995) argue that the dative is the subject, as it can control into gerunds (3c) and antecede anaphors (4c), like nominative subjects ((3a) and (4a), respectively), and unlike dative indirect objects ((3b), (4b)). (3) a. Jak ?itaju PROk sidja u okna. I.NOM read.PRES.1SG sit.GER by window ‘I am reading while sitting by the window.’ b. Ma'ak mnej ?itaet PROk/*j sidja u okna. Masha.NOM I.DAT read.PRES.3SG sit.GER by window ‘Masha is reading to me while she is sitting by the window.’ c. Mnek ne ?itaetsja PROk sidja u okna. I.DAT NEG read.PRES.3SG.SJA sit.GER by window ‘I can’t read / I don’t feel like reading / I evaluate my reading negatively, when I’m sitting by the window.’ (4) a. Jak ?itaju v svoejk komnate. I.NOM read.PRES.1SG in own room ‘I read in my own room.’ / ‘I’m reading in my own room.’ b. Ma'ak mnej ?itaet v svoejk/*j komnate. Masha.NOM I.DAT read.PRES.3SG in own room ‘Masha is reading to me in her own room.’ c. Mnek ne ?itaetsja v svoejk komnate. I.DAT NEG read.PRES.3SG.SJA in own room ‘I can’t read / I don’t feel like reading / I evaluate my reading negatively, when I’m in my room.’ However, as observed by Greenberg and Franks (1991) and Komar (1999), nonsubjects can also control into gerunds and antecede anaphors in Russian. In (5a), the anaphor is bound by a genitive Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/ling_a_00341 by guest on 28 September 2021 240 DGANIT JENIA KIM AND TAL SILONI noun phrase; in (5b), it is bound by an accusative one. In (6a), a genitive noun phrase controls into the gerund, and in (6b), an accusative one does so. (5) a. Skol’ko u neei bylo s soboji/*neji deneg? how.much at her.GEN was.AGR with self/*her money ‘How much money did she have with her(self)?’ (Komar 1999:254, (16)) b. On zastal menjai v svoeji komnate. he.NOM found me.ACC in own room ‘He found me in my room.’ (Greenberg and Franks 1991:77, (22)) (6) a. Proxodja mimo krasivogo cvetnika, na ix ustalyx licax pojavljaetsja crossing.GER by beautiful garden on their.GEN tired faces appears dobraja blagodarstvennaja ulybka.
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