University of Connecticut OpenCommons@UConn Doctoral Dissertations University of Connecticut Graduate School 11-26-2013 The Role of Animacy in Russian Morphosyntax Zhanna A. Glushan University of Connecticut, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://opencommons.uconn.edu/dissertations Recommended Citation Glushan, Zhanna A., "The Role of Animacy in Russian Morphosyntax" (2013). Doctoral Dissertations. 264. https://opencommons.uconn.edu/dissertations/264 The Role of Animacy in Russian Morphosyntax Zhanna Alexandrovna Glushan, Ph.D. University of Connecticut, 2013 Abstract This dissertation investigates the effects of animacy in the syntax and morpho-syntax of language. More precisely, I examine cases in which minimal pairs, varying only in the animacy of the subject NP, show different morpho-syntactic behavior. This study suggests that a significant part of the explanation of these effects lies in the syntactic representation of argument structure—that animate and inanimate NPs, under certain conditions, receive different thematic roles, and thus occupy different structural positions at the syntactic level(s) where argument structure is represented. The findings of this project are shown to constitute a part of a broader generalization and find empirical support in a cross-linguistic perspective. One of the primary findings in this dissertation is an empirical generalization concerning animate arguments of unaccusative verbs in Russian which display a previously unnoticed type of ‘variable behavior’ for unaccusative diagnostics. I propose that animate arguments must be interpreted as Experiencers whenever possible, and can only be Themes when an Experiencer interpretation is unavailable. The thematic distinction correlates with a structural difference that explains the variable behavior under unaccusativity diagnostics. Another important contribution of this study is a uniform account of Russian and Italian data involving typical unergative predicates which are problematic for the original formulation of i the Unaccusativity Hypothesis. I propose that the parallels between the Russian and Italian facts occur due to an alternation in perspective structure or the framing of the event, which is syntactically represented as a choice between two argument structure frames, determined by such factors as contextual inference, the verb's lexical semantics and general knowledge. An additional contribution of this dissertation is a novel account of the agreement alternations with quantified NP (QNP) subjects in Russian. I argue that the revised view of the VP-internal vs. VP-external distribution of (intransitive) subjects proposed in this dissertation constitutes a crucial component of a complete generative account of QNP agreement alternations. The central result is that truly optional plural agreement arises only with a particular subset of QNPs: those which are VP-external, but below Spec, TP and which lack nominative case. Only these can show semantic, as opposed to morphosyntactic, agreement. ii The Role of Animacy in Russian Morphosyntax Zhanna Alexandrovna Glushan B.A., Karelian State Pedagogical University, 2003 M.A., University of Tromsø, 2006 M.A.,University of Connecticut, 2009 A Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the University of Connecticut 2013 iii Copyright by Zhanna Alexandrovna Glushan 2013 iv APPROVAL PAGE Doctor of Philosophy Dissertation The Role of Animacy in Russian Morphosyntax Presented by Zhanna Alexandrovna Glushan, B.A., M.A. Major Advisor________________________________ Jonathan David Bobaljik Associate Advisor_____________________________ Susanne Wurmbrand Associate Advisor_____________________________ Željko Bošković Associate Advisor_____________________________ Andrea Calabrese University of Connecticut 2013 v Acknowledgements Many times during this long journey of my dissertation, I have imagined this day and moment when I will be writing the acknowledgements section, and finally here I am. A little personal triumph and so much to say that the task is quite overwhelming. I can't express how much I owe to people who stand behind this thesis: Jonathan Bobajik, Andrea Calabrese, Željko Bošković and Susi Wurmbrand. I would like to express my first and biggest gratitute to Jonathan Bobaljik, whose incredible! patience, professionalism, high (but nonetheless reachable) standard, his deep reasoning and non-compromising pursuit of perfection is what has made the completion of this thesis real for me. I am deeply thankful that he taught me to think deeper, to come up with better and more elegant solutions, to be critical and honest with my myself and my work. His careful and wise guidance which, nonetheless, granted me a lot of freedom and creativity in my work, made the hard and time consuming task of writing a dissertation interesting and very enjoyable. Needless to say, I have learned a lot from his teaching and research style and a great deal of what I have learned will remain as an excellency standard for me in teaching and research throughout my career. I am also deeply thankful to him for his support and understanding at times when I was facing some difficult life situations. I am so grateful to him for being an advisor and a loyal friend in situations that stretched beyond his responsibilities as an academic advisor. My second and warmest gratitute is for Andrea Calabrese. His enthusiam and belief in my work, the true interest and overwhelming amount of time he is willing to invest in the work of his students are amazing. It was so interesting, challenging and beneficial to work with vi Andrea! I admire his non-compromising search for a 'true explanation' for everything, ability to listen to and accept other points of view and be excited about our progress and every new 'fundamental discovery'. His incredible knowledge of linguistics and of million other things have impressed me and motivated me throughout the time at UConn. I would also like to thank Željko Bošković who was my major advisor in my first years at UConn. His sharp knowledge of linguistic theory, ability to make most unbelievable connections between data and theory, encouragement and enthusiam about his students work were the qualities I greatly admired and benefited from. His Comparative Syntax seminars gave me a lot of food for thought and a great dissertation topic . I am also very thankful to Susi Wurmbrand for being such a responsible and careful dissertation committee member. Susi has an incredible talent for pointing out most crucial weak points that most people would overlook, and, most importantly, generously provide worked-out solutions for them. Thus, several sections of this dissertation have appeared just as a result of these fair criticisms and discussions with Susi. I was so happy to see how reasonable and important her comments were and how much my dissertation has benefited from addressing them. I am also very grateful to all (former and present) Uconn faculty: Harry van der Hulst, Jon Gajewski, Yael Sharvit, Eva Bar-Shalom, Diane Lillo-Martin, William Snyder, Tom Ernst for their contribution in my development both as a linguist and as a teacher. I also owe a great deal to my fellow graduate students for their friendship and support during my Uconn years: Oksana Tarasenkova, Nina Radkevich, Natasha Fitzgibbons, Nilufer and Serkan Şener, Carlos Buesa García, Beata Moskal, Neda Todorović, Aida Talić, José Riqueros Morante, Ana Bastos, vii Cythia De Roma, Johnny Cheng, Irina Monich and my classmates Chris Hsieh, Miloje Despić, Masahiko Takahashi, Koichi Ohtaki and Helen Koulidobrova. My academic achievements of course would not be possible without my Russian (and not so Russian) support group: Lubashka Dachewski (my annoying optimist friend ), Pavel Zhlobich and Asya Sobolevskaya, Misha and Yulja Braginy, Denis and Yulya Lebedevy, Masha Timoshenko and Oleg Koryachko (my tennis, ski trips and thanksgiving dinner pals), Tanya Alekseeva (my shopping and an ever happy friend), Anya Khabarova, Tanya and Bryce Meyer, little Alex Meyer (for his sweetest hugs, both literally and metaphorically), Tarasenkovs (Sergej, Anton and little Polinka), Olya Mirovskaya (for coming all the way from Sweeden), Olya Orlova (for coming all the way from Russia), Lourdes Estrada-Lopéz (for reminding me to finish my thesis), Thomas Drobena (for his 'Zhanna, you worry too much'). Words can't express how much love, understanding and encouragement I have received from my family throughout these years. I am deeply thankful to my father for believing in me, for sharing every step of this very challenging process and being proud of my achievements not matter how long they took. To my mother, for being my dearest guardian angel... To my brother Igor, Ilya Shkvarin and Denis Dorozhkin for being always there for me. Благодарение Богу за всё! viii TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter 1-Introduction ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------1 Chapter 2 - The Unaccusativity Hypothesis: Animacy as Agentivity and Beyond ------------23 0. Introduction --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------25 1. The Unaccusativity Hypothesis ----------------------------------------------------------------25 1.1 Unaccusativity is structural (Perlmutter (1978), Burzio (1986))---------------------25 1.2 Structural Unaccusativity Diagnostics in Russian -------------------------------------30 1.2.1 Measuring