APPROXIMATION IN RUSSIAN AND THE SINGLE-WORD CONSTRAINT Loren Allen Billings A ...

260 Pages·2006·3.17 MB·English

APPROXIMATION IN RUSSIAN
AND THE SINGLE-WORD CONSTRAINT
Loren Allen Billings
A DISSERTATION
PRESENTED TO THE FACULTY
OF PRINCETON UNIVERSITY
IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE
OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
RECOMMENDED FOR ACCEPTANCE
BY THE SLAVIC LANGUAGES DEPARTMENT
November 1995
[Corrections added as of June 1999/L.A.B.]
© Copyright by Loren Allen Billings, 1995. All rights reserved.
Russian quantifiers are known for their complexity. This dissertation
investigates expressions of indefinite quantity—specifically, accusative-assigning s
‘about’ of approximate measure.
This preposition has undergone a somewhat unique diachronic change which
now requires that its complement consist of only a single word. I chronicle the advent
of the single-word restriction (LONE-WD), showing historical data with multi-word
complements of s. Adjective-noun and numeral-noun complements were once
attested; Russian now requires only one word after s.
This study investigates various apparent exceptions to LONE-WD, which are
violated only under very specific circumstances. These exceptions clarify the
morphosyntax of
• paucal numerals (‘two’ through ‘four’ and the fractions pol ‘half’ and cˇetvert´
‘quarter’),
• “prequantifier” adjectives,
• syntactic compounds (adjective-noun sequences which inflect separately but
are treated by the syntax as a single word), and
• large-quantity numbers (tysjacˇa ‘thousand’ and greater).
Distributions of special genitive-singular and -plural forms, assigned only by
quantifiers, are shown to be distinct: Only paucal numerals in morphological-
nominative case assign “ADPAUCAL” genitive-singular forms (such as end-stressed
cˇaSA ‘hours’); a number of elements, not just numerals, trigger “COUNT” genitive-
plural forms (cˇelovek ‘people’). Other constructions discussed include okolo
‘approximately’, approximative inversion, ètak ‘about’, and neskol´ko ‘several’:
Quantification is not a syntactic category but a semantic feature for which
okolo is unmarked; okolo is quantificational only if its sister is a quantifier. Otherwise
okolo is merely proximative: ‘near’. Tests confirm that quantificational okolo heads a
prepositional phrase within the noun phrase. While most prepositional quantifiers
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have this structure, accusative-assigning s is the relativized head of a hybrid phrase
due to featural deficiencies.
Numeral-noun complements of s undergo approximative inversion—the noun
moving to specifier position—to circumvent LONE-WD. Approximative inversion is
likewise subject to a variant of LONE-WD, which requires a single prosodic word in
the quantified constituent. When inversion is impossible a pleonastic count noun is
inserted instead.
An Optimality-theoretic model is proposed, formalizing LONE-WD and
constraints requiring prosodic contiguity and exceptions to LONE-WD caused by
words expressing more closely defined measure.
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Acknowledgments
Thanks to J. Allen, T. Avgustinova, L. Babby, S. Blackwell, L. Bogoslaw, I.
Boguslavsky, W. Browne, P. Chaput, C. Chvany, L. DePerno, L. Dorfman, E.
Dumanis, G. Fowler, S. Flank, S. Franks, G. Gerhart, F. Gladney, K. Goeringer, J.
Jacobson, Ju. Kadukov, H. Kadukova, I. Kadukova, M. Kenstowicz, A. Kofman, N.
Kondrashova, K. Krˇivinková, J. Lavine, A. Lebedev, D. Livingston, H. Loos, A.
Marantz, D. Matthews, M. McShane, I. Mel´cˇuk, O. Mladenova, H. Olmsted, R. Orr,
S. Paperno, L. Parrott, R. Patterson, I. Raitsimring, D. Rooker, Z. Saloni, A.
Solovyova, A. Statiev, W. Sullivan, G. Thobe, K. Wertz, I. West, E. Williams, M.
Yadroff and O. Yokoyama, as well as audiences at Harvard University and AATSEEL
(cf. Billings 1993a-b) for helpful comments, discussion, and suggestions. Any errors
that appear are, of course, my own doing.
This dissertation would not have been possible were it not for the following
who taught me Slavic languages and linguistics: W. Smith, A. Holodiloff, N. Balint,
R. Valentine, G. Rappaport, S. Yen, I. Thompson, J.-R. Vergnaud, D. Davidson, G.
Webelhuth, R. Brecht, C. Martin, J. Uriagereka, J. Stonham, N. Hornstein, O.
Rassudova, C. Townsend, E. Williams, G. Volodina, A. Prince, J. Holub, K. von
Kunes, O. Yokoyama, P. Chaput, S. Kuno, M. Kenstowicz, N. Chomsky, and J.
Grimshaw. To the memory of P.M. Krichevsky, my very first Russian teacher. Most
of all, I am indebted to Leonard Babby, my adviser and mentor, who directed this
dissertation.
Thanks to Princeton University, for continued funding, including the Howard
T. Behrman Fellowship Fund, and to Rutgers University, for employment during the
past academic year and for providing a linguistics department to supplement my
Slavic-specific endeavors. Thanks also to the people of New Jersey for expediting the
completion of this degree in ways unimaginable. Progress toward this dissertation
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during the past two summers was also supported in part by National Science
Foundation grant No. SBR-9223725 to Brandeis University; I thank Joan Maling,
primary investigator, who employed me as research assistant. Thanks especially to
Florida State University, for the upcoming employment that expedited this
dissertation.
The aforementioned institutions and people were the result of my own
decisions to pursue a Slavic-linguistics career. The following people, however, made
even more fundamental decisions long before I was able to choose such a path. Were
it not for the intellectual values of my father David Elliott Billings and his mother Ina
Eunice Elliott Billings, two people of humble logging and farming roots, I would not
have been motivated to seek a higher degree. A letter from her encouraging him not
to attend law school was also vital to what I am today. Likewise, were it not for three
generations of missionary forbears in the provinces of China and the Philippines, and
the expressed desire of my mother, Ruth Louise Allen Billings, that I not attend
linguistically isolated boarding schools early on, I would not have had the
international and bilingual background that has enabled me to analyze human
language as an adult. Of these, only one person survives for me to thank personally.
Thanks mom.
Finally, thanks to my best friend, Irina Kadukova, to whom this work is
gratefully dedicated.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Abstract iii
Acknowledgments v
Table of contents vii
Introduction 1
Chapter 1 The diachronic change that restricted s+ACC 9
Chapter 2 A similar-looking yet distinct construction (s+GEN) 15
Chapter 3 Properties shared with other prepositions 18
3.1 Against pluralized ACC complements of s 19
3.2 The v+ACC-of-identity construction 24
3.3 The animate ACC with paucal numerals and prepositional 28
quantifiers
Chapter 4 Ruling out multi-word complements of s 35
4.1 Ruling out s + [noun + prepositional phrase] 35
4.2 Accounting for s + adjective + noun 36
ACC.SG
4.2.1 Prequantifiers 37
4.2.2 Syntactic compounds 40
4.2.3 Adjectives which specifically delimit a noun’s measure 43
4.2.4 Calcified examples 49
4.3 Against s + numeral + noun 53
4.3.1 A brief background of the Russian numerals 54
4.3.2 The behavior of cˇetvert´ ‘quarter’ 59
4.3.3 Measure nouns 68
4.3.4 The large numbers: ‘thousand’, ‘million’, etc. 72
4.3.5 The numeral pol ‘half’ 80
4.4 Complements of s with adnominal-GEN structures 90
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4.5 Defining “single word” 91
4.6 Other constructions with a single-word restriction 96
4.6.1 The ucˇit´sja na+ACC construction 97
4.6.2 Single word in the complement of pol ‘half’ 99
4.6.3 The so-called second-GEN case 101
4.6.4 Single-word limitations on ADPAUC/COUNT forms 105
4.6.5 Possible single-syllable restrictions 132
Chapter 5 Other approximate-measure constructions 137
5.1 On approximate-measure constructions with okolo 138
5.2 Approximative inversion 162
5.3 Regarding ètak ‘about/approximately’ 189
5.4 Regarding neskol´ko ‘several’ 191
Chapter 6 Optimality-theoretic treatment of s+ACC 199
6.1 A summary of the crucial data 199
6.2 A brief introduction to Optimality Theory (as applied to 202
syntax)
6.3 Formalizing Russian approximative inversion 209
6.4 The treatment of s+ACC proper 219
6.4.1 Formalizing the single-word constraint 219
6.4.2 Formalizing non-numerical exceptions to the single-word 220
constraint
6.4.3 Modeling numerical s+ACC complements 223
6.5 The universal viability of the constraints proposed 233
Conclusion 236
References 238
viii
In this dissertation I study the issue of approximation in Russian. I specifically
investigate a relatively rare construction in modern Russian which is apparently
subject to a single-word restriction. It is the ACC-assigning preposition s, which
ascribes a meaning of approximate measure to its complement:
(1a) Prosˇlo s nnnneeeeddddeeeelllljjjjuuuu . ‘About (a) week passed.’
passed about week
(V)PAST.NEUT.SG (N.FEM)ACC.SG [= ex. 16a in Babby (1985:100)]
(1a) *Prosˇlo s ooooddddnnnnuuuu nnnneeeeddddeeeelllljjjjuuuu . ‘About one week passed.’
This preposition is unique in that it tends to require complements which consist of just
a single word. For example, the additional word odnu ‘one ’, in (1b), is
(ADJ)FEM.ACC.SG
not allowed.
In addition to any theory-driven reasons for studying s+ACC (as I will hereafter
call this construction) there is the startling fact that this preposition has not, to my
knowledge, been treated in any study for more than a couple of paragraphs of
commentary or a few examples. Some historical grammars mention s+ACC in passing.
There are also comparative-historical articles on s+ACC overall in Slavic, but they fail
to deal with the modern-Russian facts. Even studies of approximative-quantificational
or related morphosyntactic phenomena usually merely list s+ACC along with other so-
called prepositional quantifiers. Dictionaries usually list the ACC-assigning uses of s
along with the more frequent INST- and GEN-assigning uses of s (meaning ‘with’ and
‘off of’, respectively). None, however, has attempted to gather and analyze all the
data on s+ACC systematically. This dissertation, in addition to its analytical
contribution, is therefore also intended to be a repository of empirical data on s+ACC.
In the course of my exposition I also correct errors in the literature wherever they are
observed. For this reason, and because the data will surely outlive any theory, I
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present the data in the most theory-neutrally manner possible, relegating the analysis
to the final chapter.
There are, in addition to any descriptive goals, several theoretical reasons for
investigating s+ACC. The data I discuss are of interest to three different schools of
linguistics: historical linguistics, Optimality Theory, and Slavic morphosyntax.
First, the single-word restriction illustrates how language changes
incrementally, which is of interest to historical linguists. Language, instead of
changing abruptly, as any linguist knows, usually undergoes step-by-step change. The
single-word restriction, in this case, appears to be one of the steps taken by s+ACC in
gradual transition from being a fully productive construction to being a marginalized
one, perhaps headed toward eventual extinction. Whereas this construction is far from
being extinct, it shows indications of dying out. I also show other phenomena in
Russian which are subject to a single-word (or -syllable) restriction, many of them also
apparently in diachronic transition. This study sheds light on the latest stages of the
development of the numeral as a distinct part of speech in Russian.
Next, the single-word restriction must have a mechanism in the grammar to
generate the data as attested. The generative-linguistic school, until recently, has not
had an adequate mechanism to deal with apparent restrictions on the size of a con-
stituent. I employ a theoretical framework that makes use of output constraints to ac-
count for this restriction. This framework is known as Optimality Theory (Prince &
Smolensky 1993, as applied to syntax in Grimshaw 1993;1995). Crucial to the
Optimality approach is the notion that constraints are vvvviiiioooollllaaaabbbblllleeee: a particular constraint
A can be violated if a more highly ranked constraint B makes a conflicting require-
ment on the output of the grammar. The construction I study here is of interest to
Optimality Theory because the single-word constraint does not apply categorically—it
is overridden in certain specific circumstances. That is, whereas the ACC complement
2