Abstract
This paper examines a certain type of fragment answers in Russian, namely fragments that consist of a single head of a noun or a verb phrase. Invoking arguments from Vera Gribanova’s works on verb head movement and some novel data on noun head movement in Russian, I argue that these constructions are derived not by focus movement, as was previously proposed for fragment answers by Jason Merchant, but by the stranding of the phrase’s head. I show that the constructions in question present an argument in favor of the alternative theory of fragment derivation, proposed in Andrew Weir’s works, and help us reformulate the MaxElide constraint on fragment answers.
Аннотация
В статье рассматривается определенный вид фрагментных ответов в русском языке, а именно фрагменты, состоящие из вершины именной или глагольной группы. Опираясь на аргументы Веры Грибановой о передвижении глагольных вершин в русском и на новые данные, касающиеся передвижения именных вершин, мы защищаем предположение о том, что описываемые конструкции образуются с помощью стрэндинга (независимого передвижения) вершин составляющих, а не с помощью фокусного передвижения, как ранее предполагалось в работах Джейсона Мерчанта. Мы также демонстрируем, что исследуемые конструкции представляют новый аргумент в пользу альтернативной теории образования фрагментов, представленной в работах Эндрю Вейра, и позволяют нам более точно сформулировать принцип MaxElide для фрагментных ответов.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
The following abbreviations have been used in this paper: acc—accusative; dat—dative; f—feminine; gen—genitive; ins—instrumental; m—masculine; neg—negation; nom—nominative; pl—plural; prep—prepositional case; prs—present tense; pst— past tense; sg—singular; Adv—adverb; DP—determiner phrase; FP—functional phrase; LF level—logical form level; \(n\)—light noun; N head—noun head; nP—light noun phrase; NP—noun phrase; NPI—negative polarity item; Num—number; PF level—phonetic form level; PP—preposition phrase; R-expression—referential expression; TP—tense phrase; VP—verb phrase; vP—light verb phrase.
That fact holds for the prepositions that consist of 0 or 1 syllables. However, if the preposition contains more than 1 syllable, it can be omitted in a fragment answers:
-
(i)
A:
Protiv
čego
vystupili
studenty?
‘What did the students oppose?’
B:
(Protiv)
fan-zony
u
MGU.
‘They opposed the fan-zone near MSU.’
-
(ii)
A:
Blagodarja
komu
Ivanov
vyžil
v
tom
boju?
‘Thanks to whom did Ivanov survive in that battle?’
B:
(Blagodarja)
svoemu
sosluživcu.
‘Thanks to his colleague.’
A similar phenomenon has been noted in sluicing constructions (Ionova, A. A., Ėffekt zavisanija predloga pri sljusinge v russkom jazyke. Talk given at the conference Tipologija morfosintaksičeskix parametrov i GeNSLing, 12–14 oktjabrja 2016 g. Institut sovremennyx lingvističeskix issledovanij MPGU i Institut jazykoznanija RAN. Moskva). The researcher proposes that the possibility of omitting prepositions is due to their prosodic structure; while the stranding of a preposition that does not form a free phonetical word is not possible, the stranding of a separate phonetical word is permissible. It is likely that the same requirements hold true in the case of fragments.
-
(i)
Testelec, Ja. G., Ėllipsis v russkom jazyke: teoretičeskij i opisatel’nyj podxody. Talk given at the conference Tipologija morfosintaksičeskix parametrov. Moskovskij gosudarstvennyj gumanitarnyj universitet imeni M. A. Šoloxova, 5 dekabrja 2011 g. Moskva.
See e.g. Gribanova (2017, pp. 1081, 1085, etc.).
The reader might notice that in all the examples from Gribanova’s papers, as well as in my examples that are analogous to hers, the antecedent phrase includes a coordination of VPs. This is necessary to be sure that we are dealing with verb stranding and not with object drop, since, as Gribanova (2013b) points out, both operations are active in Russian, with only the latter being restricted inside islands.
See also R. Abramovitz’s talk Verb-stranding verb phrase ellipsis in Russian: evidence from unpronounced subjects given at the 27th Annual Meeting of Formal Approaches to Slavic Linguistics, 4–6 May 2018, Stanford.
As I have already noted, Russian employs a restriction on the genitive relation violation (Zaliznjak and Padučeva 1979). This example shows, however, that the genitive argument can be omitted. One may argue that those constructions have slightly different derivation than all the other constructions, they might employ argument ellipsis. Alternatively, we can propose that in the elliptical contexts the restriction on the genitive relation violation does not hold. I do not know how to argue in favor of either options. Perhaps, further research of Russian ellipsis and its interaction with that restriction might provide us with a better understanding of this puzzle.
References
Bailyn, J. F. (2017). Against a vp ellipsis account of Russian verb-stranding constructions. In W. McClure & A. Vovin (Eds.), Studies in Japanese and Korean historical and theoretical linguistics and beyond. Festschrift presented to John B. Whitman (Languages of Asia, 16, pp. 93–109). Leiden.
Gribanova, V. (2013a). A new argument for verb-stranding verb phrase ellipsis. Linguistic Inquiry, 44(1), 145–157.
Gribanova, V. (2013b). Verb-stranding verb phrase ellipsis and the structure of the Russian verbal complex. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory, 31(1), 91–136.
Gribanova, V. (2017). Head movement and ellipsis in the expression of Russian polarity focus. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory, 35(4), 1079–1121.
Ljutikova, E. A. (2014). Russkij genitivnyj posessor i formal’nye modeli imennoj gruppy. In E. A. Ljutikova, A. V. Cimmerling, & M. B. Konošenko (Eds.), Tipologija morfosintaksičeskix parametrov. Materialy meždunarodnoj konferencii «Tipologija morfosintaksičeskix parametrov 2014», 1 (pp. 120–145). Moskva 2014.
Merchant, J. (2004). Fragments and ellipsis. Linguistics and Philosophy, 27, 661–738.
Merchant, J. (2008). Variable island repair under ellipsis. In K. Johnson (Ed.), Topics in ellipsis (pp. 132–153). Cambridge.
Postal, P. M. (1966). On so-called ‘pronouns’ in English. In F. P. Dinneen (Ed.), Report on the seventeenth annual round table meeting on linguistics and language studies (Monograph Series on Language and Linguistics, 19, pp. 177–206). Washington.
Reich, I. (2007). Toward a uniform analysis of short answers and gapping. In K. Schwabe & S. Winkler (Eds.), On information structure, meaning and form (Linguistik Aktuell. Linguistics Today, 100, pp. 467–484). Amsterdam, Philadelphia.
Roberts, C. (1996). Information structure in discourse: towards an integrated formal theory of pragmatics. Semantics & Pragmatics, 5, 1–69.
Takahashi, S., & Fox, D. (2005). MaxElide and the re-binding problem. In E. Georgala & J. Howell (Eds.), Proceedings from Semantics and Linguistic Theory, 15 (pp. 223–240). Ithaca.
Weir, A. (2014). Fragments and clausal ellipsis (Doctoral dissertation). University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
Zaliznjak, A. A., & Padučeva, E. V. (1979). Sintaksičeskie svojstva mestoimenija KOTORYJ. In T. M. Nikolaeva (Ed.), Kategorija opredelennosti–neopredelennosti v slavjanskix i balkanskix jazykax (pp. 289–329). Moskva.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Publisher’s Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
I would like to thank Prof. Ekaterina Lyutikova for the continuous support of my work on this topic. This study is a part of the Russian Scientific Foundation project 18-18-00462 “Communicative-syntactic interface: typology and grammar” at the Pushkin State Russian Language Institute.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Morgunova, E. ‘Head of an XP’ fragments in Russian. Russ Linguist 43, 143–157 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11185-019-09212-y
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11185-019-09212-y