Abstract
This chapter reviews a range of previously proposed analyses of non-canonical genitive case. It includes a discussion of both syntactic and semantic approaches. Some of these approaches concentrate on Genitive of Negation only, while others contribute a unified analysis of two or three types of genitive case. Among the accounts that will be considered is Bailyn’s (Genitive of negation is obligatory. In: Browne W, Dornisch E, Kondrashova N, Zec D (eds), Annual workshop on formal approaches to Slavic linguistics: the Cornell meeting. Ann Arbor: Michigan Slavic Publications, 2007) influential configurational analysis, according to which genitive, accusative and nominative cases are assigned in distinct syntactic positions, with the Neg(ation) head being responsible for the assignment of Genitive of Negation. The chapter further reviews Harves’ (Genitive of negation and the syntax of scope. In: van Koppen M, Thrift E, van der Torre EJ, Zimmerman M (eds), Proceedings of ConSOLE 9, pp 96–110, 2002a; Unaccusative syntax in Russian. PhD dissertation, Princeton University, 2002b) configurational analysis, which is followed by a discussion of advantages and shortcomings of the configurational approach. I then turn to the Empty Quantifier approach developed by Pesetsky (Paths and categories. Ph.D. dissertation, MIT, Cambridge, 1982). According to this account, both Partitive Genitive and Genitive of Negation are assigned by a phonologically empty quantifier. Additional analyses discussed in the chapter include Bailyn’s (The case of Q. In: Arnaudova O et al. (eds) Annual workshop on formal approaches to Slavic linguistics 12. Ann Arbor: Michigan Slavic Publications. http://www.ic.sunysb.edu/Clubs/nels/jbailyn/JFBailyn.html. 2004) unified account of genitive case, Pereltsvaig’s (Genitive of negation in Russian. In:Proceedings of IATL 13, pp 167–190, 1998; The genitive of negation and aspect in Russian. In: Rose Y, Steele J (eds), McGill working papers in linguistics 14: 111–140, 1999) approach that relates the choice of case under negation to the notion of referentiality, Neidle’s (The role of case in Russian syntax. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1988) account that is based on the [Quantifying] feature and Borshev and Partee’s Perspectival Center approach to the genitive / nominative alternation under negation. The last section addresses the question of whether Genitive of Negation can be assigned to arguments of unaccusative verbs but not of unergative ones.
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- 1.
The tree is slightly adapted in order to fit Case-checking, rather than Case-assignment, strategy.
- 2.
Bailyn discusses definiteness, specificity and presuppositionality together, as a cluster of properties that distinguish genitive nominals from their accusative or nominative counterparts.
- 3.
- 4.
Neidle assumes that accusative case can only be assigned to wide scope nominals, whereas the genitive is compatible with any interpretation. This state of affairs apparently represents a somewhat earlier stage of Modern Russian. Today, it is the accusative rather than the genitive that behaves as the less marked case.
Neidle assumes that wide scope NPs can bear genitive as well as accusative case, and she proposes the following explanation for this fact. For those speakers who accept genitive case-marking on wide scope objects, this case is licensed as long as the [+Q] feature characterizes the VP node (and independently of whether it is further transmitted to the object). This means that under negation as well as in the presence of an appropriate intensional verb, genitive case-assignment will be licensed. In contrast, for other speakers, genitive case-assignment is only possible as long as the NP node itself is [+Q]. These speakers will accept genitive case-marking only on narrow scope NPs.
- 5.
Still, it should be noted that at least some of the verbs discussed above, e.g. razbit’sja'break', do license GenNeg if their argument contains the negative concord expression ni odnogo'not a single', as demonstrated by Borshev and Partee. For instance, (i) below appears to be grammatical:
(i) Ne razbilos’ ni odnoj čaški.
NEG brokeREFL NEUT SGnot [one cup]GEN SG
'Not a single cup was broken.'
- 6.
Of course, under negation, existential commitment can sometimes be cancelled even for an agentive subject. This is especially likely to happen under metalinguistic negation, which can cancel presuppositions and other meaning components that are not cancelled by simple negation (Horn 1989). Still, as long as metalinguistic negation is not involved, existential commitment is generally sustained for agentive nominals.
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Kagan, O. (2013). Previously Proposed Accounts. In: Semantics of Genitive Objects in Russian. Studies in Natural Language and Linguistic Theory, vol 89. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-5225-2_2
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