Apparent Genitive Subjects within the Scope of Negation

Abstract

According to the analysis proposed in chapter 2, the possibility of Genitive occurring with ne or null quantifiers exists only in object position. Certain morphological processes make possible alternative pairings of logical arguments and grammatical functions. (Such constructions, including the passive, are discussed in more detail in chapter 5 and in the Appendix.) In particular, there are lexical rules that have the effect of allowing the argument often expressed as SUBJECT to be demoted, and to fulfill the OBJECT function. Such processes including so-called there insertion (see Bresnan, 1982b) in English and il extraposition in French (see Grimshaw, 1982b). If an analogous process existed in Russian, it would be somewhat hard to detect, for two reasons. First, Russian has relatively free word order, and the object may appear pre-verbally.