The Syntax of the Be-Possessive (Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today) - Hardcover

Jung, Hakyung

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 9027255555 ISBN 13: 9789027255556

Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2011

Synopsis

This book is the first attempt to provide a unified account of the be-possessive syntax and its extension to the modal and the perfect constructions in Russian/North Russian within a generative framework. Apparently diverse constructions are construed as deriving from the have/be parameter, which depends on the utilization of the prepositional complementizer with a Case feature. The be-perfect structure provides an adequate environment where ergativity is encoded via verbal nominalization. The relevance of the be-perfect structure for a split ergative pattern shows that the ergative system is a syntactically conditioned phenomenon rather than a purely morphological diversity. This volume also offers the diachronic study of the be-syntax, investigating the evolution of the be-perfect and be-modal constructions, which has rarely been explored within a formal framework. Concrete scenarios are proposed for the developmental paths of the be-perfect and the be-modal constructions, based on textual evidence in old North Russian.

Edition details

• Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company
• Publication date: 2011
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 9027255555
• ISBN 13: 9789027255556
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 283