Russian Word Order: A Study in Contrast

IntroData collection

Topic-Focus PairsAcross-the-Board scrambling

References

Russian Word Order: A Study in Contrast

Ivan Kapitonov

Societas Linguistica Europaea 47Poznan

September 13, 2014

Ivan Kapitonov Russian Word Order: A Study in Contrast



References

Table of Contents

1 Goals of the talk

2 Data collection

3 Topic-Focus Pairs

4 Across-the-Board scrambling




References

Russian: a perspective on parallelism of contrastpilot experiment: factors constraining WO incontrastive ellipsis




References

ingredients:word orderellipsisintonation




References

Parallelism

traditional approach, beginning with Kuno (1982):“The contrasts are realized on the topics and the foci,answering an implicit multiple wh-question such asWho plays what? in a pairwise fashion” (Konietzko andWinkler 2010:1438)topic-to-focus matches in Russian contrastive ellipsis




References

A toy example

in a simple transitive sentence (1)

(1) Malchikboy.nom

chitaetreads

KNIgu.book.acc

‘The boy reads a book.’

all 18 logically possible permutations are allowedin appropriate context




References

The permutations

Svo sVo svOSov soV sOvvSo Vso vsOvoS Vos vOsovS oVs OvsoSv osV Osv




References

The puzzle

but not in contrastive ellipsis:

(2) ∗Uznalarecognized

mamamother.nom

MAl’chika,boy.acc,

abut

Nikita —Nikita.nom

net.not

‘The mother recognised the boy, but Nikitadidn’t.’




References

Table of Contents

1 Goals of the talk

2 Data collection

3 Topic-Focus Pairs





References

Experiment: acceptability rating (15 Russian nativespeakers)




References

Parameters

the 18 types classified by a number of parametersrelated to IS and in particular parallelism:

matching focimatching topicsVP is an IS unitsubject contrast matchpredicate contrast match




References

Parameters

and also by a number of descriptive syntacticcharacteristics:

verb moved across subjectobject moved across verbobject moved across subjectsplit VP




References

the types divided in three groups by their means: good,bad and ugly onesa combination of parameters that give the distributionof judgements:VP is an IS unit and subject contrast match

ok ‘yes’ for both* ‘no’ for both? ‘yes’ for just one




References

good bad ugly

Svo sVo svOSov soV sOvvSo Vso vsOvoS Vos vOsovS oVs OvsoSv osV Osv




References

Remarks

robust picture: a study of fine details is welcomebetter data collection (more subjects) and properstatisticsother parameters




References

Table of Contents

1 Goals of the talk

2 Data collection

3 Topic-Focus Pairs





References

contrast: topics pair with topics, foci pair with foci?




References

in contrastive ellipsis (3) subjects are necessarilypaired with each other, and so are predicates, by virtueof the meaning of the construction

(3) Anna plays BAsketball and Carol CRIcket.

Russian: the great freedom of word order iscompromised by the parallelism requirementbut in which way?




References

Konietzko and Winkler (2010:1438)’s ParallelismConstraint:“CE satisfies the Parallelism Constraint if the ellipticalclause receives the same semantic and informationstructural interpretation as its antecedent clause. . . ”i.e., there’s a certain parallel ordering of Top and Foc inthe conjuncts




References

ideal structure:

(4) Malchikboy.nom

prochiTALread

knigu,book.acc

abut

devochka —girl.nom

net.not‘The boy read the book, but the girl didn’t.’




References

Russian: 4 out of 6 best variants have a mismatchor rather, a contrast match:

(5) Malchikaboy.acc

uznalarecognised

MAma,mother.nom

abut

Nikita —Nikita.nom

net.not‘The mother recognised the boy, but Nikitadidn’t.’ or?‘It was the mother who recognised the boy, butNikita didn’t.’




References

contrast as an independent notion

Neeleman et al. (2009), Dutch: only contrastiveconstituents undergo A′-scramblingRussian: presence of contrast rescues otherwisedispreferred clauses




References

Table of Contents

1 Goals of the talk

2 Data collection

3 Topic-Focus Pairs





References

ATB wh-movement

(6) a. ∗Whati did Alan see ti and Jane photographthe church?

b. Whati did Alan see ti and Jane photograph ti?




References

ATB Topicalization

(7) a. ∗Vin

tennistennis

KatyaKatya

igRAet,plays

abut

Volodya —Volodya

vin

futbol.football‘Katya plays tennis and Volodya — football.’

b. Vin

tennistennis

KatyaKatya

igRAet,plays

abut

Volodya —Volodya

net.not

‘Katya plays tennis and Volodya doesn’t.’




References

ATB Topicalization

ambiguous indefinite NPs are disambiguated:

(8) a. Kakoe-tosome

vinowine.acc

MashaMasha

poPRObovala,tried

abut

Seryozha —Sergey

net.not

‘As for a certain wine, Masha tried it andSergey didn’t.’

b. ∗Kakoe-nibud’some

vinowine.acc

MashaMasha

poPRObovala,tried

abut

Seryozha —Sergey

net.not

?‘As for some wine or other, Masha tried itand Sergey didn’t.’




References

Conclusions

parallels: ++ contrast-to-contrastATB movement for IS reasons




References

Thank you !




References

Acknowledgements

I’m indebted to George Moroz for help with recordings,and to everyone who participated in the experiment. I’mgrateful to Anoop Mahajan for discussions.




References

References I

Konietzko, A. and S. Winkler (2010). Contrastiveellipsis: Mapping between syntax and informationstructure. Lingua 120(6), 1436–1457. Contrast as aninformation-structural notion in grammar.

Kuno, S. (1982). The focus of the question and thefocus of the answer. In R. Schneider, K. Tuite, andR. Chametzky (Eds.), Papers from the Parasession onNondeclaratives, pp. 134–157. CLS.




References

References II

Neeleman, A., E. Titov, H. van de Koot, andR. Vermeulen (2009). A syntactic typology of topic,focus and contrast. In J. van Craenenbroeck (Ed.),Alternatives to cartography, pp. 15–52. Berlin:Mouton de Gruyter.


Russian Word Order: A Study in Contrast

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