Semantics in syntax: Linear ordering of genitive adnominal dependents cosubordinated to a noun in Russian


2019. №4, 33-46

Lidija Iordanskaja,
Igor Mel’čuk@
Observatoire de linguistique Sens-Texte, Université de Montréal, Montréal, Canada; igor.melcuk@umontreal.ca

Abstract:

The paper proposes formal rules for linear ordering of adnominal genitive dependents cosubordinated to the same noun in Russian. In a standard case, the cosubordinated Nɢᴇɴᵢ-s are mutually positioned as a function of the surface-syntactic relation that dominates each Nɢᴇɴᵢ (there are six such surface-syntactic relations). But fairly often the positioning of an Nɢᴇɴᵢ is determined by its meaning; thus, if in an N→Nɢᴇɴᵢ construction an Nɢᴇɴ expresses the type of N’s referent, this Nɢᴇɴ precedes all the other Nɢᴇɴᵢ-s. The ordering of cosubordinated genitives (which is mostly syntactic) is compared with the ordering of cosubordinated adjectives, whose position is determined by a hierarchy of their semantic classes (i.e., semantically).

For citation:

Iordanskaja L., Mel’čuk I. Semantics in syntax: Linear ordering of genitive adnominal dependents cosubordinated to a noun in Russian. Voprosy Jazykoznanija, 2019, 4: 33–46.

Acknowledgements:

The text of the present paper was read and criticized by J. Milićević, R. Poiret and two anonymous reviewers of Voprosy Jazykoznanija, whose remarks helped us improve the presentation. Please, dear colleagues, receive our most heartfelt gratitude!