Russian object genitive of negation in modern dialect corpora and oral subcorpus of RNC

The article deals with the phenomenon of replacement of the accusative case in direct object position by the genitive case in the context of predicates under negation in modern Russian dialects and in the colloquial speech of residents of Moscow and St. Petersburg. The research considers the data of eight dialect corpora and the spoken subcorpus of the Russian National Corpus. It showed that the process of displacement of the genitive under negation by the accusative in diff erent areals occurs in different ways. We got two types of corpora: the “genitive” type (with the predominance of the genitive under negation) and the “accusative” type (with the predominance of the accusative). Northern Russian dialect corpora are “genitive”, the Central and Southern Russian dialect corpora and the standard language are “accusative”. We consider diff erent features which can defi ne the choice of the case of direct object: semantic class of verb, factors generally demanding the genitive (the premodifier nikakoj ‘none’, the intensifier ni, coordinating construction ni… ni ‘neither… nor’ etc.), and factors generally demanding the accusative (long-distance negation, animacy and defi niteness of the noun phrase). The research showed that in the North Russian dialects, the genitive remains more stable even with the effect of features that determine the preference for the accusative. Thus, a broader usage of the genitive
under negation can be considered as a marker of Northern dialect speech.