Experimental study of the construction o tom, čto as a clausal complement of verbs and nouns in non-standard Russian
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.21638/spbu09.2020.410Abstract
The spread of the complementation construction o tom, čto in non-standard Russian in recent decades has been attested in previous work. It has been established that the construction has a wide distribution and can replace not only ordinary complement clauses introduced by the complementizer čto (so-called čto-clauses), cf. podtverždat’ o tom, čto + p ‘confirm that p’ instead of podtverždat’, čto + p, but also so-called to, čto-clauses (čto-clauses preceded by a demonstrative), including those embedded in prepositional phrases introduced by a preposi- tion other than o, cf. ostanovit’sja o tom, čto + p ‘settle on the fact that p’ instead of ostanovit’sja na tom, čto + p. The construction can also appear as a clausal complement of nouns, cf. podtverždenie o tom, čto + p ‘confirmation that p’ instead of podtverždenie togo, čto + p. The latter uses have been reported to lead to a milder violation, compared to the uses of the con- struction with verbs. The present study tested the latter hypothesis experimentally by using acceptability judgment data. The experiment tested the effect of the subcategorization of the matrix predicate (in standard Russian), i. e., whether it takes a direct object/čto-clause or a prepositional phrase (embedding a to, čto-clause). The findings suggest that there is a contrast in the status of clausal complements of verbs and nouns, specifically, that the latter are not genuine complements as has been earlier suggested in literature.
Keywords:
prescriptive grammar, complement clauses, acceptability judgments, experimental study, nominalization
Downloads
References
Гловинская 2000 — Гловинская М. Я. Активные процессы в грамматике (на материале инноваций и массовых языковых ошибок). В кн.: Русский язык конца XX столетия (1985–1995). Земская Е. А. (отв. ред.). М.: Языки русской культуры, 2000. С. 237–302.
Григорьев 1961 — Григорьев В. П. О нормализаторской деятельности и языковом «пятачке». Вопросы культуры речи. 1961, (3): 3–20.
Дымарский 2008 — Дымарский М. Я. Функционирование соотносительных слов в изъяснительных конструкциях. В кн.: Сложноподчиненное предложение в лексикографическом аспекте. СПб.: РГПУ им. А. И. Герцена, 2008. С. 84–117.
Караулов 2007 — Караулов Ю. Н. Культура речи и языковая критика. http://www.gramota.ru/biblio/ magazines/gramota/ruspress/28_609 (дата обращения: 09.04.2019).
Князев 2019 — Князев М. Ю. Экспериментальное исследование дистрибуции изъяснительного союза то что в нестандартных вариантах русского языка. Вопросы языкознания. 2019, (5): 7–40.
Кобозева 2013 — Кобозева И. М. Условия употребления «то» перед придаточным изъяснительным с союзом «что». Du mot au texte. Études slavo-romanes. Inkova O. (éd.). Bern: Peter Lang, 2013. С. 129–148.
Четвериков 2015 — Четвериков А. А. Линейные модели со смешанными эффектами в когнитивных исследованиях. Российский журнал когнитивной науки. 2015, 1(2): 41–51.
Barr et al. 2013 — Barr D. J., Levy R., Scheepers C., Tily H. J. Random effects structure for confirmatory hypothesis testing: Keep it maximal. Journal of Memory and Language. 2013, 68 (3): 255–278.
Blanchette 2017 — Blanchette F. Micro-syntactic variation in American English Negative Concord. Glossa: A Journal of General Linguistics. 2017, (1): 1–32.
Featherston 2005 — Featherston S. The Decathlon Model of empirical syntax. In: Reis M. and Kepser S. (ed.). Linguistic Evidence: Empirical, Theoretical, and Computational Perspectives. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 2005. P. 187–208.
Grimshaw 1990 — Grimshaw J. Argument Structure. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1990. 202 p.
Jackendoff 2007 — Jackendoff R. Linguistics in cognitive science: The state of the art. The Linguistic Review. 2007, (24): 347–401.
Krapova, Cinque 2016 — Krapova I., Cinque G. On noun clausal ‘complements’ and their non-unitary nature. Annali di Ca’ Foscari. Serie occidentale. 2016, (50): 77–107.
Kush et al. 2019 — Kush D., Lohndal T., Sprouse J. On the island sensitivity of topicalization in Norwegian: An experimental investigation. Language. 2019, 95(3): 393–420.
Moulton 2009 — Moulton K. Natural selection and the syntax of clausal complementation. PhD diss. Amherst: University of Massachusetts, 2009. 216 p.
Reuland 2011 — Reuland E. What’s nominal in nominalizations? Lingua. 2011, 121 (7): 1283–1296.
Schütze, Sprouse 2014 — Schütze C., Sprouse J. Judgment data. In: Sharma D., Podesva R. (eds). Research methods in linguistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014. P. 27–50.
Stowell 1981 — Stowell T. Origins of phrase structure. PhD diss. Cambridge (Mass.): MIT, 1981. 496 p.
Гловинская 2000 — Glovinskaia M. Ia. Active processes in the grammar (on the basis of innovations and widespread language errors). In: Russkii iazyk kontsa XX stoletiia (1985–1995). Zemskaia E. A. (ed.). Moscow: Iazyki russkoi kul’tury Publ., 2000. P. 237–302. (In Russian)
Григорьев 1961 — Grigor’ev V. P. On the normalizing activity and the linguistic “patch”. Voprosy kul’tury rechi. 1961, (3): 3–20. (In Russian)
Дымарский 2008 — Dymarskii M. Ia. The functioning of correlative words in the explicative constructions. In: A complex sentence in the lexicographic aspect. St. Petersburg: RGPU im. A. I. Gertsena Publ., 2008. P. 84–117. (In Russian)
Караулов 2007 — Karaulov Iu. N. Culture of speech and language criticism. http://www.gramota.ru/biblio/ magazines/gramota/ruspress/28_609 (accessed: 09.04.2019). (In Russian)
Князев 2019 — Knyazev M. Iu. An experimental study of the distribution of the complementizer to cto in non-standard variants of Russian. Voprosy iazykoznaniia. 2019, (5): 7–40. (In Russian)
Кобозева 2013 — Kobozeva I. M. Conditions for the use of “to” before explicative clauses with the subordinate conjunction “chto”. Du mot au texte. Études slavo-romanes. Inkova O. (éd.). Bern: Peter Lang, 2013. P. 129–148. (In Russian)
Четвериков 2015 — Chetverikov A. A. Linear models with mixed effects in cognitive studies. Rossiiskii zhurnal kognitivnoi nauki. 2015, 1 (2): 41–51. (In Russian)
Barr et al. 2013 — Barr D. J., Levy R., Scheepers C., Tily H. J. Random effects structure for confirmatory hypothesis testing: Keep it maximal. Journal of Memory and Language. 2013, 68 (3): 255–278.
Blanchette 2017 — Blanchette F. Micro-syntactic variation in American English Negative Concord. Glossa: A Journal of General Linguistics. 2017, (1): 1–32.
Featherston 2005 — Featherston S. The Decathlon Model of empirical syntax. In: Reis M. and Kepser S. (ed.). Linguistic Evidence: Empirical, Theoretical, and Computational Perspectives. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 2005. P. 187–208.
Grimshaw 1990 — Grimshaw J. Argument Structure. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1990. X+202p.
Jackendoff 2007 — Jackendoff R. Linguistics in cognitive science: The state of the art. The Linguistic Review. 2007, (24): 347–401.
Krapova, Cinque 2016 — Krapova I., Cinque G. 2016. On noun clausal ‘complements’ and their non-unitary nature. Annali di Ca’ Foscari. Serie occidentale. 2016, (50): 77–107.
Kush et al. 2019 — Kush D., Lohndal T., Sprouse J. On the island sensitivity of topicalization in Norwegian: An experimental investigation. Language. 2019, 95 (3): 393–420.
Moulton 2009 —Moulton K. Natural selection and the syntax of clausal complementation. PhD diss. Amherst: University of Massachusetts, 2009. 216 p.
Reuland 2011 — Reuland E. What’s nominal in nominalizations? Lingua. 2011, 121 (7): 1283–1296.
Schütze, Sprouse 2014 — Schütze C., Sprouse J. Judgment data. In: Sharma D., Podesva R. (eds). Research methods in linguistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014. P. 27–50.
Stowell 1981 — Stowell T. Origins of phrase structure. PhD diss. Cambridge (Mass.): MIT, 1981. 496 p.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Articles of "Vestnik of Saint Petersburg University. Language and Literature" are open access distributed under the terms of the License Agreement with Saint Petersburg State University, which permits to the authors unrestricted distribution and self-archiving free of charge.
