Two different nominatives

1
Two different nominatives

• Slavic Linguistics Society
• Aug 23, 2007 Berlin
• Kyongjoon Kwon
• Harvard University
• kkwon_at_fas.harvard.edu

2
What is Old Novgorod dialect?

• Old Novgorod dialect refers to
• - the dialect, whose linguistic features are
  inferred mainly from birch bark documents.
• - It is assumed to be a part of Early East
  Slavic (Rusian).
• - Novgorod refers to Velikij Novgorod and
  neighboring regions

3
What is NSg e?

• Characteristic features of the ON NSg e
• a. Domain
• (1) morphologically, hard variants of NSg. msc
  o-stem
• Varlame (proper noun), zam?ke (common
  noun)
• (2) syntactically, subjects or their
  agreeing parts of speech
• same (emphatic), keto
  (interrogative), deeve (adj),
• v?dale (l-participle), pogublene
  (n-participle).
• b. Morphophonemics
• (1) Lack of the second regressive
  palatalization
• zam?ke, v?nuke, Mil?ke vs. VSg. v?nuce,
  Mil?ce
• (2) Palatalized coarticulation (sharping)
• meretve mertve (Zaliznjak 1995 84)

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• c. Competition with the regular reflex ?
• (1) Considered as a dialectal norm, but later
  perceived to be an archaic form, compared to the
  regular reflex ? (Zaliznjak 1995 83)

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• (2) Register variants e (vernacular, secular,
  provincial) vs. ? (official, sacred,
  standard)
• - Scribal corrections of e in favor of
  ?
• - Novgorodian version (14C) of the Holy
  Bible
• i ne nare(ce)tse k tomu ime tvoe
  Avrame,
• no da budet? ime tvoe Avram?
• Neither shall thy name any more be
  called Abram,
• but thy name shall be Abraham
• (Genesis 175, KJV) (Ibid.
  84)

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Hypotheses on the origin

• a. Vocative origin Sobolevskij (1888),
  Shakhmatov (1957), Schuster-ewc (1998)
• b. Casus indefinitus Ivanov (1985)
• c. Morphological pressure from jo-stem (NSgVSg)
• Finnic substratum Vermeer (1991)
• d. Generalization in favor of soft variants
  Vermeer (1994), Krysko (1993)

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Proposal

• Grammaticalization-based hypothesis
• (i) PIE -os became o after the loss of
  final consonant.
• (ii) The ending e was imported from
  vocative in order to mark
• person-subjects.
• (iii) Animacy (personhood) in the ending
  e was reinterpreted
• as definiteness on a par with
  place names in o.
• (iv) Definite subject-verb agreement
  arose.
• (v) With definiteness meaning fading
  out, the ending came to
• cover all the masculine o-stem nouns
  and agreeing
• verbs/adjectives.

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Indisputable facts

• 1. Background
• Leskiens problem
• - As a consequence of the Common Slavic loss
  of word-final
• -s, NSg of masculine o- and jo-stems become
  unstable, for
• they might be perceived as the neuter
  (Vermeer 1994 147).
• 2. Historical implications
• - The ending was so much motivated by its
  differentiation
• from the accusative form that could be used
  persistently in
• this dialect.
• - As a result, the presence of the ending e
  delayed the
• morphological realization of animacy in
  object positions
• (GenAcc).

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What is Nominative object construction?

• Nominative object construction
• A direct object case is nominative instead of the
  canonical accusative.
• One of the well known features of North Russian
  from the earliest historical period to the
  present.
• In North Russian, it usually comes with
  independent infinitives.

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Issues on nominative object construction

• 1. Case assignment strategy (Woolford, Jakab,
  Franks Lavine, Boeckx)
• 2. Semantic constraints (Stanisheva, Filin)
• 3. Origin (Kiparsky, Timberlake, Filin)
• 4. Distribution (Filin, Timberlake)
• 5. Sentential configuration
• - Word order (Franks Lavine)

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• Prediction
• The subject-focused ending is expected not to
  co-occur with the construction, in which the
  distinction between nominative and accusative is
  suspended.
• However,
• A osetre im? imati po starine (GVNP 93, 1434)
• Unfortunately, the material with masculine
  gender is still too small Unfortunately, being
  just one example, this serves as proof that the
  construction voda piti was not restricted to the
  feminine words. (Zaliznjak 2004 156 Krysko
  1994a 193)

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Word order

• Default (neutral) order
• Dative Nominative Infinitive (Franks
  Lavine 2006)
• Dative as sentential subject
• Nominative as object
• Infinitive as predicate
• ?? ??????? ????? ?????? ???? ???? ? ???????????
  (??. ?. 10, 122)
• ? ?????? ?? ??????? ????(??) (155, 122)
• ???? ???? ???? ????? (142, 14beg)
• a ??????? ????? (578, 142)
• ?? ?? ?? ?? ?????? o????????? o???? (19, 151)

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Exceptions

• Default Dative Nominative Infinitive
• 1. Conjoined infinitives
• ?????? ?? ???? ? ?????? ???? ????????????? (??.
  ?. 40, 144/4)
• 2. ?
• ?????? ??? ????? (???? ?93, 1434)

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How to account for the inversion?

• Possible derivation
• Nominative Dative Infinitive
• (2) (1)
• Movement to Spec, vP
• - Agnostic movement (Franks and Lavine
  2006)
• Movement to Spec, CP

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• 1. Context
• ? ??? ???????? ??????, ??? ??????? ????????.
• ? ?????? ??? ????? ?? ???????.
• 2. Information structure
• - osetre is a Topic, meaning as to the
  sturgeon(s).
• - Being a Topic, the word is preposed to the
  initial position.
• - Then, is osetre not an instance of
  nominative object?

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Animacy constraint

• Nominative object rule and Animacy constraint
• Nominative object rule applies not only to
  fem a-stem
• nouns (N?A), but also to fem i-stem nouns,
  then by
• extension to other nouns like neuter (NA).
  Hence, this
• rule covers all nouns which do not have
  Gen-Acc.
• (Timberlake 1974 57)
• Person case constraint (Bonet 1991)
• Je le /te lui ai
  présenté
• I 3 ASg 2 ASg 3 DSg have introduced
• I introduced him/you to her

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What is e in osetre?

• 1. /e/ is a paragogic vowel in sonorant cluster
  in word, not an instance of the ON NSg ending e
• (Cf. Flier 1990)
• ????? ??????? ??????? ????????? ???????
  ?????? (???? ? 136, ¼ 15C)
• ????? ???????? ??????? ??? ??????? ?????
  ???????? (???? ? 116, mid-15C)

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• 2. Other kinds of paragogic vowels (Krysko
  1993 125-6)
• a. /o/
• ????????? ?????? ????? ?????? ?????.
  ?????? ???
• ???? ??????? (??? ? 140, 1430s)
• b. /a/
• ????? (??? 142, early 14C)
• ????? (???? 72, 1448 ???? 186,
  mid-15C)
• ?????? (??? 142, early 14C ??? 389,
  142/4C ????
• 110, 1393)

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Supporting evidence

• 1. Even proper names (????? ???????, ???????)
  do not
• take the ending e.
• - The ending e occurs most commonly with
  proper
• names, which are also last to maintain
  the ending in the
• historical development.
• 2. The document corresponds in dates to others
  which show
• the development of paragogic vowels
  (beginning from
• 14C).

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Conclusion

• It is nominative case for sure, but it is not
  employed for signaling an object.
• The ending e in osetre is a paragogic vowel
  developed in sonorant cluster /tr/.
• It is a preposed NP, serving as Topic of the
  sentence.
• Contrary to Zaliznjaks statement, the nominative
  singular ending e could not co-occur with
  nominative object construction.
• Two kinds of nominatives are too/two different
  ones to get confused.