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Winter-Spring 2006 From the Editor (1) ARTICLES
REVIEWS
ABSTRACTS Cognitive Events in the Development of the Russian Suppletive Pair god – let ‘year’David HartThe semantic development of the suppletive pair god – let ‘year’ was due to a specific communicative deficiency that arose among speakers of Old Russian as a result of the adoption of Christianity in Rus’ and to metonymical devices that were triggered in answer to the perceived expressive want. These devices were authorized by a general constraint of compatibility on the shift of meaning from source to target. Suppletion developed as a result of the incompatibility of some aspects of the newly polysemous godъ and numerical quantification.
Sex Associations of Russian GenericsVsevolod KapatsinskiThis article explores whether Russian generic nouns and pronouns have sex associations, what factors influence the formation of sex associations, and whether ways for changing sexist language developed by American feminists are viable for Russian, as well as whether such change is currently likely. Social implications of the data are also explored. Why Russian Semi-Predicative Items Always AgreeNerea MadariagaIn this paper an explanation is provided for the fact that the Russian semi-predicative items odin ‘one, alone’ and sam ‘-self, same’ must obligatorily undergo Case Agreement (i.e., they must show up in the same case as the argument they refer to) and that unlike regular predicatives they cannot check instrumental case. It is argued that this fact is due to the quantificational nature of these items. My analysis is based on a “predicational” analysis of the semi-predicatives odin and sam as the head of a QP inserted in an apposition adjoined to V' or Pred'. Semi-predicatives cannot be assigned inherent instrumental case there because Pred0 [+inst] can only select an AP or NP (but not a QP or DP). In particular, it is argued that the quantificational nature of these items relates them not only to predicatives but also to some adverbs and to regular quantifiers. |