Semantics of Genitive Objects in Russian

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xviii

   PDF

2. Non-Canonical Genitive: How Many Cases?

   • Olga Kagan

   Pages 1-30

3. Previously Proposed Accounts

   • Olga Kagan

   Pages 31-57

4. Subjunctive Mood and the Notion of Commitment

   • Olga Kagan

   Pages 59-73

5. Irrealis Genitive: Formulating the Analysis

   • Olga Kagan

   Pages 75-88

6. Irrealis Genitive and Relative Existential Commitment: Part 1

   • Olga Kagan

   Pages 89-117

7. Irrealis Genitive and Relative Existential Commitment: Part 2

   • Olga Kagan

   Pages 119-140

8. The Interaction of Case with Aspect and Number

   • Olga Kagan

   Pages 141-159

9. Irrealis Genitive in a Broader Context

   • Olga Kagan

   Pages 161-183

10. Back Matter

    Pages 185-186

    PDF

The genitive/accusative opposition in Slavic languages is a decades-old linguistic conundrum. Shedding new light on this perplexing object-case alternation in Russian, this volume analyzes two variants of genitive objects that alternate with accusative complements—the genitive of negation and the intensional genitive. The author contends that these variants are manifestations of the same phenomenon, and thus require an integrated analysis. Further, that the choice of case is sensitive to factors that fuse semantics and pragmatics, and that the genitive case is assigned to objects denoting properties at the same time as they lack commitment to existence. Kagan’s subtle analysis accounts for the complex relations between case-marking and other properties, such as definiteness, specificity, number and aspect. It also reveals a correlation between the genitive case and the subjunctive mood, and relates her overarching subject matter to other instances of differential object-marking.

• Definite objects
• Definiteness and DOM in other languages
• Desiderative predicates
• Differential object marking
• Directive predicates
• Epistemic predicates
• Fiction predicates
• GenNeg Assignment to Specific and Definite NPs
• Genitive objects and perfective verbs
• Intensional genitive
• Irrealis Genitive in Negative Contexts
• Negative concord items
• Non-canonical genitive case
• Partitive genitive
• Russian linguistics
• Subjunctive mood
• Weak intesional predicates
• case alternations
• genitive of negation
• intensional predicates

From the reviews:

“Kagan … takes on the goal of unifying the Intensional Genitive and the Genitive of Negation as one phenomenon. … This book will be of primary interest to Russianists, as it provides a well-supported analysis of a much-discussed linguistic puzzle in Russian … . will be of primary interest to those interested in non-canonical genitive use in Russian. … It is well researched, well-argued and makes an important contribution to the topic of genitive objects and to the field of Russian linguistics in general.” (Lauren Ressue, The Linguist List, January, 2013)

• Modi'in, Israel

  Olga Kagan

Policies and ethics