FAQ

Syntactic Change and the Rise of Transitivity: The Case of the Polish and Ukrainian -no/-to Construction

Publication date: 31.10.2017

Studies in Polish Linguistics, Volume 12 (2017), Vol. 12, Issue 3, pp. 173 - 198

https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.17.009.7201

Authors

James E. Lavine
Bucknell University
All publications →

Titles

Syntactic Change and the Rise of Transitivity: The Case of the Polish and Ukrainian -no/-to Construction

Abstract

This paper analyzes the historical divergence of predicates marked with old passive neuter -no/-to in Polish and Ukrainian. It is argued that the locus of change leading to the rise of the transitivity property involved a rearrangement of morphologically-eroded voice morphology. Despite the surface similarity of the Polish and Ukrainian constructions, their divergent distribution in the modern languages indicates that grammaticalization of the old passive morpheme proceeded along different pathways, implicating the internal structure of vP, and creating new accusative case-assigning possibilities. 

References

Download references

Adams Alla Nedashkivska (1998). Transitivity, Pragmatics, and Discourse in the Morphosyntax of Contemporary Ukrainian. PhD dissertation, University of Pittsburgh.

Arad Maya (1998). VP-Structure and the Syntax-Lexicon Interface. PhD dissertation, University College London.

Bailyn John (1998). Syntactic theory and the history of the Slavic languages. In American Contributions to the Twelfth International Congress of Slavists. Robert A. Maguire, Alan Timberlake (eds.), 250–270. Bloomington, IN: Slavica.

Baker Mark et al. (1989). Passive arguments raised. Linguistic Inquiry 20, 219–251.

Baker Mark, Vinokurova Nadya (2010). Two modalities of case assignment: case in Sakha. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 28, 593–642.

Bevzenko S.P. (1960). Istoryčna morfolohija ukrains’koji movy. Užhorod: Zakarpats’ke Oblasne Vydavnyctvo.

Borer Hagit (1994). The projection of arguments. In Functional Projections. Elena Benedicto, Jeffrey Runner (eds.), 19–47. Amherst, MA.: University of Massachusetts Occasional Papers 17.

Borer Hagit (2005). Structuring Sense: The Normal Course of Events. New York: Oxford University Press.

Borkovskij V.I. (1968). Sravnitel’no-istoričeskij sintaksis vostočnoslavjanskix jazykov: Tipy prostogo predloženija. Moskva: Nauka.

Bowers John (2002). Transitivity. Linguistic Inquiry 33, 183–224.

Brajerski Tadeusz (1979). Geneza orzeczeń typu (z)jedzono i (vy)pitoJęzyk Polski 59, 84–98.

Bruening Benjamin (2013). By phrases in passives and nominals. Syntax 16, 1–41.

Cetnarowska Bożena (2000). The unergative/unaccusative split and the derivation of resultative adjectives in Polish. Formal Approaches to Slavic Linguistics 8, 78–96.

Chomsky Noam (1995). The Minimalist Program. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Collins Chris (2005). A smuggling approach to the passive in English. Syntax 8, 81–120.

Dyła Stefan (1983). Some further evidence against an impersonal passive analysis of Polish impersonal constructions. Studia Anglica Posnaniensia 15, 123–128.

Dziwirek Katarzyna (1994). Polish Subjects. New York: Garland.

Folli Raffaella, Harley Heidi (2007). Causation, obligation, and argument structure: On the nature of little vLinguistic Inquiry 38, 197–238.

Grimshaw Jane (1990). Argument Structure. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Kibort Anna (2001). Morpholexical rules in Polish revisited. In Generative Linguistics in Poland: Syntax and Morphology. Adam Przepiórkowski, Piotr Bański (eds.), 101–114. Warszawa: Instytut Podstaw Informatyki Polskiej Akademii Nauk.

Kibort Anna (2008). Impersonals in Polish: an LFG perspective. Transactions of the Philological Society 106, 246–289.

Klemensiewicz Zenon et al. (1965). Gramatyka historyczna języka polskiego. Warszawa: Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe.

Kratzer Angelika (1996). Severing the external argument from its verb. In Phrase Structure and the Lexicon. Johan Rooryck, Laurie Zaring (eds.), 109–137. Dordrecht: Kluwer.

Krzek Małgorzata (2013). Interpretation and voice in Polish SIĘ and -NO/-TO constructions. In Current Issues in Slavic Linguistics. Irina Kor Chahine (ed.), 185–197. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Lavine James (2005). The morphosyntax of Polish and Ukrainian -no/-toJournal of Slavic Linguistics 13, 75–117.

Lavine James (2010a). Case and events in transitive impersonals. Journal of Slavic Linguistics 18, 101–130.

Lavine James (2010b). Case and events in Ukrainian Experiencer Predicates. Formal Approaches to Slavic Linguistics 18, 284–300.

Lavine James (2013). Passives and near-passives in Balto-Slavic: On the survival of accusative. In Non-canonical Passives, Artemis Alexiadou, Florian Schäfer (eds.), 185–211. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Legate Julie Anne (2014). Voice and v: Lessons from Acehnese. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Lightfoot David (1979). Principles of Diachronic Syntax. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Lightfoot David (1991). How to Set Parameters: Arguments from Language Change. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Maling Joan (1993). Unpassives of unaccusatives. Ms., Brandeis University.

Maling Joan, Sigurjónsdóttir Sigríđur (2002). The ‘New Impersonal’ construction in Icelandic. Journal of Comparative Germanic Linguistics 5, 97–142.

McGinnis Martha (2000). Event heads and the distribution of psych-roots. In University of Pennsylvania WPL 6. Alexander Williams, Elsi Kaiser (eds.), 107–44. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, Department of Linguistics.

Oesterreicher Henryk (1926). Imiesłów bierny w języku polskim. Kraków: Polska Akademia Umiejętności.

Parxomenko O.M. (1956). Ukrajins’ka movačastyna 1. Kyjiv: Radjans’ka škola.

Pesetsky David (1995). Zero Syntax. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.

Petlyčnyj I.Z. (1960). Bezosobovi rečennja na -NO, -TO v movi xudožn’oji prozy I. Franka. Pytannja ukrains’koho movoznavstva 4a, 21–37.

Pisarkowa Krystyna (1984). Historia składni języka polskiego. Wrocław: Polska Akademia Nauk.

Pylkkänen Liina (2008). Introducing Arguments. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Roberts Ian, Roussou Anna (2003). Syntactic Change: A Minimalist Approach to Grammaticalization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Rozwadowska Bożena (1992). Thematic Constraints on Selected Constructions in English and Polish. Wrocław: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Wrocławskiego.

Ruda Marta (2014). The impersonal subject -n/-t construction in Polish and the typology of voice heads. Studies in Polish Linguistics 9, 203–243.

Shevelov George (1963). The Syntax of Modern Literary Ukrainian. The Hague: Mouton.

Shevelov George (1968). Orzeczenia bezpodmiotowe odimiesłowowe na -no/-to w języku polskim przed rokiem 1450. Slavia Orientalis 17, 387–393.

Shevelov George (1969). The vicissitudes of a syntactic construction in Eastern Slavic. Scando-Slavia 15, 171–186.

Shevelov George (1979). A Historical Phonology of the Ukrainian Language. Heidelberg: Carl Winter.

Shevelov George (1989). The Ukrainian Language in the First Half of the Twentieth Century (1900–1941): Its State and Status. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute.

Siewierska Anna (1988). The passive in Slavic. In Passive and Voice, Masayoshi Shibatani (ed.), 243–289. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Sigurðsson Halldór (2003). Case: abstract vs. morphological. In New Perspectives on Case Theory. Ellen Brandner, Heike Zinzmeister (eds.), 223–268. Stanford: CSLI.

Sprinčak Ja.A. (1960). Očerk russkogo istoričeskogo sintaksisa: prostoe predloženie. Kiev: Radjans’ka škola.

Śpiewak Grzegorz, Szymańska Izabela (1997). Polish impersonal constructions: an exercise in head formation and argument licensing. In Formale Slavistik, Uwe Junghanns, Gerhild Zybatow (eds.), 145–154. Frankfurt am Main: Vervuert Verlag.

van Hout Angeliek (2000). Event semantics in the lexicon-syntax interface. In Events as Grammatical Objects. Carol Tenny, James Pustejovsky (eds.), 239–282. Stanford: CSLI.

van Hout Angeliek (2004). Unaccusativity as telicity checking. In The Unaccusativity Puzzle. Artemis Alexiadou et al. (eds.), 60–83. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Wieczorek Diana (1987). Formy na -no, -to z instrumentalis agentis (subiecti) we współczesnej ukraińszczyźnie. Slavia Orientalis 36, 551–559.

Wieczorek Diana (1989). Konstrukcii tipa mnoju oderžano lysta v sovremennom ukrainskom jazyke. In Z problemów ewolucji współczesnych języków słowiańskich w aspekcie socjolingwistycznym. Albert Bartoszewicz (ed.), 113–118. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego.

Wieczorek Diana (1994). Ukrainskij pierfiekt na -NO, -TO na fonie polskogo pierfiekta. Wrocław: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Wrocławskiego.

Wiemer Björn (to appear). On the rise, establishment and continued development of subject impersonals in Polish, East Slavic and Baltic. In Diachronic Typology of Voice and Valency-Changing Categories. Seppo Kittilä, Leonid Kulikov (eds.), Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Woolford Ellen (2003). Burzio’s Generalization and markedness. In New Perspectives on Case Theory. Ellen Brandner, Heike Zinzmeister (eds.), 301–329. Stanford: CSLI.

Information

Information: Studies in Polish Linguistics, Volume 12 (2017), Vol. 12, Issue 3, pp. 173 - 198

Article type: Original article

Titles:

English:

Syntactic Change and the Rise of Transitivity: The Case of the Polish and Ukrainian -no/-to Construction

Authors

Bucknell University

Published at: 31.10.2017

Article status: Open

Licence: CC BY-NC-ND  licence icon

Percentage share of authors:

James E. Lavine (Author) - 100%

Article corrections:

-

Publication languages:

English