The overgeneration problem and the case of semipredicatives in Russian 41
sentences with a semipredicative instead of an ordinary predicate adjective. As noted
above, alongside the SD, here agreement is a possibility:^25
(43) Pavel poprosil Ivana [ne idti na prazdnik odnogo/odnomu].
Pavel asked Ivan.acc not go.inf to party one.acc/dat
‘Pavel asked Ivan not to go to the party alone.’
This is a puzzling contrast, one that has not been previously recognized in the lit-
erature. There is clearly something special about semipredicatives that requires closer
examination.
Given these simple data there are at least the following five central questions which
need to be addressed: (i) Why is it that ordinary adjectives are not assigned dative in SD
contexts?; (ii) Similarly, why is it that semipredicatives are not assigned instrumental
(in their ‘alone, by oneself ’ meanings)?; (iii) Why do regular adjectives always have
instrumental as an option?; (iv) Why must semipredicatives necessarily agree in con-
texts where regular adjectives can agree (or be instrumental)?; and (v) Why is it that
agreement is not possible under obligatory Object Control for ordinary adjectives, even
when it is for semipredicatives? I suggest answers to these questions in Section 6.
5.2 Direct assignment
Before doing so, however, let us consider seriously an alternative to the standard
approach in which the SD arises through agreement with a silent PRODAT subject of
the infinitive. In Franks (1995) I argued that dative case is directly assigned to semi-
predicatives. While my reasoning was couched within GB concerns about the nature
of PRO, direct assignment has I believe enough to recommend it that I will resurrect
that account in this paper.
My point of departure was the curious fact that, although SD surely relates to the
possibility of expressing the subject of certain infinitival clauses, this remains true even
when no actual dative subject is viable. Thus, if one reconsiders the SD structures in
(7), it is not generally possible to insert an overt dative (neither an NP disjoint from the
understood controller of the infinitive nor a pronominal coreferential with it):
(44) a. Maša ugovorila Vanju [Bore/emu obedat’].
Masha persuaded Vanya.acc Borya.dat/he.dat dine.inf
‘Masha persuaded Vanya [for Borya/for him to have lunch].’
- While not all speakers accept agreement for the semipredicatives under Object Control,
my point is those who do still do not accept agreement in this context for ordinary adjec-
tives (other than in an irrelevant floated modifier reading). Interestingly, the other contexts
of variation do elicit parallel judgments. The reason, I contend, is because these all involve
subject antecedents.