The overgeneration problem and the case of semipredicatives in Russian 45
identical to verbal l-participles. Because they cannot participate in concord relations –
matching only in phi-features but not case – they cannot modify. But Comrie (1974)
cites the examples in (48) from Pushkin:
(48) a. Ja bojalsja odnogo: [byt’ ostavlenu na doroge].
I.nom feared one.gen be.inf left.dat on road
‘I was afraid of one thing: to be left on the road.’
b. Prisudili ego [byt’ posaženomu na kol].
condemn.past.pl him be.inf impaled.dat on stake
‘He was condemned to be impaled on the stake.’
The opposition between short form, as in (48a), and long form, as in (48b), was not
one of case-marked versus caseless: both ostavlenu and posaženomu were equally
dative. The SD was thus much more pervasive when case-marked short form adjec-
tives were still viable. Like predicate nominals but unlike modern adjectives, these
could be assigned case directly. Moreover, the viability of the SD on any given adjective
diminishes hand-in-hand with its cased short form.
As was observed by Madariaga (2006), the special status of the semipredicives is
related to their quantificational phrase (QP) nature. With this is mind, consider Rus-
sian ves’ ‘all’, which, although not usually cited as an exemplar of the SD, also belongs
to the pronominal declension and also exhibits the SD:^27
(49) a. [CP Pojti tuda vsem] udivilo by menja.
go.inf there all.dat surprise.past cond me
‘To go all there would surprise me.’
b. [CP (Ivanu) pojti tuda] udivilo by menja.
Ivan.dat go.inf there surprise.past cond me
‘(For Ivan) to go there would surprise me.’
There is no agreement source for dative in (49a) and the ungrammaticality of (49b)
with overt Ivanu shows that vsem here is not a dative subject. It is rather assigned
dative directly. Another example is the ordinal pervyj ‘first’, as in (50), found in a recent
webpost:
(50) tex, kto gotov otdat’sja pervomu za
those who prepared surrender.inf first.dat for
opredelennuju summu
specific.acc sum.acc
‘those who are prepared to surrender first for a set fee’
- Judgments in (49) are due to Maria Shardakova (p.c.). Landau (2008: 908–909) provides
examples which demonstrate the obligatoriness of the SD vsem ‘all.dat’ under partial control.