Advances in Role and Reference Grammar

ATTRIBUTIVES AND IDENTIFICATIONALS 437

1.1 Russian

One kind of evidence in Russian for distinguishing subjective and objective
syntactic classes is the potential use of the genitive of negation.^4 A genitive-
case NP may appear in place of a nominative-case NP (with accompanying
neuter singular verb agreement) when that NP is an argument to an objec­
tive but not a subjective verb as illustrated in the examples (2)-(5), taken
from Pesetsky (1982).

(2) a. Otvet iz polka ne prisel.

answer-MAsc.NOMSG from regiment NEG arrived-MAsc.sG

"The answer from the regiment didn't arrive"

b. Ne prizlo otveta iz polka.

NEG arrived-NEUT.sG answer-MAsc.GEN.sG from regiment

(3) a. Na zavode nikakie zensciny ne rabotajut.

at factory no women-FEM.NOM.PL NEG work-3pL

"No women work at the factory"

b. *Ne rabotaet na zavode nikakix zenschin.

NEG WOrk-3sG ... WOmen-FEM.GEN.PL

(4) a. Ni odin gorod ne byI čist.

not One City-MASC.NOM.SG NEG WaS-3sG.MASC clean-MASC.SG

"Not one city was clean"

b. *Ne bylo cisto ni odnogo

NEG was-3sG.NEUT clean-NEUT.sG not one

goroda.

City-MASC.GEN.SG

(5) a. Studenty zdes' ne duraki.

student-MAsc.NOM.PL here NEG fools

"The students here are not fools"

b. *Studentov zdes' ne duraki.

student-MAsc.GEN.PL here NEG fools

Example (2) shows the pattern of permissible genitive of negation with an

objective verb; example (3) shows that the genitive of negation is impermis­

sible with a subjective verb; example (4) shows that it is also impermissible

with attributive constructions in Russian, and (5) shows that it is likewise

impermissible with identificational constructions.