Sussex R., Cubberley P. The Slavic Languages

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Syntactic categories and

morphosyntax

6.1 Syntactic units

A central notion of Slavic syntactic studies has been the word, as we can see

from the terminology of Russian morphology and syntax: slovoizmene

nie (‘word-

changing’, i.e. inflexion), slovoobrazova

nie (‘word formation’) and slovosoc

eta

nie

(‘word combination’). The word is consequently seen as a bridge between morpho-

logy and syntax. Slavic shows less variation in its syntactic structures than in its

morphology, and especially its phonology. And, as we shall see, an important part

of the syntactic differences which do occur can be linked to the morphological

categories and structures of the languages.

This chapter, like the preceding chapters, tries to be as theory-neutral as possible.

We begin with the syntactic word and word-classes (6.l), and the formal markers

that bind them together in syntactic constructions: concord, agreement and gov-

ernment, together with the complex question of aspect. Sentence structure and

word order are described in chapter 7.

6.1.1 The syntactic word

Traditional Slavic linguistics defined the word mainly on morphological-paradigmatic

and semantic grounds. The syntactic word can also be defined by formal criteria.

Bloomfield’s (1933: 178) ‘‘minimum free form’’ criterion works with major word-

classes (noun, verb, adjective, adverb). But the notion of ‘‘standing alone’’ is

problematic with inflected words, and with function words like conjunctions, and

also allows more than just words i n some special contexts:

(1) Pol Powiedział,

zebys

my przepisali wszystko jeszcze raz.

Prze-? Ja nawet nie napisal

‘

em raz.

‘He told us to re-write everything once more.’

‘Re-? I haven’t even written it once.’

309

The uninterruptability criterion states that if a sequence of sounds (or mor-

phemes) can be interrupted, then it contains at least two words. However, clitics

cannot stand alone, but they can be separated from their ‘‘hosts’’ by other clitics and

so have an equivocal word-status:

(2a) Slk urobil som mu to ‘I have done that for him ’

(2b) Slk urobil bi som mu to ‘I would have done that for him’

The non-permutability criterion states that if a sequence of sounds or morphemes

cannot occur in a different order, it is a word. If it can be inverted, then it contains

more than one word. But prepositions and following nominals cannot be inverted.

However, Preposition þ Noun sequences can be interrupted, for instance by

modifiers, which demonstrates their status as words. Working together, then, the

formal definitions of the word are viable (Kra

msky´ , 1969). Orthographies reflect

this agreement with varying degrees of fidelity, depending often on historical

chance (appendix B).

6.1.2 Syntactic word-classes

Slavic has a very European array of grammatical word-classes: the open classes –

nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs; and the closed word-classes – auxiliaries,

determiners, pronouns, prepositions, conjunctions and interjections. These corres-

pond broadly to familiar word-classes in Romance and Germanic languages. And

there is a substantial similarity of word-classes across the Slavic languages. We

shall therefore concentrate here on four aspects of Slavic word-classes which are

morphosyntactically interesting: adjectives, expressions of possession, numeral

expressions and clitics.

6.1.2.1 Adjectives

In Old Church Slavonic there were two forms of the adjective. The short form had

a regular nominal declension, and probably expressed an attribute which was indefi-

nite, or which had not previously been associated with a given noun (Lunt, 1959: 125):

(3) OCS vy pes

t{ ognj{{no˛ [AdjShort] ‘into a fiery furnace’

The long form added the forms of the third person pronoun to the adjective stem,

with the meaning of an attribute known to be associated with the noun:

(4) OCS vy geono ognj{{ no˛ jo˛ [AdjLong] ‘into the fiery hell’

In modern Slavic the definite-indefinite opposition has been preserved only in

Slovenian and B/C/S, and even here the short-form adjective is giving way to the

310 6. Syntactic categories and morphosyntax

long form. In Slovenian this development may be connected with the low level of

differentiation between the two systems (5.5.2.1), though it does not explain why

the long form should predominate. In B/C/S the short form is obligatory with

predicative adjectives (5a), and is also well preserved with predicate nominals (5b):

(5a) B/C/S Vla

do je sta%r ‘Vlado is old’

[AdjShort]

(5b) B/C/S Vla

do je sta%r ‘Vlado is an old man’

[AdjShort] c

ovek

(5c) B/C/S Vla

do je sta

rı ‘Vlado is an old man’

[AdjLong] c

ovek

[stylistically marked]

(5d) B/C/S sta

rı [AdjLong] ‘the old man is singing’

ovek pe``v



In East and West Slavic some languages have preserved the contrast of long

and short adjectives. The short-form adjective is used primarily in predicates, and

remains as an attributive only in possessive adjectives, and in some idioms and fixed

expressions:

(6) Cz adamovo [AdjShort] jablko ‘Adam’s apple’

(7) Rus na bo

su [AdjShort] no

gu ‘barefoot, without socks’

[Adv] (lit., ‘on bare foot’)

The long-form adjective is gaining ground in the predicate at the expense of the short-

form adjective, and is now commonly used there as well as in its usual attributive role:

(8) Rus rebe

nok byl poslu

en [Short]/

poslu

nyj [Long]

‘the boy was obedient’

The decline of the short-form adjective is evident across the Slavic languages,

apart from Bulgarian and Macedonian, which already have only short forms. In

Russian and Czech the short forms are best preserved, but even here usage is

tending towards the long form. The short form is strongest in its more verb-like

uses in predicates, particularly when it follows the copula and governs a noun

phrase, prepositional phrase, or infinitive:

(9a) Cz jsme hotovi [AdjLong/S hor t] vam pomoci

‘we are ready to help you’

(9b) Cz je hotov [AdjShort]/hotovy

[AdjLong] prine

st jakoukoli obe

ˇt’

‘he is ready for any sacrifice’

6.1 Syntactic units 311

(10) Rus ja

vsegda

goto

v [AdjShort]/*goto

vyj [AdjLong] va

m pomo

‘I am always ready to help you’

In such qualified contexts the short form is obligatory in Russian.

6.1.2.2 Expressions of possession: pronouns and adjectives

Slavic possessives can be formed with possessive adjectives and pronouns (1–2

Persons, 3 Person reflexive) (see 5.5.2–5.5.3); or with personal pronouns (3 Person)

in the genitive, normally preceding the head noun. Emphasis can allow post-

position, as in (11b):

(11a) Slk nastava

[Verb] nas

a [PossAdj] chvı

l’a [Noun] ‘our time is coming’

cf. (11b) Slk zo s

iestich konı

[Noun] jeho [PossPron] dva boli najbystrejs

ie, najkrajs

(lit. ‘of six horses his two were fastest, most beautiful’)

‘of his six horses two were the fastest and the most beautiful’

The personal pronoun, however, may be in the form of the possessive dative in

Bulgarian and Macedonian, and also Slovak, and in all three persons. In

Macedonian the possessive usually occurs only with single, unmodified nouns

denoting family relations, and follows this noun (mi ¼ ‘to me’):

(12a) Mac go [Cl-O] najde [V] brat [S] mi [Dat]

‘my brother found him’

and in Slovak also with single nouns, expressing similarly close ownership:

(12b) Slk vlasy mu [DatSg] ‘his hair’

hrada im [DatPl] ‘their garden’

But in Bulgarian the dative possessive pronoun may occur with longer noun

phrases, where it follows the first inflected constituent:

(13a) Blg sto

la˘t im [DatPl] ‘ their canteen’

(13b) Blg no

vijat im [DatPl] stude

ntski sto

l ‘their new student canteen’

(There is also the ‘‘dative of the interested person’’: 7.1.7). The situation is different

with a noun expressing possession. Here the noun is usually in the genitive, and

usually follows the head nominal:

(14a) Bel

mja

kkae svjatlo

sjaca [Gen] zalilo

ljasnu

ju palja

‘the soft light of the moon lit up the forest clearing’

(14b) Sorb namjet dobreho p

rec

ela [Gen], wjesneho wuc

erja [Gen]

‘the plan of (our) good friend, the village teacher’

312 6. Syntactic categories and morphosyntax

But Slovak may still use the dative with a single noun:

(14c) Slk za

hrada susedom [DatPl] ‘the neighbors’ garden’

The ‘‘heavier’’ or more complex the possessive noun phrase, the more likely it is to

be post-nominal. Conversely, short-noun or Adjective þ Noun expressions of

possession may precede the head noun, though this usage is emphatic:

(15) Pol to jest naszej ciotki [Gen] pies ‘that is our aunt’s dog’

But most Slavic languages prefer one of two alternatives to such premodifying

possessives: either the genitive occurs post-nominally, as in (14a–b), or a pre-posed

possessive adjective is formed from the noun. Not all nouns are morphologically

able to form this less common possessive adjective, and there are some syntactic

restrictions on its use. In East Slavic, and West Slavic except Sorbian, the possessive

adjectives are less productive in the standard languages, except in idioms and set

expressions:

(16a) Rus ma

ma ‘mother’; ma

min sy

n ‘mother’s son, cry-baby, etc.’

(16b) Rus su

ka ‘bitch’; su

kin sy

n ‘son of a bitch’

– though the possessives are more common in dialectal speech. In the other

languages the nouns which form such possessives are usually proper names (espe-

cially given names), and words referring to kinship, close domestic animals and the

like. Such possessives may appear as predicates, though they are more common as

attributes. But they are usually formed only from single nouns, with the exception

of Sorbian (below):

(17a) Blg Va

zov (surname); Va

zovite sa˘c

ˇine

nija ‘Vazov’s works’

(17b) Blg sestra

‘sister’; se

strina da˘s

terja

‘niece, sister’s daughter’

Sorbian also has a regular post-posed genitive:

(18a) Sorb dz

´eˇc

i mojeho bratra [Gen] ‘the children of my brother

’

(18b) Sorb drasta stareje z

ony [Gen] ‘the clothes of the old woman’

but when the noun is turned into a possessive adjective, the modifier of the

noun keeps its original agreement (a construction also extant but now archaic in

Slovak):

(19a) Sorb mojeho [Gen] bratrowe [Nom] dz

i [Nom]

‘my brother’s children’

(19b) Sorb stareje [Gen] z

onina [Nom] drasta [Nom]

‘the old woman’s clothes’

6.1 Syntactic units 313

6.1.2.3 Numeral expressions

Slavic has the usual array of cardinal and ordinal numerals, and a variety of nouns

and adverbs derived from them. It does, however, have a more unusual class of

collective numerals (5.5.4.3), which is used to designate a group or certain number

of individuals. Collective numerals occur with pluralia tantum:

(20a) Cz dvoje rukavice ‘two pairs of gloves’

and with groups of individuals which have some cohesion, notably in groups like

the family or groups of animals:

(20b) Pol pie˛cioro kurcza˛t ‘five chickens’

There are strict limitations on the productivity of collective numerals. The numbers

up to about (4) are used moderately frequently, but the numbers from (5) to (10) are

less common, and collective forms of higher numbers are rare. For pluralia tantum

over this figure, and in other contexts, Slavic uses numeral classifiers. This class is not

often recognized, especially since it is not widely known in Indo-European. But it is

common in languages of South-East Asia. It is marginal in English, in constructions like

(21a) John had five head of cattle

(21b) How many cattle did John have? – Five head

Slavic uses numeral classifiers, both in the structure Numeral þ Numeral

classifier þ Noun, like (21a), and in the PRO-form omitting the noun, like (21b):

(22a) Rus u nego

lo pja

k karands

‘he had five CLASSIFIER pencils’

(22b) Rus u nego

lo pja

‘he had five

CLASSIFIER’

The classifier varies with semantic-grammatical classes:

(23a) Rus u nego

lo pja

golo

v skota

‘he had five head = CLASSIFIER of cattle’

(skot: ‘cattle’ [Coll] )

(23b) Rus v kla

sse side

lo pja

elove

k stude

ntov

‘in the classroom sat five person = CLASSIFIER students’

The origin of this construction in Slavic is obscure: Polish has a restricted con-

struction with sztuka, borrowed from German Stu

ck ‘piece’:

(24a) Pol Jan kupił dziesie˛c

sztuk probo

wek

‘Jan bought five CLASSIFIER test-tubes’

314 6. Syntactic categories and morphosyntax

(24b) Ger er hat 5 Stu¨ck Bro

tchen gekauft

‘he bought five CLASSIFIER bread rolls’

6.1.2.4 Clitics

Slavic grammars and dictionaries make much use of the term ‘‘particle’’, which

commonly includes not only interjections and exclamations but also some con-

junctions, and a variety of proclitics and enclitics. We examine the types of

clitics in the morphological systems of Slavic pronouns and verb auxiliaries in

5.4, and their word-order properties are examined in 7.4.3.3. Here we concentrate

on the use of proclitic pronouns, and on the enclitics, which form a significant

component in the Slavic inventory of word-classes. It should be noted that, while

it is a normal phonological property of clitics that they be unstressed, this needs to

be qualified: they form a ‘‘phonetic word’’ (that is, a phrase with only one primary

accented syllable) with their host word, but the position of stress in this unit is

often mobile and can, in fact, fall on the clitic, especially on to prepositions (see

also 3.5.1). On the other hand, words which are unstressed may or may not be

called clitics, for example most basic conjunctions: when they occur in first

position in the clause (like Eng that) they may be called simply unstressed words

or sentence (pro)clitics; when they occur in second position (the ‘‘Wackernagel’’

position), conjunctions or particles are commonly called sentence (en)clitics (see

below).

Proclitic pronouns in Slavic are found only in Macedonian and Bulgarian. Their

use in these languages is linked to the decline of the case system, which restricted

the means available to mark subjects and objects. The languages could have evolved

in the same direction as English, using word order as the only means of marking

such syntactic relations. Instead, they evolved proclitic pronouns – and the pronouns

are the one nominal class where case has maintained a substantial semblance of

an inflexional category in these two languages. There is, however, a vital difference

between the two languages in their use of the proclitic pronouns. In Macedonian

the proclitic pronoun is usual in all sentences with direct or indirect objects. In

Bulgarian, however, this proclitic is in regular use only with inverted word order,

where object and subject have been inverted around the verb for reasons of

emphasis and/or Functional Sentence Perspective (7.5). In such instances,

Bulgarian introduces the proclitic pronoun to mark the object:

‘‘Regular’’ SVO order:

(25a) Blg name

rix [V-1Sg] knı

gata [O] na Iva

‘I found Ivan’s book’ ...

6.1 Syntactic units 315

(25b) Mac devo

jkata [S] gi [Cl-O] na

pi [V] go

stite [O] igi[Cl-O]

sluzˇi [V] sla

tko [O]

‘the girl gave the guests something to drink and served them

some preserves’

cf. ‘‘Inverted’’ OVS/OV order:

(26a) Blg ne

go [O] go [Cl-O] vı

kat [V-3Pl] ‘they are calling him’

(‘it is him that they are calling’)

(26b) Mac dru

garot Mı

tre [O] ne go [Cl-O] gle

dam (V-1Sg)

‘I can’t see comrade Mitre’ [ OV(S) ]

These proclitic forms, however, are used only with definite nouns in Macedonian –

in other words, proper nouns, nouns with the definite article, or anaphoric nouns

referring to an antecedent in the preceding linguistic or immediate extra-linguistic

context.

Subject personal pronouns are not proclitic, and the majority of Slavic proclitics

are prepositions, which, like English prepositions, attach themselves to the following

noun phrase both syntactically and phonologically. Some proclitics, particularly pre-

positions, can even attract stress under special conditions (3.5.1.1). There are only

relatively few proclitics attached to a single host word outside pronouns and preposi-

tions, but these may occasionally include emphatic particles: compare the clitic i in

Ukrainian (reduced post-vocalically to j ) with the non-clitic, stressed Russian one:

(27a) Ukr ne mo

zˇ u j podu

maty pro ce

‘I can’t even think about that’

(27b) Rus ı

mat

ob e

tom ne mogu

In B/C/S, which has a particularly rich enclitic system, most of these emphatic

particles are less clitic-like:

(28a) B/C/S o

n me je pra%tio c

a%k do ku`` c



‘he accompanied me right up to the house’

cf. (28b) Pol on prowadził mie˛ a

z do domu

(28c) B/C/S ta v

zna

te ‘but you know (very well)’

But B/C/S also shows emphatic enclitics, like all other Slavic languages:

(29a) B/C/S a%ko pak zˇ e



ate ‘if you wish’

(29b) B/C/S o

n pak n

ıje nı%s

ta gov

orio ‘but he said nothing’

(29c) Rus o

n z

ˇe

zna

to ‘but he knew that’

Enclitics attach themselves to the preceding constituent. They usually occur in the

‘‘Wackernagel position’’, the first unaccented position in the sentence.

316 6. Syntactic categories and morphosyntax

The sentence-enclitics (i.e. the Wackernagel enclitics) are semantically very

varied, and express, among other things:

1. Yes/no questions

B/C/S, Bulgarian, Macedonian, Russian and Czech have li, where the

other languages have a sentence-initial particle (see 7.1.2):

(30a) Rus zna

et li Pe

tr o va

em prie

zde?

‘Does Peter know of your arrival?’

(30b) Rus Pe

tr li zna

et o va

em prie

zde?

‘Does PETER know of your arrival?’

(31a) Rus zdoro

v li ty

‘are you well?’

cf. (31b) Ukr c

zdoro

(31c) Pol czy jestesz zdrowy?

2. Vocatives

Although they might seem to be functionally redundant, since

Bulgarian has preserved the vocative better than most other cases,

Bulgarian does show enclitic particles which act as vocative

reinforcers:

(32) Blg Iva

ne be! ‘Ivan!’

3. Emphatic-contrastive enclitics

These are widely used, particularly in East and West Slavic, to empha-

size a preceding constituent, or to express contrast or emphasis:

(33a) Rus ja

-to ne zaby

l nic

ego

‘but I forgot nothing’

(33b) Cz kolik let z

e studoval?‘and how many years did he

study?’

Some enclitics in this semantic class are not only sentence-enclitic:

(34a) Sorb Nas

Petr (dz

, tras

,ws

ak) to c

inil njeje

‘Our Peter (certainly) didn’t do that’

(34b) Sorb Nas

Petr to tola (dz

´e

, tras

,ws

ak) c

ˇinil

njeje

‘Our Peter certainly didn’t do that’(S

ewc, 1968: 237)

B/C/S and Slovenian have pak, which functions as a sentence-enclitic

(see (29b) ). Bulgarian and Macedonian are, perhaps surprisingly (in

view of their rich clitic systems) much less endowed in this area.

6.1 Syntactic units 317

4. Imperative markers

In Russian there is no special form of the 1 Person plural imperative,

and in Belarusian this form is not fully part of the literary language.

It is in East Slavic that we find imperative markers most frequently,

and not only with 1 Person imperatives:

(35a) Rus pojde

m-te (pojde

m-ka) ‘let’s go!’

Most such reinforcers are colloquial. They are also found in other,

especially West, Slavic languages:

(35b) Pol chod

z no! ‘do come here!’

6.2 Syntactic roles and relations

In English, syntactic relations are formally marked mainly by word order: as a

matter of convention, the subject precedes the verb (36a) and adjectives and

modifiers usually precede the noun which they modify (36b):

(36a) Barbara hugged John/John hugged Barbara

(36b) these fine old German iron bridges

In Slavic, word order is less important for specifying syntactic relations than three

types of inflexions: concord (6.2.1), agreement (6.2.2) and government (6.2.3). They

all work on the principle that one word controls the form of other words which

occur in its construction. In concord the head noun controls (Corbett, 1983) the

inflexion of its modifiers in the noun phrase for number, gender and case:

(37a) Slk Jana odis

la [V] bez [Prep] d’als

ieho [Adj-NeutSgGen]

vysvetlenia [N-NeutSgGen-Controller]

‘Jana left without further explanation’

The subject ‘‘agrees with’’ (i.e. controls the inflexion of ) the verb or predicate in

number, person and gender:

(37b) Slk Vr

by [3Pl] a rakyty [3Pl] zac

inaju

[3Pl] puc

at’ pri potokoch

‘the willows and brooms are beginning to blossom by the streams’

And the verb ‘‘governs’’ (i.e. controls) the case of the object(s), with or without a

preposition:

(37c) Slk uc

it’ deti [child-Acc] slus

nosti [obedience-Dat]

‘to teach children obedience’

318 6. Syntactic categories and morphosyntax