Sussex R., Cubberley P. The Slavic Languages
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(5) NOMINAL HEAD + NOUN PHRASE/PREPOSITIONAL PHRASE
(5a) Blg nac
ˇa
´
lnik na otdele
´
nie ‘director of (the) department’
Rus dire
´
ktor s
ˇ
ko
´
ly ‘principal of the school’
(5b) Blg razs
ˇ
irja
´
vane na demokratı
´
za˘ m
‘spreading of democracy’
(5c) Blg vı
´
meto na kralı
´
cata
in name-Def of queen-Def
‘in the name of the queen’
(5d) Cz Praha dnes ‘Prague today’
(6) NOMINAL HEAD + INFINITIVE
Slk u
´
mysel bojovat’ ‘intention to fight’
(7)
NOMINAL HEAD + RELATIVE CLAUSE/COMPLEMENT
(7a) Rus vse
´
te
´
sta
´
rye ru
´
sskie ru
´
kopisi 18-go ve
´
kavna
´
s
ˇ
ej bibliote
´
ke,
koto
´
rye [Pl] uc
ˇitelja
´
xotja
´
t proda
´
t
0
‘all those old Russian manuscripts of the 18th century in our
library, which [Pl ¼ the manuscripts] the teachers want to sell’
(7b) Ukr vı
´
nta
´
k rozhubı
´
vsja, s
ˇ
c
ˇo
nemı
´
h nic
ˇo
´
ho vidpovı
´
sty
he so be_upset-Past that Neg-able nothing answer
‘he was so upset that he couldn’t answer anything’
Some attributive adjective modifiers may also follow directly after the noun. Such
adjectives are standard in Polish. In the other languages post-nominal adjectives
are more commonly found with some technical and fixed expressions, and for
stylistic emphasis (7.4).
The head of the noun phrase may also be a pronoun. Personal pronouns may
be intensified by a following ‘‘self’’ word, but not by adjectives (8a). Negative and
indefinite pronouns, as in English, may be modified by a following adjective or
adjective phrase (8b–c), and may have a following relative clause (8d):
(8)
PRONOUN + MODIFIER
(8a) Rus ja
´
sa
´
m ne zna
´
ju
I self Neg know-1Sg
‘I don’t know myself’
(8b) Cz nenı
´
vne
ˇ
m nic dobre
´
ho
Neg-be in him nothing good-Gen
‘there is nothing good in him’
7.1 Overview 349
(8c) Rus kto
´
-nibud
0
ss
ˇ
iro
´
kim krugozo
´
rom
‘someone with a broad perspective’
(8d) Mac taa, bez koga ne mo ˇzam da rabotam
she without whom Neg able-1Sg that work-1Sg
‘she, without whom I cannot work’
A noun phrase may consist of a ‘‘free relative’’ (7.2.2):
(9a) Pol kto wypił dwie butelki, lezał pod stołem
who drank two bottles lay under table
‘(he) who had drunk two bottles was lying under the table’
More commonly, a relative may reduce to a participial clause with a nominalized head:
(9b) Rus le ˇza
´
s
ˇ
c
ˇij
pod stolo
´
mvy
´
pil u ˇze
´
dve
´
buty
´
lki
lying MascSgNom under table drunk already 2 bottles
‘the man lying under the table had already drunk 2 bottles’
Infinitives can be the subject (10) or object (11) of a sentence:
(10) Slk zac
ˇat’
budovat’ je t’a ˇzs
ˇ
ie ako kritizovat’
begin-Inf build-Inf be-3Sg hard-Compar than criticize-Inf
‘beginning to build is harder than criticizing’
(11) Ukr ljuby
´
ty muzy
´
ku, rozhovo
´
rjuvaty
love-Inf music-Acc chat-Inf
‘to love music, (to love) to chat’
Subordinate clauses in Slavic literary languages are almost always introduced by a
complementizer (7.2.2; cf. 11.3.1), and many such sentences require to in the main
sentence. Such subordinate clauses may also form the subject (12a) or object (12b):
(12a) Rus to
´
,c
ˇ
to o
´
n akade
´
mik, na
´
mka
´
ˇzetsja neveroja
´
tnym
it, that he ...
‘the fact that he is an academician seems incredible to us’
(12b) Sorb z wulkej njesc
´
erpliwosc
´
uc
ˇ
akas
ˇ
e na to, zo + SENTENCE
‘with great impatience he waited for [it, that] ...+ SENTENCE’
The verb phrase is more complex than the noun phrase in several respects. It
contains more varied elements, and the elements are subject to wider variation in
word order. We give only simple types of predicate, and leave problems like the
negative and question sentence-types, impersonal sentences, and other special
problems, for separate discussion below. We also postpone, for the time being,
consideration of clitics and particles (7.1.2, 7.1.4, 7.4.3.3).
350 7. Sentence structure
The Slavic predicate shows many fundamental similarities to the English pre-
dicate in both the selection and arrangement of its constituents. First comes the
auxiliary. Two kinds of auxiliary must be distinguished: verbal auxiliaries in
compound tenses (13a) and auxiliary verbs proper (13b–c). This second type
governs an infinitive except in Macedonian and Bulgarian, and standardly in
Serbian, where it is followed instead by da and a subordinate clause (for the
Bulgarian infinitive in (13c) see 5.5.5.3):
(13) AUXILIARY + VERB
(13a) Cz byl jsem vide
ˇ
l
be-MascSgPastPart Aux-3Sg see-MascSgPastPart
‘I had seen’ [Pluperf ]
(13b) Ukr vy
´
povy
´
nni buly
´
z’javy
´
tysja vc
ˇ
a
´
sno
you obliged be-Past-Pl appear-Inf on time
‘you should have come on time’
(13c) B/C/S Croatian h
`
oc
´
uı
`
c
´
iuka
`
zal
is
ˇ
te
I want to go to (the) theatre
Serbian h
`
oc
´
udaı
`
d
em u po
´
zor
is
ˇ
te
I want that I go to (the) theatre
After the auxiliary comes either a full verb or a copula. The verb, which includes
‘be’ in its non-copulative senses of ‘be located’ and ‘take place’, may be accompanied
by several types of governed noun phrase or prepositional phrase, which are divided
according to their role as objects:
(14a) INTRANSITIVE VERB
Bel sne
´
h kru ˇzy
´
cca ‘the snow whirls around’
(14b)
TRANSITIVE VERB + OPTIONAL DIRECT OBJECT
Bel s
ˇ
pa
´
k spjava
´
e ( pe
´
snju) ‘the starling sings (a song)’
(14c) TRANSITIVE VERB + OBLIGATORY DIRECT OBJECT
Bel salave
´
jka le
´
tnjaj no
´
c
ˇ
kaj razliva
´
e
nightingale summer-Instr night-Instr pour_out-3Sg
svaju
´
tr
`
el
0
Poss-Acc trill-Acc
‘the nightingale pours out its trill on a summer’s night’
(14d) TRANSITIVE VERB + NON-ACCUSATIVE OBJECT(-S)
Bel e
¨
nne
´
c
ˇ
aha spadzja
´
ecca
he something-GenSg await-3SgPres
‘he is waiting for something’
7.1 Overview 351
(14e) TRANSITIVE VERB + MIXED OBJECTS
Bel s
ˇ
pa
´
k spjava
´
eso
´
ncu svaju
´
pe
´
snju
starling sing-3Sg sun-Dat Poss-Acc song-Acc
‘the starling sings its song to the sun’
(14f) VERB + PREPOSITIONAL OBJECTS
Bel hljadzja
´
c
0
bjaro
´
zy na mjane
´
z usme
´
s
ˇ
kaj
look-3Pl birch-Pl at me-Acc with smile-Instr
‘the birches look at me with a smile’
The distinction between prepositional and non-prepositional objects may be
useful in some constructions in some of the eleven languages. But Bulgarian and
Macedonian have more prepositional objects than the other nine languages
because of their poorer case systems for marking objects, and in general for
indicating grammatical roles.
The verb may also be followed by an infinitive (or supine, in Czech and
Slovenian, after a verb of motion (5.5.5.11)):
(15)
VERB + INFINITIVE/SUPINE
(15a) Slk naka
´
zali mu prestat’ fajc
ˇit’
order-PlPast he-Cl-Dat stop-Inf smoke-Inf
‘they ordered him to stop smoking’
(15b) Slk panov sluchat’ sa nevyplaca
man-AccPl listen-Inf ReflEncl Neg-pay-3Sg
‘it is not worth listening to men’
(15c) Cz jdu spat/spa
´
t
go-1Sg sleep-Sup/sleep-Inf
‘I am going to sleep’
(15d) Sln mo
´
ram spa
´
t/spa
´
ti
must-1Sg sleep-Sup/sleep-Inf
‘I must go to bed’ ‘I must sleep’
Alternatively, the verb may be followed by a subordinate clause, introduced by a
complementizer (7.2.2):
(16) VERB + COMPLEMENTIZER + SUBORDINATE CLAUSE
(16a) Slk hovoril som va
´
m,
ˇ
ze bude treba opravit’ niekol’ko mostov
‘I told you that it would be necessary to repair several bridges’
(16b) Slk bojı
´
sa, aby pri prechode
fear-3SgRefl in-order-that(-3Sg) at crossing-over
352 7. Sentence structure
nedostal gul’ku odzadu
Neg-get-MascPast bullet from_behind
‘he is afraid that in crossing over he might be hit by a bullet from
behind’
(see below on ‘in-order-that’). The predicate can also consist of the copula ‘be’;
quasi-copulative verbs which have the same semantic, and in part syntactic, func-
tion as the copula (e.g. Rus javla
´
t
0
sja ‘be’); and semi-copulative verbs like ‘appear,
become, seem, look’, all of which express specially modified forms of being. Such
predicates do not occur alone, but must be accompanied by a noun phrase,
adjective or prepositional phrase. As with verbs proper, an auxiliary may occur
as well:
(17) ‘ BE’+NOUN PHRASE
(17a) Slk Slovensko je etnologicky
´
m uzlom v Slovanstve
‘Slovakia is an ethnological grouping in Slavdom’
(17b) Blg a
´
zsa˘ m stude
´
nt ‘I am (a) student’
(17c) Rus ja
´
stude
´
nt ‘I (am a) student’
(17d) Rus o
´
nby
´
l vysoko
´
go ro
´
sta
he-Nom be-MascSgPast tall-GenSg stature-GenSg
‘he was of tall stature/tall in stature/tall’
(18)
QUASI-COPULA + NOUN PHRASE
Rus neobyknove
´
nnaja odare
¨
nnost
0
unusual-NomSgFem giftedness[Fem]-NomSg
javlja
´
etsja pric
ˇ
ı
´
noj ego
´
uda
´
c
ˇ
i
be-3Sg cause-InstrSg his success-GenSg
‘unusual giftedness is the cause of his success’
(19)
SEMI-COPULA + NOUN PHRASE
(19a) Ukr vı
´
n uva ˇza
´
jet
0
sja znavce
´
m
he pass_for-3Sg connoisseur-InstrSgMasc
‘he passes for a connoisseur’
(19b) Bel Ja
´
nko sta
´
u
˘
kupco
´
m
Janko become-MascSgPast merchant-InstrSg
‘Janko became a merchant’
In East Slavic the copula ‘be’ is usually not expressed in the present tense except
for emphasis or formula-like definitions (20b). Polish also shows a decline of
‘be’ in the present tense, sometimes replacing it in the written language with a
7.1 Overview 353
dash (as in East Slavic) or with the invariant to, followed by the nominative
case, and not by the instrumental case, which is regular for nouns after byc
´
‘be’
(20c–e):
(20)
ZERO COPULA
(20a) Ukr te
´
mno v po
´
li ‘(it is) dark in the field’
(20b) Rus Bo
´
ge
´
st
0
ljubo
´
v
0
‘God is love’
(20c) Pol Wisła – wielka rzeka w Polsce
‘the Vistula is a big river in Poland’
(20d) Pol Wisła to wielka rzeka w Polsce
‘the Vistula is a big river in Poland’
(20e) Pol ujrzec
´
[Inf] to uwierzyc
´
[Inf] ‘seeing is believing’
The structures of copulae and semi-copulae are similar with following adjectives
and prepositional phrases:
(21) COPULA + ADJECTIVE/PREPOSITIONAL PHRASE
(21a) Bel dze
´
n
0
vyda
´
u
˘
sja sone
´
c
ˇ
ny ‘the day appeared sunny’
(21b) Blg nos
ˇ
tta
´
ec
ˇe
´
rna i zlove
´
s
ˇ
ta, nos
ˇ
tta
´
ele
´
dna kato
´
sma˘rt
‘the night is dark and menacing, the night is cold as death’
(21c) Blg nos
ˇ
tta
´
e kato
´
sma˘rt ‘the night is like death’
(21d) Rus my
´
v otc
ˇ
a
´
janii ‘we (are) in despair’
And these expressions in turn may be accompanied by objects, usually preposi-
tional phrases, and infinitives. They may also introduce subordinate clauses:
(22)
COPULA + ADJECTIVE/PREPOSITIONAL PHRASE
(22a) Cz Jir
ˇ
ı
´
byl ra
´
dte
´
Jir
ˇ
ı
´
be-MascSgPast glad-MascSg this-DatSgFem
pochvale
praise[Fem]-DatSg
‘Jir
ˇ
ı
´
was pleased with this praise’
(22b) Slk nie som v stave odpovedat’
Neg be-1Sg in state reply-Inf
‘I am not in a fit state to reply’
(22c) Slk som presvedc
ˇ
eny
´
,ˇze +
SENTENCE
‘I am convinced that + SENTENCE’
354 7. Sentence structure
Adverbs (in bold) are usually optional:
(23a) Slk nehl’adel ani napravo ani nal’avo
‘he looked neither to the right nor left’
(23b) Mac doruc
ˇ
ek bev doma, odruc
ˇ
ek izlegov nadvor
‘in the morning I was at home, in the afternoon I went out’
Adverbs form many classes, and occur more with verbal predicates than with
copulae. Degree adverbs occur with adjectives, adverbs, verbs and some predicate-
noun expressions, are closely tied to the heads of their construction, and usually
permit less variation in word order for this reason:
(24) Sorb Michał ma jara bohatu zbe
ˇ
rku
‘Michael has a very rich collection’
Other types of adverbs/adverbials are more mobile. Slavic grammars differ in their
classification of adverbs, though the basis is usually semantic (8.5). The array of
semantic types of adverbs is significantly larger than that usually proposed for
English. The 1980 Academy grammar of Russian (S
ˇ
vedova, 1980: 703–705), for
instance, identifies:
(25)
ADVERBS (Russian examples)
PLACE:
place-where gde ‘where’
place-whither kuda
´
‘where, to where, whither’
place-whence otku
´
da ‘from where, whence’
TIME:
time-when kogda
´
‘when’
time how-long do
´
lgo ‘for a long time’
time how-often c
ˇ
a
´
sto ‘often’
MANNER by
´
stro ‘quickly’
DEGREE o
´
c
ˇ
en
0
‘very’
GOAL naro
´
c
ˇno
‘on purpose’
CAUSE sozla
´
‘from spite’
ACCOMPANIMENT vme
´
ste ‘together’
Adverbials may be expressed by an adverb, including an adverb derived from a
gerund:
(26a) B/C/S o
&
nje ve`` c
´
d
`
os
ˇ
ao
he Aux already come-PastPart-MascSg
‘he has come already’
7.1 Overview 355
(26b) Rus o
´
nc
ˇita
´
lsı
´
dja [Ger] ‘he was reading sitting down’
a case-marked noun phrase:
(27) Pol zabili go karabinem [Instr] ‘they killed him with a rifle’
a prepositional phrase:
(28a) Mac so pus
ˇ
ka go udrija
with rifle he-Cl-Acc kill-3PlPast
‘they killed him with a rifle’
(28b) Sorb po sło
´
nc
ˇ
ku do hribow hic
´
je
after sunrise to mushrooms go-Inf be-3Sg
zapozdz
´ena
we
ˇc
be-late-FemSgNomPastPart thing[Fem]-NomSg
‘to go looking for mushrooms after sunrise is too late’
an expanded or modified version of any of the above:
(29) Rus Ma
´
s
ˇ
a prosnu
´
las
0
ra
´
no u
´
trom
‘Masha awoke early in the morning’
or by a subordinate sentence introduced by a conjunction:
(30) Rus Ma
´
s
ˇ
a prosnu
´
las
0
u
´
trom, kogda
´
so
´
lnce to
´
l
0
ko c
ˇ
to vsta
´
lo
‘Masha woke in the morning, when the sun had just risen’
There are two other slots in the simple sentence which are not adverbial, but which
look semantically rather like adverbs. These are the ‘‘predicative attributives’’ or
‘‘adjuncts’’, which agree with the subject in gender and number, and are simulta-
neously governed in case by the verb. They may refer to either objects or subjects,
and express a notion of ‘‘accompanying condition’’:
(31a) Sorb ho
´
lc pr
ˇ
in
´
dz
´
e wjesołyzes
ˇ
ule
boy arrive-3Sg happy-NomSgMasc from school
‘the boy arrives happy from school’
(31b) Bel Mı
´
tka pajs
ˇ
o
´
u
˘
pe
´
rs
ˇ
y
Mitka go-MascSgPast first-MascSgNom
‘Mitka went first’
(31c) Sorb my jemy hriby syre
we eat-1Pl mushroom-AccPl raw-AccPl
‘we eat mushrooms raw’
356 7. Sentence structure
7.1.1 Definiteness
Bulgarian and Macedonian share with Romanian and Albanian the typically
Balkan feature of the post-posed definite article (32a–b), a pattern also found in
dialectal North Russian (32c):
(32a) Blg ˇzena
´
‘woman, wife’ ˇzena
´
ta ‘the woman, wife’
(32b) Mac vol ‘ox’ volot ‘the ox’
(32c) CS-Rus knı
´
ga ‘(a/the) book’
N-Rus knı
´
ga-ta ‘the book’
The Bulgarian and Macedonian article attaches to the leftmost concording mem-
ber of the noun phrase (5.5.1). If there is only one noun, the suffix attaches to that
noun; otherwise it attaches to the first adjective, and so on:
(32d) Blg Xrı
´
sto Bo
´
tev e na
´
j-velı
´
kijat ba˘
´
lgarski poe
´
t
Christo Botev is most-great-Def Bulgarian poet
‘Xristo Botev is the greatest Bulgarian poet’
The post-posed ‘this, that’ deictics of Macedonian work in the same way (33a–b).
All the Slavic languages, including Macedonian, have lexical (as opposed to affixal)
deictics for expressing ‘this’ and ‘that’; and in Macedonian they may even co-occur
with the suffix-deictic (33c):
(33a) Mac volot ‘the ox’ volov ‘this ox’ volon ‘that ox’
(33b) Mac knigata ‘the book’ knigava ‘this book’ knigana ‘that book’
(33c) Mac ov-ie nas
ˇ
-i-v-e
this-Pl our-Pl-this-Pl
‘these fellows of ours’
The Macedonian suffix deictics are semantically weaker than the word-deictics,
and can often be translated merely by the definite article in English. This connec-
tion between the deictics and definiteness recalls Proto-Germanic and Proto-
Romance, where deictics were the source of modern articles, as in Latin illa ‘that’
[Fem], French and Italian la, Romanian -la. In modern Polish ten ‘this’ is increas-
ingly being used to mean [Definite] as well as ‘this’; there are parallel developments
in Upper Sorbian and Czech (11.3):
(34) Pol widziałas
´
tego nowego nauczyciela?
‘have you seen the/this new teacher?’
To mark a noun phrase as clearly indefinite, most Slavic languages can use the numeral
‘one’, like Czech jeden, or forms like Rus ne
´
kij ‘a certain’ (the latter mainly in high style):
7.1 Overview 357
(35) Cz byl tu jeden mu ˇz ‘there was a man here’
The pattern of suffixing articles and deictics in Bulgarian and Macedonian is also
found, in a slightly different form, in the definite–indefinite adjectives in Common
Slavic, Old Church Slavonic, and modern Slovenian and B/C/S (5.4.3, 5.5.2). The
other means of marking definiteness in Slavic are not lexical but syntactic and
pragmatic, and are concerned with word order and the organization of information
in the sentence (7.5).
7.1.2 Questions
The Slavic languages possess three means for constructing questions: by into-
nation, particles and question-words, with relevant adjustments of word order.
Yes/no questions can be formed by applying a marked question intonation to
an ordinary declarative sentence. The words affected by the contrastive intonation
are in small capitals:
(36a) Blg Ba˘
´
lgarski-jat ezı
´
k prinadle ˇz-ı
´
ka
ˇ
m seme
´
jstvo-to na
Bulgarian-Def language belong-3Sg to family-Def of
SLAVJA
´
NSKI-TE EZI
´
C-I ?
Slavic-DefPl language-Pl
‘does the Bulgarian language belong to the family of the
Slavic languages?’
This structure questions the whole sentence (‘is it the case that’ + Sentence). It is
also possible to question individual constituents or words in the sentence by
applying the marked part of the question intonation to them:
(36b) Blg [...]
SEME
´
JSTVOTO na slavja
´
nskite ezı
´
ci?
‘[...]tothe family [i.e. not sub-family, etc.] of the Slavic
languages?’
If a sentence is already in a non-neutral word order, the question intonation
questions the constituents or words emphasized in the declarative sentence:
(36c) Blg ka
ˇ
m seme
´
jstvoto na slavja
´
nskite ezı
´
ci prinadle ˇzı
´
BA
´
LGARSKIJAT
EZI
´
K
?
‘Is it to the family of Slavic languages that the Bulgarian language
belongs?’ or ‘Does Bulgarian belong to ...’
A second method for forming Yes/no questions involves the use of particles. All
Slavic languages can ask Yes/no questions by this means. The particles are either
358 7. Sentence structure