Sussex R., Cubberley P. The Slavic Languages
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although the t-word is often included in such inverted structures:
(131e) Rus kto
´
pe
´
rvyj ska
´
ˇzet, to
´
t polu
´
c
ˇ
it
who first say-3SgFut that_one receive-3SgFut
nagra
´
du
reward-Acc
‘who says (it) first, he will receive the reward’
7.3 Specific construction types
In this section we discuss seven topics of specific typological interest: pronouns
(7.3.1), reflexives (7.3.2), apersonal and impersonal constructions (7.3.3), indirec-
tion (7.3.4), participial (7.3.5) and gerundial (7.3.6) constructions, and ellipsis and
deletion (7.3.7).
7.3.1 Pronouns and anaphora
Slavic pronouns occur in circumstances similar to English. In general, if a noun is
identical in reference to a preceding noun, a pronoun can occur in its place (anaphora):
(132a) Ukr Andrı
´
j pryjs
ˇ
o
´
v ranı
´
s
ˇ
e. Vı
´
n ... ‘Andrij arrived earlier. He ...’
Less commonly, it can be the first of two such nominals which may be replaced by
a pronoun if the nominal occurs in a pre-posed subordinate clause (cataphora):
(132b) Ukr koly
´
vı
´
nce
´
ka
´
ˇze, zna
´
c
ˇ
yt
0
u profe
´
sora je pidsta
´
vka
‘if he says that, it means that the professor has a reason’
Slavic differs from English in that the pronoun often may not occur in the sentence
if the verb carries explicit person-number marking, or in colloquial style; examples
of both types of subject-omission are given in the discussion of ellipsis (7.3.7).
Slavic has a characteristic ‘‘anticipatory plural’’ use of pronouns in conjoined
subjects containing at least one pronoun, sometimes called the ‘‘comitative’’(133b).
In such cases the first pronoun is often plural, and ‘and’ becomes ‘with’:
(133a) Rus ja
´
i Iva
´
n pos
ˇ
lı
´
na konce
´
rt
‘I and Ivan went to the concert’ (unusual)
(133b) Rus my
´
s Iva
´
nom pos
ˇ
lı
´
na konce
´
rt
we with Ivan-InstrSg go-PlPast to concert (preferred)
‘Ivan and I went to the concert’
7.3 Specific construction types 389
Forms like (133b) are ambiguous, since they may refer to two persons or more than
two persons: to me, Ivan and perhaps also other persons unspecified (‘we and Ivan’).
Pronouns are not the only words which can refer back to words in previous
sentences in this way. Adjectives or determiners may also do so. The noun with
which it occurred in the preceding sentence, or to which it refers, is omitted, and the
construction is translated by the English ‘ones’:
(134) Pol U nas w ogrodzie rosna˛ białe i czerwone kwiaty.
Biał e (Takie) potrzebuja˛ duz
:
o wody .
‘In our garden grow white and red flowers.
The white ones (Such ones) need a lot of water.’
Certain uses of pronouns are not referential. In Macedonian the proclitic ‘‘double
object’’ pronoun is a marker of case and grammatical function, and not of ana-
phora (6.2.3):
(135) Mac go gledam Grozdana
he-ProclAcc see-1SgPres Grozdan-Acc
‘I see Grozdan’
Some pronouns are used in non-personal constructions, where the reference is
general and unspecified. In certain such cases even the pronoun itself is deleted,
leaving only the verb as a marker of person and number:
(136) Rus kogda
´
vı
´
dis
ˇ
0
[2Sg] takı
´
eve
´
s
ˇ
c
ˇ
i, ne zna
´
es
ˇ
0
[2Sg],c
ˇ
to
´
du
´
mat
0
‘when you see things like that, you don’t know what to think’
Possessive adjectives (‘my’, ‘your’, ‘his’) and possessive pronouns (‘mine’, ‘yours’,
‘his’) follow similar rules for forming pronouns as normal personal pronouns –
though unlike English, the two series of forms are identical (5.5.2–3). The one
special case is the ‘‘reflexive’’ possessive (corresponding to Latin suus), which may
refer to a psychological subject (if there is no nominative subject), even if the subject
is not expressed at all:
(137) Rus na
´
do ljubı
´
t
0
svoju
´
ro
´
dinu
‘it is necessary to love one’s country’
But possessive adjectives are usually omitted with nouns referring to family rela-
tives, parts of the body and close personal possessions (7.1.7). In such sentences all
possessive relations are understood to refer to the subject of the sentence, unless
otherwise stated, or unless some ambiguities are present, in which case the posses-
sor can be explicitly identified:
(138a) Rus o
´
n napisa
´
lma
´
teri
‘he wrote to (his own) mother’
390 7. Sentence structure
(138b) Rus o
´
n napisa
´
l svoe
´
j ma
´
teri
‘he wrote to his own mother’ (emphatic)
(138c) Rus o
´
n napisa
´
l ego
´
ma
´
teri
‘he wrote to his (someone else’s) mother’
7.3.2 Reflexives
The reflexive may take several forms. East Slavic has lost the reflexive as a clitic
pronoun, and it is now a verbal suffix which is not separated from the verb (5.5.3).
In the other languages the clitic may attach itself to many different hosts in the first
unaccented position of the clause (7.4.3.3):
(139) Slk pozrite, co som si nas
ˇ
la
look-2PlImper what AuxCl-1Sg self-Cl-Dat find-FemSgPast
‘look what I’ve found myself’
It does not matter that the reflexive belongs to an infinitive: it will still occur in
second position in the sentence. Consider the alternative ordering of the clitic sie˛
‘self’ with Polish umyc
´
sie˛ ‘to wash (oneself)’ and patrzyc
´
sie˛ ‘to look’:
(140) ‘I want to wash myself’
Pol chce˛ sie˛ umyc
´
want-1Sg ReflCl wash
or:
chce˛ umyc
´
sie˛
(141) ‘Janek wants to have a look at the garden’
Pol Janek sie˛ chce popatrzyc
´
na ogro
´
d
Janek ReflCl want-3SgPres look-InfPrfv at garden
or:
Janek chce sie˛ popatrzyc
´
na ogro
´
d
As this example of popatrzyc
´
sie˛ ‘to look[Prfv]’ shows, verbs bearing the reflexive
marker can have a variety of meanings. Some of these meanings will be genuinely
reflexive, and the verbs to which the reflexive marker is added are usually ordinary
transitive verbs:
(142) Blg mı
´
eseot vodı
´
te na c
ˇ
e
´
rno more
´
‘(he) washes (himself) in the waters of the Black Sea’
In addition, however, verbs with the reflexive formant may also be syntactically
active, like Polish patrzyc
´
sie˛ ‘to look’. Verbs with a reflexive form may also express
impersonal constructions or passives (7.1.5, 7.3.3).
7.3 Specific construction types 391
Apart from the affix/clitic reflexive there is also a ‘‘strong’’, non-clitic, reflexive
pronoun in all eleven languages. This pronoun occurs especially after prepositions
and in some examples shows a different meaning from the clitic pronoun, with the
full reflexive pronoun expressing a stronger notion of responsible agency:
(143a) Rus c
ˇu´
vstvovat
0
sja ‘to be a feeling, an impression’
c
ˇ
u
´
vstvovat
0
sebja
´
‘to feel (physically)’
(143b) Rus spra
´
s
ˇ
ivat
0
sja ‘to wonder’
spra
´
s
ˇ
ivat
0
sebja
´
‘to ask oneself’
(143c) Rus lis
ˇ
ı
´
t
0
sja
ˇ
zı
´
zni ‘to lose one’s life’
lis
ˇ
ı
´
t
0
sebja
´
ˇzı
´
zni ‘to take one’s life’
The ‘‘dative of the interested person’’ may also occur with the reflexive:
(144a) Rus Mstisla
´
v predlo ˇzı
´
lsy
´
nu stro
´
it
0
sebe
´
do
´
m
‘Mstislav suggested to (his) son to build himself (sebe: i.e. for
the son) a house’
(144b) Rus Mstisla
´
v predlo ˇzı
´
lsy
´
nu stro
´
it
0
emu
´
do
´
m
‘Mstislav suggested to (his) son to build him (emu: i.e. for
Mstislav) a house’
Reflexive verbs may also express mutual actions, where subject and object
exchange similar actions, perhaps with an implied mutual dative:
(145) Rus onı
´
perepı
´
syvajutsja ‘they exchange letters/correspond’
The reflexive possessive refers to the subject of the clause in which it occurs,
whether it is in the form of the determiner or the dative-possessive clitic pronoun:
(146a) Blg zna
´
es
ˇ
svo
´
ite ( tvo
´
ite) zada˘lˇze
´
nija
know-2SgPres own-PlDef your(Sg)-PlDef obligations
‘you know your obligations’
(146b) Blg obı
´
c
ˇ
am rodı
´
nata si
love-1SgPres country[Fem]-Def ReflCl-Dat
‘I love my country’
In subject noun phrases like ‘John and his brother ...’ the his does not refer to the
whole subject, and is therefore not the reflexive possessive (i.e. the reflexive cannot
itself be the subject, since it refers back to it):
(147) Blg Sto
´
jkoine
´
gov (ne
´
govijat) bra
´
t (*Stojko i svoj brat)
‘Stojko and his brother’
392 7. Sentence structure
7.3.3 Apersonal and impersonal constructions
Very typical of Slavic are the apersonal construction and the many types of
impersonal constructions. Both these types have no expressed subject. In apersonal
constructions, also called ‘‘indefinite-personal’’ sentences in several Slavic gram-
matical terminologies, the verb is in the 3 Person plural and the structure is
approximately equivalent to the English ‘people/they’ + Verb, or constructions
with French on, German man:
(148) Rus govorja
´
t, c
ˇto
e
`
to nevozmo
´
ˇzno
say-3PlPres that this-NeutSg impossible-NeutSg
‘they say that this is impossible’
Such apersonal constructions express a reduced notion of agency, and so are
midway between actives and passives (7.1.5).
The apersonal construction is distinguished (a) from sentences where the subject
is absent because it is understood from the context of discourse or by anaphora
from a preceding sentence:
(149) Pol ale jak pracuje ! ‘(but) how he works!’
and (b) from sentences containing a neuter singular subject which are not imper-
sonal. In such cases the neuter pronoun may refer back to a sentence or part of a
preceding sentence:
(150) Rus (
SENTENCE). E
`
to udivlja
´
lo na
´
s.
‘(SENTENCE). This astonished us.’
or may be part of a sentence which is itself the subject of another sentence:
(151) Slk prestat’ hres
ˇ
it’ je t’a ˇzs
ˇ
ie ‘to stop swearing is more difficult’
The true impersonal construction cannot have a subject – unlike English, where in
comparable constructions a ‘‘dummy’’ it occurs, as in it is raining or it is stuffy.In
Slavic impersonal constructions the verb or predicate is in the 3 Person neuter
singular. From the formal point of view, the main types of Slavic impersonal
constructions include:
1. Impersonal verbs
(152a) Cz te
ˇsˇ
ı
´
me
ˇ
please-3Sg I-Cl-Acc
‘delighted (to meet you)’ (in response to an introduction)
7.3 Specific construction types 393
(152b) Ukr dos
ˇ
c
ˇy
´
t
0
Cz prs
ˇ
ı
´
Pol pada B/C/S kı
´
s
ˇ
i
‘it is raining’
(152c) Rus xvata
´
et ‘it/there is enough’
ne xvata
´
et xle
´
ba
Neg suffice-3SgPres bread-GenSg
‘there is not enough bread’
2. Personal verbs used impersonally, especially with the reflexive.
If a person is indicated, they are in the dative case (153b):
(153a) Cz dnes se nede
ˇ
la
´
today ReflCl Neg-work-3SgPres
‘(there is) no work today’
(153b) Rus mne
´
ne spı
´
tsja
I-Dat Neg sleep-3Sg-Refl
‘I don’t feel like sleeping’
(153c) Blg razbı
´
ra se (cf. Mac: se razbira)
understand-3Sg ReflCl (ReflCl understand-3Sg)
‘of course’
3. Numerals
(154) Pol pie˛ciu pano
´
w wchodziłoby
5-MascPers man-GenPl enter-NeutSgPast-Cond
‘5 men would come in’
There are, however, important variations in the use of personal forms
of the verb with subject noun phrases containing a numeral (6.2).
4. Quantifiers
(155) Mac kolku lug
´
e bea tamu
how-many people-Pl be-3PlImperf there
‘how many people were there’
All Slavic languages, however, have some concording quantifiers
which allow the subject noun phrase to function in personal construc-
tions (see (1) above).
5. Negated ‘be’ sentences of existence or presence
(156a) Ukr ni kra
´
pli nema
´
vody
´
Neg drop-GenSg Neg-be/have-3Sg water-GenSg
‘there is not a drop of water’
394 7. Sentence structure
(156b) Pol nie ma go w kuchni
Neg be/have-3Sg he-Cl-GenSg in kitchen
‘he isn’t in the kitchen’
The comparable personal forms mean not pure absence or non-
existence, but rather something like ‘he hadn’t gone there’:
(156c) Rus o
´
n ne
´
byl v tea
´
tre
‘he wasn’t at the theatre’ ¼ ‘he didn’t go/hadn’t been
to the theatre’
cf. (156d) Rus ego
´
ne
´
bylo v tea
´
tre ‘he wasn’t in the theatre’
(i.e. was missing, e.g. when something happened)
6. Predicative neuter adjectives
(157) Sorb je c
´
e
ˇ
mno ‘it is dark’ je c
´
icho ‘it is quiet’
je dz
´iwno
‘it is strange’ je mo
´
ˇzno ‘it is possible’
This class, particularly those words referring to natural phenomena
and atmospheric conditions, was and is often called the ‘‘category of
state’’ by Soviet and Russian linguists, since it expresses a state or
condition rather than an action.
7. Predicative neuter (short-form) past passive participles
(158) Pol ukradziono mi samocho
´
d
steal-NeutSgPastPassPart I-Cl-Dat car-AccSG
‘my car has been stolen’
8. Predicative nouns
(159) Rus mne
´
øˇza
´
l
0
ego
´
I-DatSg (be) pity[Noun] he-Acc
‘I am sorry for him’
9. Agent–patient impersonals
(160a) Rus reka
´
unesla
´
lo
´
dku
river[Fem]-NomSg carry_away-FemSgPast boat-AccSg
‘the river carried the boat away’
(160b) Rus reko
´
j uneslo
´
lo
´
dku
river[Fem]-InstrSg carry-away-NeutSgPast boat-AccSg
‘the boat was carried away by the river’
7.3 Specific construction types 395
In (160b) the agentive force of reka
´
is reduced. Such constructions
usually only occur with nouns referring to the irresistible forces of
nature.
10. Infinitival impersonals
(161a) Sorb ze wotewrjeneho wokna je
from open-GenSgPastPassPart window-GenSg be-3Sg
ws
ˇ
osłys
ˇ
ec
´
everything hear-Inf
‘everything can be heard from the open window’
Such impersonal sentences may centre on an infinitive, or may depend
as well on the presence of other elements in the sentence, like an agent
in the dative case:
(161b) Rus ne mne
´
skaza
´
t
0
emu
´
, c
ˇ
to ...
Neg I-Dat say-Inf he-Dat that
‘it isn’t for me to tell him that ...’
or the meaning ‘there was someone/no-one to do X’:
(161c) Pol jest komu to zrobic
´
be-3SgPres who-DatSg it-Acc do-Inf
‘there is someone to do that’
(161d) Ukr pospis
ˇ
a
´
ty nikudy
´
hurry-Inf Neg-whither
‘there is nowhere to hurry to’
This classification by the forms of the impersonal categories and constructions is
supplemented and expanded by the more customary semantic classification.
Numerals, quantifiers and negated ‘be’ sentences are semantically self-explanatory.
But other semantic categories cut across the formal classification:
1. Physical states of sentient beings
(162a) Ukr menı
´
nezdoro
´
vyt
0
sja
I-Dat be-ill-3SgPres
‘I feel ill’
(162b) Pol jest mi niedobrze/zimno
be-3Sg I-Cl-Dat bad-NeutSg/cold-NeutSg
‘I feel ill/cold’
396 7. Sentence structure
(162c) Blg ma˘rzı
´
me
freeze-3Sg I-Cl-Dat
‘I feel frozen’
2. Mental states of sentient beings
(163) Rus mne
´
nelo
´
vko
I-Dat maladroit
‘I feel uncomfortable/embarrassed’
3. Natural phenomena
(164a) Sorb je zymno
be-3Sg cold-NeutSg
‘it is cold’
Blg gromı
´
thunder-3Sg
‘it thunders’
(164b) Slk stmieva sa
grow-dark-3Sg ReflCl
‘it is growing dark’
4. Obligation/duty, with or without an expressed agent
(165a) Sorb je trjeba wo tym pr
ˇ
emyslowac
´
be-3Sg necessary about it-LocSg think-Inf
‘it is necessary to think about it’
(165b) Rus sle
´
duet napisa
´
t
0
emu
´
pis
0
mo
´
necessary-3Sg write-Inf he-Dat letter-Acc
‘one (we, you) must write him a letter’
5. Possibility/chance/permission
(166a) Ukr ne mo
´
ˇzna skaza
´
ty, s
ˇ
c
ˇ
ob ...
Neg possible say-Inf in-order-that
‘one cannot say that ...’
(166b) Slk smie sa tu fajc
ˇ
it’
dare-3Sg ReflCl here smoke-Inf
‘may one smoke here?’
7.3 Specific construction types 397
6. Fitness/suitability
(167) Ukr va
´
rt pryjizdy
´
ty
worthwhile come-Inf
‘it is worthwhile coming’
7. Inclination or disinclination
(168a) Rus mne
´
ne toro
´
pitsja
I-Dat Neg hasten-3Sg
‘I don’t feel like hurrying’
(168b) Ukr xo
´
c
ˇ
et
0
sja ra
´
duvatysja, ja
´
kso
´
nce sja
´
je
want-3SgPres-Refl rejoice-Inf how sun shine-3SgPres
‘one feels like rejoicing at how the sun shines’
8. Regret
(169) Cz bylo s
ˇ
koda, ˇze nepr
ˇ
is
ˇ
el
be-NeutSgPast pity that Neg-come-MascSgPast
‘it was a pity that he didn’t come’
9. Action with backgrounded or unexpressed agent
(170) Ukr ta
´
mdo
´
bre ˇzyve
´
t
0
sja
there well live-3SgPres-Refl
‘it’s good living/life is good there’
7.3.4 Indirection
We use the term ‘‘indirection’’ to cover indirect commands, indirect questions and
indirect speech. They all report a speech event at a later time, and from a different
speech-act perspective, from the original utterance. As a result, 1 and 2 Person
address is reformulated as 3 Person in indirect speech acts. Proximate deictics
(‘this’) are converted to non-proximate deictics (‘that’).
In indirect commands we find infinitival constructions (7.2.2.1) and comple-
ments (7.2.2.2). The original imperative is replaced in indirect commands by either
an infinitive (except in Macedonian, where there is no infinitive, and in Bulgarian,
where there is only a marginal vestigial infinitive), or an ‘in-order-that’ clause,
depending on the verb of command and the syntactic construction:
(171a) Rus c
ˇ
ita
´
jte! ‘read!’
(171b) Rus ja
´
emu
´
skaza
´
l, c
ˇto
´
by o
´
n
I-Nom he-Dat tell-MascSgPast in-order-that he
398 7. Sentence structure