Two types of verb fronting in Russian
Maria Esipova
March 2018
 

Russian has two types of verb fronting with doubling: when the fronted verb is an infinitive, and when it is fully inflected. I explore the semantic differences between the two types of verb fronting, previously ignored in the literature, and argue that in uninflected verb fronting the fronted constituent is semantically a predicate, while in inflected verb fronting it’s an assertion. Syntactically, thus, the two fronted constituents differ in size: it is the largest Aspect Phrase in uninflected verb fronting and a (Speech) Act Phrase with its complement elided in inflected verb fronting.
Format: [ pdf ]
Reference: lingbuzz/003983
(please use that when you cite this article)
Published in: Proceedings of FASL 26 (preprint)
keywords: syntax/semantics interface, verb fronting, predicate clefts, contrastive topics, focus, semantics, syntax
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