Open AccessRussian constructions with numerals and quantifiers: Their non-standard use in the subject and object position
Author(s) -
Belenky Alexander
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
rhema. rema
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2500-2953
DOI - 10.31862/2500-2953-2020-1-70-89
Subject(s) - subject (documents) , plural , numeral system , negation , linguistics , object (grammar) , verb , non canonical , agreement , mathematics , computer science , artificial intelligence , natural language processing , philosophy , library science , biology , microbiology and biotechnology
In the article, I describe cases of special behavior of Russian phrases with quantifiers like neskol’ko ‘some’, mnogo ‘many, much’ and small numerals like dva ‘two’. I show that they can occur in the subject position in contexts that usually do not contain a canonical DP/NP subject (constructions with the verb xvatat’ ‘be enough’, negation contexts with the verb byt’ ‘be’ and its habitual / iterative correlate byvat’), and for neskol’ko-like quantifiers, the direct object position with intransi- tive predicates like na-...-sja circumfixed verbs is also available. The reason of non- canonical subject behavior is the possibility to be subjects without controlling plural verbal agreement, while the non-canonical direct object behavior is possible because neskol’ko-like quantifiers lack the category of case.