Universiteit Leiden

nl en
Student website African Studies (MA)

Lecture | Com(parative) Syn(tax) Series

Implications of Case (mis-)matches for theories of ATB-movement. Evidence from non-syncretic mismatches involving the genitive of negation in Russian

Date
Thursday 4 December 2025
Time
Serie
Com(parative) Syn(tax) Series
Address
Lipsius
Cleveringaplaats 1
2311 BD Leiden
Room
2.07

Abstract

ATB-movement is generally subject to a case-matching requirement: The same case must be assigned to the filler in both conjuncts; different cases are allowed only if the two are syncretic. In this paper, we will discuss an instance of ATB-movement that is grammatical despite a non-syncretic case mismatch. The data come from the genitive of negation in Russian. While similar mismatches have been documented for other Slavic languages (Bondaruk 2003, Citko 2011, Rothert 2022), we will present a comprehensive picture of the empirical facts in Russian and provide the first analysis of the pattern. We will argue that such mismatches are possible because the genitive featurally subsumes the accusative but not other cases and show that the facts are best derived under a sideward movement approach.

Joint work with Masha Privizentseva.

Join online!

This website uses cookies.  More information.