Island properties of subjects in simple and dependent clauses in Russian

Daria Belova
Lomonosov Moscow State University / Institute of Linguistics RAS

Abstract. This paper deals with island properties of subject noun phrases in Russian depending on verbal argument structure and word order. I compared the availability of elements within DPs to A’-subextraction in dependent clauses with the results of my research of simple clauses and found some crucial differences. I believe that these differences can be explained by different mechanisms leading to the splitting of constituents. In simple clauses it is actual subextraction which is regulated by information-structural principles, and in dependent clauses it is discontinuous spellout. In both experiments the preference for unaccusative subjects was not confirmed.

Keywords: subject island, discontinuous spellout, unaccusativity, word order

For citation: Belova D. Island properties of subjects in simple and dependent clauses in Russian. Typology of Morphosyntactic Parameters. 2021. Vol. 4, iss. 1. Pp. 11–29. (In Rus.)