On subjects and predicates in Russian

Abstract

The present dissertation under the title On Subjects and Predicates in Russian discusses relevant linguistic theories in connection with subject positions and predication relations, and presents some issues that have not, in my view, been addressed in the linguistic literature so far. I offer a new approach to sentential structure in light of the most recent developments within the framework of Chomsky's Minimalist Program (Chomsky, 1993, 1995, 2001a, 2001b). The aim of this dissertation is to integrate the cognitively based lexical semantics approach and the formal analyses with relation to philosophy and logic of language. This study employs case theory and predication theory in a way of relating semantic components to formal syntactic descriptions. The thesis has the following structure: Chapter I. Russian Impersonal Sentences; Chapter II. Pron in Russian and Hebrew, and SER/ESTAR in Spanish; Chapter III. On Small Clauses and Predication; Chapter IV. On Reflexivity, Passivization, and Case Assignment; Chapter V. A Minimalist Approach to Subjects and Predicates. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)