Accusative/Genitive Under Negation in Russian: From Syntactic Marking to Semantics
Posted: 12 Dec 2017 Last revised: 27 Feb 2018
Date Written: December 11, 2017
Abstract
This study investigates the reasons for choosing the genitive or accusative case for propositional nouns with verbs in negative sentences. The probable reason for the recommendation in grammars to choose the genitive case with abstract nouns in negative construction is two constructions overlapping: the negative construction and the construction of descriptive predicate. The study examines 22 examples taken from the National Corpus of the Russian Language 2000-2017 with the propositional abstract object otvet (answer). The examples are divided into two groups – with the object included in the construction of the descriptive predicate and with the verb naming one proposition, and two-subject-constructions. The examples of both groups mostly contain genitive nouns, but for different reasons.
Keywords: negation; negative sentence; abstract nouns; propositional nouns; descriptive predicate; case choice under negation; Genitive; Accusative
JEL Classification: Z13
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation
Vera Fesenko (Contact Author)
National Research University Higher School of Economics (Moscow) ( email )
Myasnitskaya street, 20
Moscow, Moscow 119017
Russia