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Adversative conjunction choice in Russian (no, da, odnako): Semantic and syntactic influences on lexical selection

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 July 2009

Vsevolod Kapatsinski
Vsevolod Kapatsinski
Affiliation:
University of Oregon
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Abstract

This article presents a multivariate analysis of adversative conjunction choice (among no, da, and odnako) in Russian, drawing implications for sentence production and semantic theory. The two main factors shown to influence conjunction choice are the types of the conjoined constituents and the semantic subtype of the adversative relation. One of the conjunctions, da, is favored when the conjoined elements are of different syntactic types and disfavored when they are of the same type, which is argued to suggest that the conjunction is chosen at a point in sentence production when the types of both of the conjoined constituents are known (Uryson, 2006). In addition, the conjunction da is heavily favored by the “preventive” adversative meaning (Sannikov, 1989:177; Serebrjanaja, 1976), as in I would go but I don't have the money. This quantitative meaning-construction association is argued to support the view that the preventive adversative is a distinct semantic subtype of adversativity (Payne, 1985; contra Foolen, 1991:84).

Type
Research Article
Information
Language Variation and Change , Volume 21 , Issue 2 , July 2009 , pp. 157 - 173
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2009

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