An essential guide to Russian syntax, which examines major syntactic structures and grammatical puzzles of the language.

This book provides an accessible introduction to the linguistic structure of Russian, including its history, dialects and sociolinguistics, as well as the central issues of phonology, morphology, syntax and word formation/lexicology. It particularly emphasises the special linguistic features of Russian which are not shared with English and other non-Slavic languages. For intermediate/advanced students of Russian, this will help to reinforce their understanding of how all levels of Russian function. Students and scholars of linguistics will find it a useful starting point for comparative work involving the structure of Russian and the Slavic languages, or issues such as standardisation, multilingualism, and the fate of former colonial languages. Each chapter begins with an introduction to the basic theoretical concepts of the area covered, presenting the linguistic facts and relationships in an easily accessible form. It will also serve as a learning aid to Cyrillic, with all examples transliterated.

Russian Syntax for Advanced Students is a textbook which illuminates relationships between words, phrases, clauses, and sentences. The book helps develop communicative skills for advanced mastery and constantly emphasizes the importance of accuracy in the use of syntactic structures.

This book offers a Minimalist analysis of certain syntactic phenomena in Russian associated with negation. These phenomena include the distribution of morphologically negative words and the pattern of Negative Concord they exhibit (whereby multiple occurrences of negative words are interpreted as only one instance of negation); the Genitive of Negation (the case marking on the internal argument of negated verbs); expletive negation (formal negation without negative content), and negated Yes/No questions (including a previously undiscussed pattern of expletive negation effects observed in certain types of Yes/No questions). The end result is a formalization of the status of negation within the phrase structure of Russian that not only contributes relevant Slavic data to the pool of negation data, but also sheds new light on the syntactic expression of negation universally.

A proposal for a radical new view of case morphology, supported by a detailed investigation of some of the thorniest topics in Russian grammar. In this book, David Pesetsky argues that the peculiarities of Russian nominal phrases provide significant clues concerning the syntactic side of morphological case. Pesetsky argues against the traditional view that case categories such as nominative or genitive have a special status in the grammar of human languages. Supporting his argument with a detailed analysis of a complex array of morpho-syntactic phenomena in the Russian noun phrase (with brief excursions to other languages), he proposes instead that the case categories are just part-of-speech features copied as morphology from head to dependent as syntactic structure is built. Pesetsky presents a careful investigation of one of the thorniest topics in Russian grammar, the morpho-syntax of noun phrases with numerals (including those traditionally called the paucals). He argues that these bewilderingly complex facts can be explained if case categories are viewed simply as parts of speech, assigned as morphology. Pesetsky's analysis is notable for offering a new theoretical perspective on some of the most puzzling areas of Russian grammar, a highly original account of nominal case that significantly affects our understanding of an important property of language.

This book describes and systematizes all aspects of the grammar of Russian: the patterns of orthography, sounds, inflection, syntax, tense-aspect-mood, word order, and intonation. It is especially concerned with the meaning of combinations of words (constructions). The core concept is that of the predicate history: a record of the states of entities through time and across possibilities. Using predicate histories, the book presents an integrated account of the semantics of verbs, nouns, case, and aspect. More attention is paid to syntax than in any other grammars of Russian written in English or in other languages of Western Europe. Alan Timberlake refers to the literature on variation and trends in development, and makes use of contemporary data from the internet. This book will appeal to students, scholars and language professionals interested in Russian.