Українсько-польські синтаксичні паралелі у сучасних мовознавчих дослідженнях

Reviews of the latest research papers on the comparative syntax of Ukrainian and Polish languages are discussed in the article. The syntactic parallels in two languages are described in the monographic works of famous Slavicists. The analysis of scientific works on syntactic connections of Ukrainian and Polish languages is worked out in monographs, textbooks, numerous articles.

The Diachrony of Differential Object Marking in Romanian

This book offers a comprehensive overview of the beginnings, development, and stabilization of differential object marking (DOM) in Romanian by combining two approaches: diachronic syntax and comparative syntax. The working hypothesis is that Romanian DOM reflects a typological mix of Balkan and Romance DOM patterns, and that the assessment of the mixed structures must separately quantify three DOM mechanisms in this language (through clitic doubling, DOM particle, and the combination of the above). Tests applied to these DOM mechanisms indicated the nominal domain as the repository for DOM triggers in Romanian, as opposed to the verbal domain in other Romance languages. The cross-linguistic perspective adopted in this book is instrumental for revisiting the DOM typologies in light of the variations shown to occur in the location of the DOM particle and the pronominal clitic (i.e., either on the nominal or on the verb spines).

Syntactic Cartography

Syntactic cartography emerged in the 1990s as a result of the growing consensus in the field about the central role played by functional elements and by morphosyntactic features in syntax. The declared aim of this research direction is to draw maps of the structures of syntactic constituents, characterize their functional structure, and study the array and hierarchy of syntactically relevant features. Syntactic cartography has made significant empirical discoveries, and its methodology has been very influential in research in comparative syntax and morphosyntax. A central theme in current cartographic research concerns the source of the emerging featural/structural hierarchies. The idea that the functional hierarchy is not a primitive of Universal Grammar but derives from other principles does not undermine the scientific relevance of the study of the cartographic structures. On the contrary, the cartographic research aims at providing empirical evidence that may help answer these questions about the source of the hierarchy and shed light on how the computational principles and requirements of the interface with sound and meaning interact.

Parameters and the design of the Language Faculty

Following Berwick and Chomsky (2011), parameters are degrees of freedom open at the externalization (EXT) of syntactico-semantic structures (SEM) by sensorimotor systems (PHON) (Section 1). Within this framework, in Section 2 I focus on a case study concerning Northern Italian subject clitics, also raising the well-known question how to reconcile observable microvariation with the desideratum of a reduced number of (macro)parameters. Sections 3 reviews recent relevant models of parameterization, the Rethinking Comparative Syntax model (ReCoS, Biberauer et al. 2014) and the Parameters & Schemata model (Longobardi 2005, 2017). Sections 4–5 return to the case study, taking the reductionist view that parameters may be just categorial cuts, such as the 1/2P vs 3P split, interacting with externalization and other general principles of grammar.

Contrastive Analysis of Bulgarian and Russian Syntax Peculiarities

[Rev. of: Gradinarova Alla A., Essays on the Comparative Syntax of Bulgarian and Russian, Sofia: Iztok-Zapad, 2017, 500 pp.] This article presents a review of the book by a major Bulgarian researcher of Russian, professor of Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski” Alla Gradinarova, whose scholarly interests focus mainly on the contrastive syntax of Bulgarian and Russian. In the new monograph, the author concentrates largely on the points of divergence in these languages stemming from their typological differences: passive voice and syntactic impersonality, word order, communicatively marked phrasal templates, various types of multi-clause structures ranging from verbal adverb phrases to complex and asyndetic sentences, etc. The contrastive analysis of the language data helps to reveal significant characteristics of the studied phenomena. This allows the use of the obtained results and data not only in typology and contrastive linguistics, but also in the study of the Russian language, as the approach of the author in her studies is based on a profound analysis of Russian data. The book constitutes a major contribution to studies in contrastive syntax of Slavic languages.