Short term morphosyntactic change

Corbett (1983) - STMC bibliography

Reference

Corbett, Greville G. 1983. Hierarchies, targets and controllers. Agreement patterns in Slavic. London & Canberra: Croom Helm.

Summary

This book is concerned with agreement patterns in Slavonic languages and with the multiple factors that underlie these patterns. Two major groups of factors are distinguished: those which relate to the target and those that relate to the controller. In the first part of the book consideration is given to the competition of agreement patterns with respect to different targets, while the controller remains the same. Agreement positions are arranged in two hierarchies which condition morphosyntactic choices: the Agreement Hierarchy and the Predicate Hierarchy.

The second part of the book examines variation in agreement with respect to various type of controllers (conjoined noun phrases, comitative phrases and quantified expressions), and controller factors (animacy and word order). Consideration is also given to historical change in agreement patterns, and standard and dialectal varieties are contrasted.

Texts investigated

A corpus of 19th and 20th century Russian texts was established and examined. The corpus includes prose by the following authors:

Nineteenth-century prose:

• Puškin A. S.: Povesti Belkina, Istorija sela Gorjuxina, Roslavlev, Dubrovskij, Pikovaja dama, Kirdžali, Egipetskie noči, Kapitanskaja dočka (1830-1836);
• Gogol´ N.V.: M ё rtvye duši (1842);
• Turgenev I.S. Rudin, Dvorjanskoe gnezdo, Nakanune, Otcy i deti (1856-1862);
• Čexov A.P.: U znakomyx, Junič, Čelovek v futljare, Kryžovnik, O ljubvi, Slučaj iz praktiki, Po delam služby, Dušečka, Novaja dača, Dama s sobačkoj, V ovrage, Na svjatkax, Arxierej, Nevesta. 

Twentieth-century prose:

• Nabokov V. Zaščita Lužina (1930);
• Panova V. Sputniki (1946);
• Amal´rik A. Neželannoe putešestvie v Sibir´ (1970);
• Solženicyn A. Arxipelag GULag, parts V-VII (1964-1970);
• Vojnovič V. Pretendent na prestol (1979), Putёm vzaimnoj perepiski (1979);
• Galič A. General´naja repeticija (1974).

Dialectal data:

Potapova N. P. 1962. Soglasovanie skazuemogo s odnorodnymi podležaščimi v govorax Permskoj oblasti, Učenye zapiski Permskogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta imeni Gor´kogo, 22, vyp.1, 59-68.

Statistics

Discussion is based on substantial statistics (primary and secondary) for each phenomenon under consideration. Primary statistics derived from the corpus show agreement patterns with conjoined noun phrases in 20th century Russian. Secondary data on various Slavonic languages are taken from various sources and where necessary are recalculated for consistency.

Which data from the source were used

Chapter 7: Conjoined Noun Phrases in Russian

Frequencies of singular and plural predicates (raw figures and percentages) calculated separately for each author with respect to controller factors (animacy and word order).

Chapter 11: Quantified expressions

Statistics for singular / plural predicate agreement with numeral phrases including the following quantifiers: 2-4, 5-10, collective numerals (e.g. dvoe ‘two’), complex numbers, compound numbers,neskol´ko ‘a few’, mnogo ‘many’, skol´ko, ‘how many’, stol´ko ‘so many’. Raw figures and percentages are given for the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries separately for each type of quantifier.