Abstract
Previously, čto-clause complements of nouns were found to be more acceptable in constructions with collocations as opposed to non-collocations, which was taken to support the hypothesis whereby čto-clauses are introduced by a silent preposition licensed by incorporation into a complex predicate (created in collocational constructions). The paper presents the results of an acceptability rating study testing the prediction of this account, namely, that embedding the noun in a coordinate structure should block the incorporation and hence licensing of čto-clauses. In addition, an alternative hypothesis is examined according to which čto-clauses are more acceptable in collocations due to their higher frequency.
Highlights
IntroductionLike their English counterparts, declarative sentential complements in Russian (čto-clauses) can appear in direct (nominative subject / accusative object), and in oblique/PP positions, where they alternate with the (P +) to + čto-clause construction (to,čto-clauses), which consists of the demonstrative to ‘that’ case-marked by P or V and followed by a čtoclause, as shown in (1a).(1) Ona uverena (v tom), čto on pridet.she.nom certain in it.loc that he will comePrevious work aimed to uncover semantic/grammatical factors governing the choice between the two clause types [Knyazev, 2016] found that there is a strong preference to realize complements of nominalizations like ‘hope’, ‘conviction’, etc. and of relational nouns such as ‘likelihood’, etc. as to,čtoclauses (but not čto-clauses) unless the noun forms a ‘set collocation’ with the higher verb (in which case both clause types are possible), cf. collocation ‘express conviction’ in (2a) vs. non-collocation ‘strengthen (one’s) conviction’ in (2b).1(2) a
The interaction between coordination and clause type was not significant, we see a numerical trend in the predicted direction, i.e., čto-clauses were associated with a 0.11 points greater decrease in acceptability in the coordination condition
Since frequency was treated as a categorical variable, the difference in frequency between particular pairs of collocations in the experiment might have been too small to lead to a visible effect
Summary
Like their English counterparts, declarative sentential complements in Russian (čto-clauses) can appear in direct (nominative subject / accusative object), and in oblique/PP positions, where they alternate with the (P +) to + čto-clause construction (to,čto-clauses), which consists of the demonstrative to ‘that’ case-marked by P or V and followed by a čtoclause, as shown in (1a).(1) Ona uverena (v tom), čto on pridet.she.nom certain in it.loc that he will comePrevious work aimed to uncover semantic/grammatical factors governing the choice between the two clause types [Knyazev, 2016] found that there is a strong preference to realize complements of nominalizations like ‘hope’, ‘conviction’, etc. and of relational nouns such as ‘likelihood’, etc. as to,čtoclauses (but not čto-clauses) unless the noun forms a ‘set collocation’ with the higher verb (in which case both clause types are possible), cf. collocation ‘express conviction’ in (2a) vs. non-collocation ‘strengthen (one’s) conviction’ in (2b).1(2) a. Like their English counterparts, declarative sentential complements in Russian (čto-clauses) can appear in direct (nominative subject / accusative object), and in oblique/PP positions, where they alternate with the (P +) to + čto-clause construction (to,čto-clauses), which consists of the demonstrative to ‘that’ case-marked by P or V and followed by a čtoclause, as shown in (1a). (1) Ona uverena (v tom), čto on pridet. She.nom certain in it.loc that he will come. As to,čtoclauses (but not čto-clauses) unless the noun forms a ‘set collocation’ with the higher verb (in which case both clause types are possible), cf collocation ‘express conviction’ in (2a) vs non-collocation ‘strengthen (one’s) conviction’ in (2b).. (v she.nom expressed conviction.acc in čto on pridet. That he will come tom), it.loc b.
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