Abstract
This paper discusses syntactic and semantic aspects of direct object scrambling in Ukrainian. Given the complex nature of scrambling, the investigation is narrowed to only one of its types: the change SVO→SOV, defined as Middle Object Scrambling (MOS). This strategy affords a detailed examination of this phenomenon at a micro-level. MOS is scrutinized with regard to its syntactic aspects (e.g., position of a moved element) and semantic properties (e.g., possible interpretations of a direct object). The semantic features of definiteness, referentiality, and partitivity are particularly emphasized, as previous studies have claimed they play an important role in the process. This research demonstrates that the most relevant feature in Ukrainian MOS is specificity in the sense of partitivity/presuppositionality. The implication of this is that Slavic data provide further support for the universality of interpretational properties of the v P edge, in line with Chomsky 2001.
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