UKRAINIAN EQUIVALENTS TO ENGLISH SENTENCES: WHAT THEY REVEAL ABOUT DATIVE EXPERIENCER AND EXPLETIVE CONSTRUCTION

Abstract

This paper presents a comparative study of Ukrainian sentences with Dative experiencer and their English equivalents. While Ukrainian allows null-subject sentences, in English there is a structural subject it. Moreover, in Ukrainian, there are sentences with Dative experiencers in the sentence initial position. Interestingly, the same kind of predicates that licenses Dative experiencer construction in Ukrainian, licenses the it-extraposition in English. Thus, the objective of this research is to establish what predicates belong to this category and what there is in the structure of the predicate that allows or disallows the described kinds of construction. We suggest that the adjectival predicates that do not allow it (or Dative experiencer in Ukrainian) have CAUSE-head introducing a causing event in their structure which blocks it-insertion. Key words: Dative experiencer, expletive, CAUSE, it-extraposition, predicate, English, Ukrainian.