Russian reduplicative surface-syntactic relations in the perspective of general syntax

Abstract

The paper considers lexical reduplications in Russian in the perspective of general syntax. The goal is to define and fully characterize special Russian surface-syntactic relations [SSyntRels], that is, the reduplicative SSyntRels, which appear exclusively in syntactic idioms formed by lexical reduplications. The syntactic operation REDUPL is defined, and several reduplicative SSyntRels are introduced. A deductive calculus thereof is proposed, based on three parameters concerning the correlations between the reduplicate and the reduplicand: the reduplicate is anteposed/postposed (with respect to the reduplicand); is in contact/is not in contact (with the reduplicand); represents an exact/inexact copy (of the reduplicand); eight reduplicative SSynt-Rels are theoretically possible. The notion of syntactic idiom (a non-compositional multilexemic expression having a non-segmental signifier) is formulated and illustrated: e.g., the sentence Mne Y prazdnik X ne v prazdnik Lʹ(X) lit. ‘To me the feast is not into a feast’ = ‘I cannot enjoy the feast’, which implements the syntactic idiom [X to.Y] ˹be not into Lʹ(X)˺ ‘X cannot be enjoyed by Y’. Six reduplicative SSyntRels of Russian and one of English are described. These SSyntRels are conceived as a fragment of a general inventory of SSyntRels in the world languages.