On the Russian hybrid coordination construction
Abstract
This paper discusses a coordination construction that occurs in Russian in
which constituents with different syntactic functions and different thematic
roles are conjoined. These conjuncts are co-arguments of the same head and
are subject to a number of idiosyncrasies.
We consider several alternative analyses of the phenomena, and conclude
that these are unable to account for the full range of the facts. Thus, even
though these conjuncts do not form a semantic unit with a unique grammatical
role, there is evidence that they do form a kind of coordination structure.
The phenomena are challenging for any theory of grammar, but the
syntax-semantics account that we provide involves minimal changes to standard
HPSG architecture.