Agreement with disjoined subjects in Russian

• Published in: Argumentum Vol. 20; pp. 322 - 335
• Main Author: Davidyuk, Tatiana
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Debrecen University of Debrecen 01.01.2024
• Subjects: Acceptability; Alignment; Experiments; Grammatical agreement; Person; Russian language; Semantics; Sentence structure; Word order
• ISSN: 1787-3606; 1787-3606
• DOI: 10.34103/ARGUMENTUM/2024/19

This study investigates agreement patterns in sentences with disjoined subjects, focusing on cases in the Russian language where the disjuncts differ in person. Using acceptability judgment experiments, I analyzed how different agreement patterns are rated by native speakers. The findings confirm that the resolved agreement received the highest ratings, while third-person plural, third-person singular and closest disjunct agreement are also possible patterns. These results align with patterns seen in conjoined subjects but show additional complexities unique to disjoined constructions. The type of conjunction (coordinating ili ‘or’ vs. correlative ili … ili ‘either … or’) did not significantly affect agreement patterns. This may suggest that the semantics of disjunction has little influence on the choice of agreement patterns, despite the correlative conjunction typically indicates an exclusive disjunc¬tion. Future research should explore the effects of different word orders and disjunctions with first and second-person pronouns to clarify these findings further.