Case and Aspect in Slavic

The role of structural case in syntax is arguably one of the most controversial topics in syntactic theory with important implications for semantic theory. This book focuses on some of the most puzzling case marking patterns in the Slavic languages and ties these patterns to different types of aspectual phenomena, showing that there is after all a pattern in the seeming chaos of case in the Slavic languages. Kylie Richardson addresses links between the case marking on objects and the event structure of a verb phrase in Belarusian, Russian, Ukrainian, Czech, Slovak, Polish, and Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian and also shows that the links between case and aspect in the Slavic languages belong to a much larger pattern found in language in general. She also focuses on links between case and grammatical aspect in depictive, predicative participle, and copular constructions in the East Slavic languages. The book will appeal to scholars and advanced students of aspect, and to all Slavicists.

Kylie Richardson (MA University of Toronto, PhD Harvard University) is a lecturer in Slavonic linguistics in the Department of Slavonic Languages at the University of Cambridge and a fellow at Trinity Hall. Her research interests include the syntax of the Slavonic languages, the role of case in syntactic theory, and aspect.