The construction nominative + infinitive in Russian

Thesis

The construction "Nominative + Infinitive" is that in which the direct object of an infinitive verb appears in the nominative case. It is used widely in written Russian up to the early eighteenth century and survives in certain dialects. The main questions examined in this thesis concern: the origin of the construction in Russian; its syntactic and morphological limits; the levels of language in which it is used; the geographical distribution of the construction within the East Slavonic area; the development of the construction and its disappearance from the written language of Moscow.

Although the evidence on the first question is contradictory, it is suggested that the construction may have appeared in Russian shortly before the date of the earliest texts and may be due to a combination of factors. The nominative replaces only direct objects in the accusative, and in the original form of the construction the nominative-object is used only with independent infinitive verbs. Only feminine singular -a type and -i type nouns appear as nominative-objects Except where the language is strongly influenced by Old Church Slavonic, the use of the construction appears to be independent of the level of language used.

Examples of the construction are found in Old Ukrainian documents and in modern South Russian dialects, and, although these are few and their usage differs from that found in North Russian sources (where the construction is well documented), it cannot be said that the construction has always been restricted to northern and central dialects. In almost every text both nominative and accusative are used for the direct object of independent infinitives, and often the choice of case seems to be random. From the sixteenth century, however, the accusative gradually becomes more frequent until it displaces the nominative from the written language.

Authors: Dunn, J; Dunn, J. A.

• Publication date: 1979
• DOI: 10.5287/ora-v086vvv49
• Type of award: DPhil
• Level of award: Doctoral
• Awarding institution: University of Oxford
• Language: English
• Subjects: Infinitive; Russian language; Noun