CONTROL AND RAISING IN THE LANGUAGES OF EURASIA

The aim of the project is to construct a functional typology of control and raising constructions. Constructions of this class are associated with the restructuring of polypredicative complexes, where the main and dependent clauses are connected through an unexpressed syntactic argument.

The parameterization of constructions developed by M. Polinsky with the identification of four types (standard vs. backward control, standard vs. backward raising) relies on assumptions about the properties of the controller and the target that cannot be verified empirically. The novelty of the proposed approach lies in the comprehensive application of parametric typology methods to evaluate formal language models.

We undertake a typological study of control and raising on a sample of 22 languages of the Russian Federation and Europe and test two hypotheses:

• Hypothesis A: the opposition of control and raising is universal and is determined by the semantics of predicates introducing sentential arguments;
• Hypothesis B: the implementation of control and raising depends on the availability of case marking and agreement mechanisms.

To test hypothesis A, we construct scales of semantic controllability of the situation and involvement (affectedness) of the subject of dependent predication in the situation of the main clause. To test hypothesis B, we study languages with different morphosyntax — both case and caseless, both role-marking and role-opaque, both agglutinative and incorporating — and study control and raising in the context of phenomena confirming the permeability of the dependent clause for both morphosyntactic and logical-semantic operations, including so-called transparent agreement across clause boundaries and indexical shift.

A separate task necessary for testing both hypothesis A and hypothesis B is to clarify the argument structure of predicates introducing sentential arguments in the languages under study. The task set in this project to determine abstract regularities in the choice of control and raising constructions independent of specific languages, given the current state of research, is appropriately solved on the basis of a relatively small sample of world languages in a format that assumes in-depth description of grammar and grammatical semantics of languages of different types.

During the project work, it is planned to study syntactic control and argument raising and related phenomena in Turkic, Tungus-Manchu, Finno-Ugric, Abkhaz-Adyghe, Dargin, Iranian, Slavic and Germanic languages. The choice of languages representing these groups and language families is motivated by the fact that they demonstrate a wide variety of morphosyntactic types in the territory of Eurasia — from the western border of the Germanic area (island Scandinavian languages) to the Far East (Nanai and Ulch languages).

The relevance of the project is due to the fact that most of the languages studied are insufficiently described in terms of syntax, and some are in an endangered position.

Upon completion of the project, at least 30 publications will be presented in leading peer-reviewed Russian and foreign publications, including at least 14 publications in Scopus and Web of Science publications, and 3 computer databases:

1. a database on control and raising constructions in the languages of Eurasia;
2. a database on the coding of possessor and non-agentive arguments;
3. a database of adverbials.

Also, by the end of the three-year period, a manuscript of a collective monograph "Control and Raising in the Languages of Eurasia" of at least 25 author's sheets will be presented.