Case marking in the phenomenon of the genitive of negation in Russian

Abstract

The subject of intransitive clauses with negated verbs in Russian is marked either by the genitive or nominative, while the object of transitive clauses with negated verbs - either by the genitive or accusative. The purpose of this paper is to discover the factors that determine the case marking on the subject and object, and to clarify the character of case marking pattern in the phenomenon of the genitive of negation.
The analysis of the data shows that there are two main factors which determine the case of the subject in negated intransitive clauses. One is the possibility of the subject's activity in affirmative clauses. The other is the intensity of negation that weakens the possibility of the subject's activity. As for negated transitive clauses there are also two main factors which determine the case of the object. One is the transitivity in affirmative clauses. The other is the intensity of negation that weakens the transitivity.
In regard to the case marking pattern in the phenomenon of the genitive of negation, the analysis shows that it is characterised by four factors: a) semantic content of the intransitive verb, b) semantic content of the NP (s), c) mood of the clause, and d) semantic content of the transitive verb, which affect the case marking.