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Местоимения и одушевлённость в русских конструкциях с нулевой связкой
С. 200–225.
Russian zero copula constructions manifest many properties, distinct from constructions with lexical verbs, including explicit copula forms, such as byl ‘was’ (see Testelets 2008, Letuchiy 2015 for detail). Among other properties, it should be noted that in Russian zero copula constructions, an animacy restriction is observed:
(1) In NP + NP zero copula constructions, if the subject NP is a pronoun, this pronoun should have an animate antecedent.
In the article, I analyze the reasons of this restriction.
I propose that the asymmetry depends on the way the feature (e.g., ‘to be a city’) is assigned to the subject. Subject pronoun is only possible when the predicate part of the copula construction does not represent the only characteristics of the subject part. Inanimate entities usually belong to one main class and have one main characterizing property.
In book
Вып. 2. , М.: МПГУ, 2015.