Russian reduplicative surface-syntactic relations in the perspective of general syntax

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1. Stating the problem

The present study is part of a huge research task: compiling a general inventory of surface-syntactic relations [SSyntRels] in world languages.

☛ Technical terms are printed, on the first mention, in Helvetica.

The final goal of such an endeavor is a list of SSyntRels found in as many languages as possible—something similar to an inventory of language sounds
(or of phonemes), of grammatical cases or of grammatical moods and tenses encountered in various languages. Since each language has its own set of SSyntRels, a general inventory can only be a set-theoretical sum (= the union) of particular SSyntRel lists established empirically for particular languages.

The first step towards the declared goal was taken 60 years ago: the paper Mel’čuk 1962: 47–49 presented a tentative list of 31 SSyntRels for Russian; this list was reproduced in Mel’čuk 1963: 491–493. Since then, several lists of SSyntRels for different languages were published:

— For Russian: Mel’čuk 1974: 221–235, 2012: 135–144, 2018a and Iomdin 2010.

— For English: Mel’čuk & Pertsov 1987: 85–156, Mel’čuk 2012–2015: vol. 3, 444–453 and 2016: 184–194.

— For French: Iordanskaja & Mel’čuk 2009, Poiret & Liu 2019.

— For German: Zangenfeind 2012.

— For Spanish: Bolshakov 2002.

In all probability, there are more such lists that I simply am not aware of.

NB   A universal inventory of syntactic dependency relations based on syntactic dependency tree banks for over 70 languages, known as Stanford Universal Dependencies [SUDs], is proposed in Marneffe & Manning 2008 and Marneff et al. 2014; see also https://universaldependencies.org. However, SUDs are “ideologically” incompatible with SSyntRels discussed here: UDs are not really syntactic relations—they merge semantic and syntactic dependencies, the whole system being adapted for computer processing of texts. The theoretical framework and the methodology for SUDs and for SSyntRels are so different that a comparison would require a special study. The paper Gerdes et al. 2018 proposes a modification of SUDs, making them closer to a lin­guistically valid inventory of SSyntRels.

The studies Mel’čuk 2015–2016 and 2021b: 31–116 present an attempt at inventoring the SSyntRels needed to describe the surface-syntactic structures [SSyntSs] of utterances in several languages of various types. This inventory needs, of course, extension and sharpening, that is, additions and modifications coming from different languages. The present paper offers one such addition: the Russian reduplicative SSyntRels, that is, the SSyntRels that are used exclusively in constructions produced by the operation of syntactic reduplication, called REDUPL. The paper’s goal is thus to formally describe the Russian reduplicative SSyntRels.

A formal description is only possible within a predefined formal framework, and in what follows such a framework is the Meaning-Text approach (Mel’čuk 1974, 2012–2015, 2016 and 2021b, Mel’čuk & Milićević 2020); a sufficient familiarity with the corresponding notions and formalisms on the part of the reader is assumed.

NB   In order to facilitate the task of the reader, the paper is supplied with Appendix 1 (some crucial linguistic notions) and Appendix 2 (Russian surface-syntactic relations mentioned in the paper); here is a list of the abbre­viations and notations used:

ATTR        : attributive deep-syntactic relation                 SSyntRel                    : surface-syntactic relation
DMorphS  : deep-morphological structure                        SSyntS                       : surface-syntactic structure
DSyntS      : deep-syntactic structure                                1, 2, …                       : semantic actants
L               : a lexical unit                                                   I, II, …                        : deep-syntactic actants
L(X)           : a lexical unit L that expresses X                       « L »                         : a fictitious lexeme L
Lʹ              : a copy [= a reduplicate] of L                            ‘s’                             : a meaning ‘s’
REDUPL    : operation of syntactic reduplication                ˹L₁ + L₂ + ... + L_n˺    : an idiom L₁ + L₂ + ... + L_n
‘s’              : а communicatively dominant semanteme       [X]                             : an actant X
SemS         : semantic structure                                         {   }                            : text added for clarity

Before I go down to business, let it be emphasized that, although the linguistic data analyzed in this paper come from Russian, the formal proposals are universally valid.

2. Reduplication in syntax

2.1. Syntactic reduplication operation

The first thing to do is to introduce the REDUPL syntactic operation formally.

REDUPL is the repetition, or doubling, of lexemic expressions in an utterance, that is, the repetition of whole wordforms—as opposed to morphological reduplication, which affects only parts of wordform signifiers, as, for instance, in the Latin perfect: mord(-eo) ‘I.bite’ ~ mo+mord(-i) ‘I.bit’.

For simplicity, in what follows, only the application of REDUPL to single lexemes is considered.¹

Definition 1: REDUPL, syntactic reduplication operation

The REDUPL syntactic reduplication operation applies to a lexeme L that labels a node in a surface-syntactic structure [SSyntS] and produces an SSynt-subtree that replaces L in the   SSyntS: REDUPL(L_{G}) = L_{G}–r_i→Lʹ_{Gʹ}, where
        _{G}         is the set of morphological deep (= semantically full) grammemes of L, which are, so to speak, inherited from the deep-syntactic structure [DSyntS];
       Lʹ    is a copy of L, exact or with some derivational modification;
        _{Gʹ}  is the set of morphological semantically full grammemes coming to Lʹ from L;
      r_i     is, in most cases (but not always), one of the reduplicative SSyntRels.

L_{G} is called the reduplicand and Lʹ_{Gʹ}, the reduplicate.²

Examples

• Consider the Russian phrase (1), which includes a phrase being the result of a REDUPL applic­ation; the latter phrase implements the syntactic idiom «very» (on syntactic idioms, see Section 3).

☛ 1. «very» is a fictitious lexeme, used as the name of this syntactic idiom: see Appendix 1, p. 904.
2. In the examples, the reduplicate is boldfaced; words in curly brackets are added for better understanding.
3. The underscoring of a semanteme in a SemS shows its communicatively dominant status (Mel’čuk 2012: Ch. 6, Section 2).

(1) {testo dlja} vkusnogo_L-vkusnogo_Lʹ torta
lit. ‘dough for tasty-tasty [= ‘very tasty’] cake’

The SemS, DSyntS, SSyntS and the deep-morphological structure [DMorphS] of this phrase are as follows:

SemS         : ‘dough←1–for–2→cake←1–tasty←1–very’
DSyntS      : {dlja–II→tort_(masc)SG–ATTR→}vkusnyj_{LONG, POSIT}–ATTR→«very»
SSyntS       : {dlja–prep→tort_(masc)SG–modif→}vkusnyj_LONG, POSIT–postpos-imm-exact-redupl--→vkusnyj_LONG, POSIT
DMorphS  : {dlja} vkusnyj_{LONG, POSIT, MASC, SG, GEN} ³  vkusnyj_{LONG, POSIT, MASC, SG, GEN}  {tort_{(masc)SG, GEN}}

The postpos-imm-exact-reduplicative SSyntRel—see Subsection 4.5—ensures that the reduplicate vkusnyj receives in the DMorphS all the syntactic grammemes (boxed) of its reduplicand. These grammemes are protected from all possible further modifications.

• The reduplicative phrase in (2), which also is the result of a REDUPL application, implements the syntactic idiom «completely»:

(2) {Èx,} polnym-polna korobuška! [N. A. Nekrasov]
lit. ‘Well, is by.full-full basket!’ = ‘Well, my basket is completely full!’
[а song of rural peddlers in the 19^th century Russia].

SemS         : ‘basket←1–full←1–completely’
DSyntS      :  {korobuška_(fem)SG←I–bytʹ_IND, PRES}–II→polnyj_SHORT–ATTR→«completely» ⁴
SSyntS       :  {korobuška_(fem)SG←subj–bytʹ_IND, PRES–cop-compl→}polnyj_SHORT–antepos-imm-long.instr-redupl→pol­nyj_{LONG, POSIT}
DMorphS  : polnyj_{LONG, POSIT, MASC, SG, INSTR}  polnyj_{SHORT, SG, FEM}  korobuška_{(fem)SG, NOM}

The reduplicate gets its grammemes LONG and POSIT already in the SSyntS (in the process of the implementation of the «completely» idiom), and the rest of its grammemes—MASC, SG, and INSTR—comes in the DMorphS from the implementation of the antepos-imm-long.instr-reduplicative SSyntRel (for more on the surface implementation of the «completely» idiom, see Subsection 4.2.2).

2.2. Reduplicative surface-syntactic relations [SSyntRels]

2.2.1. Introductory remarks

The postpos-imm-exact-reduplicative and antepos-imm-long.instr-reduplicative SSyntRels, used in (1) and (2), are called reduplicative, because they appear in the SSyntS exclusively as a result of the application of the REDUPL operation. More precisely:

A reduplicative SSyntRel can appear in the SSyntS, that is, in a reduplicative phrase, only as a result of an application of the REDUPL operation. The converse statement is not true: a reduplicative phrase may contain no reduplicative SSyntRel, because the REDUPL operation does not necessarily entail the use of a reduplicative SSyntRel.

The REDUPL operation is used exclusively in syntactic idioms and produces reduplicative syntactic idioms. But a syntactic idiom with lexical reduplication can contain no reduplicative SSyntRel: in such an idiom, the redup­licate is the dependent member of a non-reduplicative SSyntRel. For instance, the SSyntS of the syntactic idiom [X Y-u] ˹bytʹ ne v Lʹ(X)˺ lit. ‘X to.Y is not into
Lʹ(X)’. = ‘X cannot be enjoyed by Y’ contains no reduplicative SSyntRel, cf. (8), p. 892. Here are three more examples of syntactic idioms with a reduplication but without a reduplicative SSyntRel:

(3)

1. [X] ˹bytʹ Lʹ(X)-u roznʹ˺ lit. ‘X is to.X difference’. =
   ‘Xs are different’; for instance:
   
2. [X] ˹bytʹ kak Lʹ(X)˺ lit. ‘X is as X’. = ‘X is quite an ordinary X’; for instance:
   Kniga←subj–byla–copular-completive→kak–subject-compar-conjunct→kniga
   ‘The book was quite an ordinary book’.
3. [Х] ˹i Lʹ(X)˺ lit. ‘X and X’. = ‘This is X, nothing special’; for instance:
   Kniga–coordinative→i–coord-conjunctional→kniga
   ‘This is a book, nothing special’.

The two crucial questions to be answered about reduplicative SSyntRels are obvious:

—  What kind of SSyntRels are the reduplicative SSyntRels?
—  What reduplicative SSyntRels are logically possible?

2.2.2. The nature of reduplicative SSyntRels

The reduplicative SSyntRels are not semantically loaded, or meaningful: a reduplicative SSyntRel does not carry a particular meaning—that is, it is not directly linked to a semanteme or a configuration of semantemes. In this respect, the reduplicative SSyntRels are similar to dozens of “normal,” or “meaningless,” SSyntRels. As a rule, an SSyntRel, which links two lexemes in an SSyntS, does not carry itself any meaning. (4) gives three examples of such SSyntRels in Russian:

(4) semantic structure [SemS]            surface-syntactic structure [SSyntS]

1. ‘sleep–1→boy’ : Mal’čik←subjectival–spit
                            ‘The.boy is.sleeping’.
2. ‘sleep←1–in–2→corridor’ : spit–circumstantial→v–preposit→koridore
                                          ‘is.sleeping in the.corridor’
3. ‘intense–1→wind’ : silʹnyj←modificative–veter ‘strong wind’

☛ The period between words in the glosses is used to unite glossing words in such a way as to obtain one-to-one correspondence between Russian words and their glosses.

A meaningless SSyntRel between two lexemes in an SSyntS expresses the semantic dependency relation between the corresponding semantemes in the SemS, rather than any semantemes as such.

The majority of SSyntRels of a language are exactly like the SSyntRels in (4); they are meaningless, that is, purely syntactic. A tentative inventory of meaningless SSyntRels of world languages is presented in Mel’čuk 2021b: Ch. 2.

However, languages also have meaningful SSyntRels. A meaningful, or semantically loaded, SSyntRel does more than link two lexemes into a phrase; it also expresses a specific chunk of meaning—a semanteme or a configuration of semantemes. In other words, a meaningful SSyntRel carries a meaning of lexical type. A well-known Russian example is the approximate-quantitative phrase:

(5) pjatʹ tonn ‘five tons’

1. pjat' tonn 'five tons"
2. tonn pjatʹ ‘maybe five tons’

The phrase in (5b)—with an inverted order of NUM and N—expresses the uncertainty of the Speaker about the indicated quantity, i.e., it expresses the semanteme ‘maybe’, which appears in the starting semantic structure. In the DSyntS, the semanteme ‘maybe’ is rendered by the fictitious lexeme «maybe», and in the SSyntS, by a meaningful SSyntRel: the approximate-quantitative SSyntRel; cf. (6):

(6) SemS     :      ‘maybe–1→five–1→tons’
DSyntS       :      «maybe»←ATTR–pjatʹ←ATTR–tonna_PL
SSyntS       :           pjatʹ←approximate-quantitative–tonna_PL
DMorphS   :      tonna_{PL, GEN}  pjatʹ_NOM (tonn pjatʹ)
                          (vs. pjatʹ←quantitative–tonna_PL: pjatʹ tonn)

The reduplicative SSyntRels are special in the following respect: They are, as stated above, meaningless, but they are used exclusively in reduplicative phrases, the latter being the implementations of syntactic idioms (introduced in Section 3 below), which are, of course, meaningful. Thus, these SSyntRels maintain an intimate relationship with syntactic idioms; as a result, they constitute a particular subset of Russian meaningless SSyntRels. It is this subset that is described in Section 4.

2.2.3. The calculus of reduplicative SSyntRels

Now, let us see what reduplicative SSyntRels can in principle exist. The operation of syntactic reduplication can be characterized according to the following three parameters:

• Linear position of the reduplicate:
  the reduplicate precedes (antepos-) / follows (postpos-) the reduplicand.
• Linear contact between the reduplicate and the reduplicand:
  the reduplicate is (-imm[ediate]-) / not necessarily is (-non.imm-) in contact with the reduplicand.

NB The statement “The reduplicate precedes/follows the reduplicand immediately” must be understood cum grano salis. Namely, this means that the two cannot be separated by arbitrary lexemes allowed, generally speaking, in this position by standard syntactic rules of the language; but some particular lexemes—mostly, different particles—foreseen by the lexical entry of the corresponding syntactic idiom are possible between the reduplicate and the reduplicand, even if these are said to be in immediate contact.

• Exactness of the reduplicate:
  the reduplicate is an exact (-exact-) / not an exact (-inexact-) copy of the reduplicand.

NB An inexact copy Lʹ of the lexeme L can be, strictly speaking, inexact in two respects:
— Lʹ is affixed with a derivational means, which comes from the lexical entry of the syntactic idiom that has the reduplicative SSyntRel under consideration as part of its signifier (for instance, the English «derision» syntactic idiom: e.g., Ah, your theories, schmeories!). This “inexactness” does not concern the corres­ponding reduplicative SSyntRel. In other words, the reduplicative SSyntRel that links a derived reduplicate to the reduplicand is encoded as “exact,” provided no grammemes of the reduplicate are affected.
— _{Gʹ}, that is, the set of syntactic grammemes of the reduplicate Lʹ, contains syntactic grammemes different from syntactic grammemes _{G} of L: this is the direct and exclusive responsibility of the corresponding reduplicative SSyntRel. The reduplicand Lʹ is coded as inexact only in this case.

These three parameters specify eight logically possible—that is, language universal—reduplicative SSyntRels.

However, in reality, the set of reduplicative SSyntRels of a particular language does not neces­sarily contain exactly these eight logically deduced SSyntRels. On the one hand, a language may not have all of the eight logically possible reduplicative SSyntRels: thus, as the reader will immediately see, Russian lacks some of these. On the other hand, an inexact reduplicative SSyntRel specifies the modifications to be performed in the reduplicate Lʹ’s grammemes, and these modifications cannot be foreseen logically. So there may be several different inexact reduplicative SSyntRels, depending on the language. To sum up, the inventory of reduplicative SSyntRels for a particular language must be established empirically, and that is what is done in Section 4 for Russian.

3. The habitat of reduplicative SSyntRels: syntactic idioms

Reduplicative SSyntRels are found, as stated above, only in syntactic idioms, so that they are inextricably linked to the latter. This requires the notion of syntactic idiom to be formally introduced. Let me start with three underlying notions, which concern linguistic signs.

• A sign s is complex if and only if its signifier contains more than one linguistic entity.

NB Linguistic entities are of two kinds:
linguistic expressive means (segmental—segments, i.e. phonemic strings
that are signifiers,⁵ and non-segmental—operations, prosodies, SSyntRels organized in a subtree, word order, and grammemes)
and
signs, whose signifiers are built out of linguistic expressive means.

A particular subtype of complex signs are multilexemic signs. A sign is multilexemic if and only if its signifier:

— either contains the signifiers of two or more lexemes;
— or is a prosodic structure imposed upon two or more lexemes.

• A sign s is non-compositional if and only if the components of its signified cannot be distributed between the components of its signifier in a regular (= not-ad hoc) way.

NB A non-compositional complex sign is an idiom tout court.

• A sign s is non-segmental if and only if its signifier includes some non-segmental linguistic expressive means.

NB A non-segmental idiom is a syntactic idiom.

     Now the definition of syntactic idiom can be readily formulated.

Definition 2: syntactic idiom

  A linguistic sign s is a syntactic idiom if and only if it is
    (i) multilexemic,
   (ii) non-compositional,
  (iii) non-segmental.

 NB On syntactic idioms, see Mel’čuk 1987, 2012: 18–20, 2021a and 2023a: Ch.11.

Examples

☛ The top corners ˹  ˺ indicate an idiom; the square brackets [  ] include the actants of the expression under consideration; L(X) means ‘lexeme L that expresses X’, and Lʹ is, as stated above, a copy of L; L₁ +…+ L₂ means ‘L₁ precedes L₂ with a possible lexemic gap between L₁ and L₂’.

• The Russian complex sign [X] «will.punish» [Z for Y-ing] is a good example of syntactic idiom, illustrated by the sentences in (7):

(7)

1. Ivan_L(X) tebe_L(Z) potancuet_L(Y)  áprygnet_L(Y)ñ! lit. ‘Ivan to.you will.dance
   ájumpñ!’ = ‘If you dance ájumpñ, Ivan will punish you’.
2. Ja_L(X) emu_L(Z) budu morožennoe žratʹ_L(Y)! lit. ‘I to.him will ice.cream
   gobble!’ = ‘If he gobbles down ice cream, I will punish him’.

All lexemes of a sentence that implements this idiom are parts of the idiom’s actants; the meaning of the idiom itself—a threat of severe punishment for a reprehensible activity—is expressed by a particular SSynt-structure and a particular prosody. With different prosodies, the sentences in (7) become statements with different meanings (depending on the prosody); thus,

   ↘     ↘         ↘
Ivan  tebe  potancuet{, ne somnevajsja} ‘Ivan will dance for you, don’t doubt’:
a promise;
or
                ↘              ↗      ̅↘
{Kak že,} Ivan ↑ tebe potancuuuet! ‘Don’t even hope, Ivan will never dance for you!’: a sarcastic negation of a possibility.

Here is the lexical entry of this idiom.

[X] «will.punish» [Z for Y-ing], syntactic idiom, clausative.

 Signified [= Lexicographic definition]
‘X «will.punish» Z for Y-ing’ = ‘If Z does Y, X will punish Z for Y-ing’

 Signifier
1) L(X)←subjectival–L(Y)–indirect-objectival→L(Z)
2)  ➚                ➚           _➚➘;           threat intonation
3)  L(X) + … + L(Z) + … + L(Y) ⁶

Syntactics [= Government Pattern]

1) L(‘Z’) is a personal pronoun or (less preferably) a human proper name.

 Ivan_X tebe_Z poprygaet_Y! lit. ‘Ivan_X to.you_Z will.jump_Y!’ =
‘Ivan will punish you for (repeated) jumping’.
Ivan_X emu_Z prygnet_Y! lit. ‘Ivan_X to.him_Z will.jump_Y!’ =
‘Ivan will punish him for one jump’.

The signifier of this sign is complex: it contains a prosodic structure imposed upon a lexemeless syntactic tree (a system of SSyntRels linking the lexemic variables that represent the idiom’s actants), plus a word order indication—L(X) must precede L(Z), and L(Z) precedes L(Y). The sign is also non-compositional: on what signifier component can the semantemes ‘punish’ and ‘will’ be loaded? And it is obviously non-segmental. So this sign is a syntactic idiom.

• Another example of syntactic idiom is the complex sign [X Y-u] ˹bytʹ ne v Lʹ(X)˺:

(8) Bez pesen Ivanu_L(Y) i pʹjanka_L(X) ne v pʹjanku_Lʹ(X)
lit. ‘Without singing to.Ivan even a.bender is not into bender’. =
‘If there is no singing, even a bender cannot be enjoyed by Ivan’.

The lexical entry of this idiom is as follows.

[X Y-u] ˹bytʹ ne v Lʹ(X)˺, syntactic idiom, clausative.

Signified [= Lexicographic definition]
‘X Y-u ˹bytʹ ne v Lʹ(X)˺’ {lit. ‘X to.Y is not into Lʹ(X)’} ‘X cannot be enjoyed by Y’

Signifier

1) REDUPL(L(X)_number) = L(X)_number, Lʹ(X)_number
2) L(X)_number←subjectival–bytʹ  ne←restrictive–v–prepositional→Lʹ(X)_number
3) L(Y) + … + L(X)

Syntactics [= Government Pattern]

Nam_Y obed_X ne v obed_Lʹ(X) lit. ‘To.us_Y dinner_X is not into dinner_Lʹ(X)’. =
‘We cannot enjoy the dinner’.

This sign is also complex, since its signifier includes several expressive means: three segments (the signifiers of the lexemes bytʹ ‘be’, ne ‘not’ and v ‘into’), and three non-segmental means—the REDUPL operation, an SSynt-subtree and a word order indication. It is non-compositional, since it is impossible to attach, in a not-ad hoc way, the semantemes ‘can’ and ‘enjoy’ in its signified to any component of its signifier. Finally, it is non-segmental, since its signifier includes non-segmental expressive means. Therefore, it is a syntactic idiom.

NB   Note that the signifier of this reduplicative syntactic idiom contains no reduplicative SSyntRel: the [X Y-u] ˹bytʹ ne v Lʹ(X)˺ idiom illustrates the case mentioned in Subsection 2.2.1, p. 887.

Syntactic idioms are lexical units—paradoxical ones, but lexical units. They must be stored in the lexicon of the language as all lexical units are and supplied with full-fledged lexical entries.

Now everything is ready to concentrate on the Russian reduplicative SSyntRels.

4. Russian reduplicative SSyntRels

Russian reduplicative constructions have been described several times: for instance, Israeli 1997, Krjučkova 2004 and Sannikov 2008, 2010; there are also numerous studies dedicated to particular cases, which will be indicated when appropriate. However, the question of special reduplicative SSyntRels has not been raised before, as far as I know. The Russian reduplicative idioms are treated in numerous studies by M. Kopotev: see Kopotev 2008 and Janda, Kopotev & Nesset 2020; see also Mel’čuk 2023b.

In the inventory below, each reduplicative SSyntRel is illustrated with Russian syntactic idioms in which it appears as a part of the signifier. (But not all such syntactic idioms are listed.)

Necessary information about the implementation of a syntactic idiom is found in its lexical entry; since the lexical entries of the idioms appearing in the illustrations cannot be supplied here, numerous details concerning the surface form of the corresponding phrase may remain obscure for the reader.

4.1 The antepos-imm-exact-reduplicative SSyntRel

This SSyntRel does not exist in Russian.

4.2 The antepos-imm-inexact-reduplicative SSyntRels

The expression “antepos-imm-inexact-reduplicative” is a cover name for all inexact reduplicative SSyntRels, which are “antepos” and “imm”; it can refer to several particular, i.e. language-specific, inexact SSyntRels. These SSyntRels carry different indications (boxed in the examples below) of the modifications in Lʹ’s syntactic grammemes. Russian has two antepos-imm-inexact-reduplicative SSyntRels.

4.2.1. The antepos-imm-dat-reduplicative SSyntRel

☛ Boldfacing in the rule and in the examples indicates the reduplicate.

This SSyntRel is part of the signifier of the reduplicative syntactic idiom [X] ˹bytʹ vsem Lʹ(Y)-am˺ [Y] {lit. ‘L(X) is to.all Lʹ(Y)s L(Y)’} ‘X is the most outstanding Y of all Ys’; for instance:

(9) Užba_L(X) – vsem goram_Lʹ(Y)← antepos-imm-DAT-redupl–gora_L(Y)
lit. ‘Uzhba is to.all mountains mountain’. =
‘Uzhba is the most outstanding mountain of all mountains’.

This idiom appears in the SemS, DSyntS, SSyntS and DMorphS as follows (with ‘X’ = ‘Užba’ and ‘Y’ = ‘gora/mountain’):

SemS           : ‘Užba←1–be–2→mountain←1–most.outstanding–2→mountains←1–all’
DSyntS        : Užba_SG←I–˹bytʹ vsem Lʹ(Y)-am˺_{IND, PRES}–II→gora_SG
SSyntS         : Užba_SG←subj–bytʹ_IND, PRES–copul-compl→gora_SG–antepos-imm-DAT-redupl→gora_PL–modif→vse
DMorphS    : Užba_{SG, NOM}  Ø^bytʹ  vse_{PL, DAT}  gora_{PL, DAT}  gora_{SG, NOM}

Comments

1) The SSyntS proposed here for the [X] ˹bytʹ vsem Lʹ(Y)-am˺ [Y] idiom can be questioned: Does the reduplicate (vsem) goram depend on the reduplicand gora (as I believe) by the antepos-imm-DAT-reduplicative SSyntRel or is it rather an actant (= indirect object) of the verb bytʹ ‘be’? One of the bytʹ lexemes does govern a similar construction:

(10) Ivan byl vsem nam_DAT drug_NOM/drugom_INSTR
           lit. ‘Ivan was to.all us friend’. = ‘Ivan was a friend to all of us’.

However:

• The copular complement of bytʹ can be in the nominative or in the instrumental, while the reduplicand in our idiom can only be in the nominative; this is easily ensured by the antepos-imm-DAT-reduplicative SSyntRel.
• The copular complement of bytʹ is linearly quite flexible, while the reduplicate of the idiom under consideration is not:

Vsem nam Ivan byl drug. vs. *Vsem goram Užba byla gora.

• The dative indirect object is possible with bytʹ only if bytʹ has a specific noun as its copular com­plement; there is a necessary semantic link between drug ‘friend’ and my ‘we’: ‘friend–2→we’. The reduplicate of the idiom can be any noun.

Therefore, the dependence of the reduplicate on the reduplicand (by a reduplicative SSyntRel) is established.

2) The specificity of the antepos-imm-dat-reduplicative SSyntRel consists in imposing a syntactic grammeme, namely, the NOM(inative) case, on the governing element of the phrase, while the standard situation in Russian is for an SSyntRel—except for subjectival SSyntRels—to impose syntactic grammemes on the dependent member. This is necessary because the copular-completive SSyntRel, which subordinates the reduplicand to the verb bytʹ, requires the NOM or the INSTR (as function of contextual conditions) for its dependent, while in the implementation of this idiom the reduplicand can be only in the NOM (see Comment 1). As indicated above (p. 00), a grammeme introduced by a reduplicative SSyntRel (boxed in the rule) is immune from all further possible transformations.

4.2.2. The antepos-imm-long.instr-reduplicative SSyntRel

This SSyntRel appears in the signifier of the reduplicative syntactic idiom «completely» [X] ‘[be] completely X’:

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1. Vokrug vsë belym_Lʹ(X)-←antepos-imm-long.instr-redupl–belo_L(X)
         lit. ‘Around everything is by.white-white’. =
        ‘The whole landscape around is completely white’.
2. Zemlja byla černym-černa ot voronok
       lit. ‘Earth was by.black-black from shell.craters’. =
        ‘The earth was completely black because of shell craters’.
3. Druzʹja byli pʹjanym-pʹjany lit. ‘Friends were by.drunk-drunk’. =
       ‘The friends were completely drunk’.

The idiom «completely» [X] ‘[be] completely X’ on four levels of linguistic representation (with ‘X’ = ‘čërnyj/black’):

SemS        : ‘{earth←1–}black←1–completely’
DSyntS     : {zemlja_(fem)SG←subj–bytʹ_{IND, PAST}–cop-compl→}čërnyj_SHORT–ATTR→«completely»
SSyntS      : {zemlja_(fem)SG←subj–bytʹ_{IND, PAST}–copular-compl→}—→čërnyj_SHORT–antepos-imm-long.instr-redupl→čërnyj_{LONG, POSIT}
DMorphS : {zemlja_{(fem)SG, NOM}  bytʹ_{IND, PAST, SG, FEM}} čërnyj_{LONG, POSIT, MASC, SG, INSTR} čërnyj_{SHORT, SG, FEM} [Zemlja byla černym-černa.]

Comments

1) This idiom is characterized by a particular stress pattern of the implementing phrase: ‿‿́ ‿‿́. The short-form adjective must be bi-syllabic and stressed on the second syllable. As a consequence, this idiom is restricted: far from all adjectives that are semantically fit to serve as its actant ‘X’ (that is, the adjectives that are compatible with the semanteme ‘completely’ and have finally-stressed short forms) sound natural when used in it; thus, we do not have *pravym-pravy ‘[are] completely right’ (because the correct short form is právy) or *spelym-spely ‘[are] completely ripe’ (spély? spelý?). This can be related to the fact that the stress in short-form adjectives in contemporary Russian is undergoing a radical shift, so that the speakers are unsure of how to stress such adjectives.

2) The reduplicate—a long-form adjective—receives an “incorrect” stress on the last syllable; outside of this idiom this long-form adjective is stressed always on the first syllable: černým-černa, while the “correct” stress in the form under consideration is čë́rnym.

The “incorrect” stress on the last syllable of the reduplicate comes from the idiom’s prosodic structure in its lexical entry.

3) The adverbs DAVNYM-DAVNO ‘very long ago’ (vs. DAVNO ‘long ago’) and POLNYM-POLNO ‘very many/very much’ (vs. POLNO ‘many/much’) have the same formal structure as the reduplicative phrases implementing the «completely» [X] idiom, but they are isolated: there is no other adverb of the same form, and semantically, DAVNYM-DAVNO and POLNYM-POLNO are also different from these adjectival phrases: they mean ‘very…’ rather than ‘completely…’. Therefore, they are separate lexemes that must be stored as such in the lexicon along with DAVNO and POLNO.

4.2.3. The antepos-imm-STRICT.SENSE-reduplicative SSyntRel

This SSyntRel does not exist in Russian, but it is known in English; it seems useful to present it here, first, because it has a detailed and precise description in Ghomeshi et al. 2004 (from which all factual data are borrowed), and second, because it serves to implement the English syntactic idiom «in.the.strict.sense», the latter having a curious parallel in the Russian idiom «in.the.strict.sense», where one finds, however, a different SSyntRel: see (19), р. 899.

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1. I’ll make the tuna salad, and you make the salad_Lʹ(X)-salad_L(X).
2. My car isn’t mine-mine; it’s my parents’.
3. Are you leaving-leaving?
4. This time, John left-left.
5. I merely talked to him… Not talk-talked.

The [X] «in.the.strict.sense» idiom (with ‘X’ = ‘gloves’) on four levels of linguistic representation:

SemS          : ‘gloves←1–in.the.strict.sense’
DSyntS       : glove_PL–ATTR→«the.strict.sense»
SSyntS       : glove_PL←antepos-imm-sense-reduplicative–glove _PL
DMorphS  : glove_sg  glove_PL [I need glove-gloves.]

4.3. The antepos-non.imm-exact-reduplicative SSyntRel

☛   The subscript _{g} to the reduplicate Lʹ means ‘all the grammemes that the reduplicand L has in the DMorphS’.

This SSyntRel is part of the signifier of the reduplicative syntactic idiom «I.confirming» [that X] ‘I confirming that X’:

(13)      ↓ ant-non.imm-ex-redupl

1. Doma_Lʹ(X)-to  Ivan  byl doma_L(X)
   ‘At.home_Lʹ(X)-as.for Ivan was at.home_L(X)’. =
   ‘I confirm that Ivan was at home’.
2. Karlik-to, konečno, Ivan karlik{, no nos u nego ogromnyj}
   lit. ‘Dwarf-as.for, of.course, Ivan is dwarf{, but nose at him is enormous}’. =
   ‘I confirm, of course, that Ivan is a dwarf{, but he has an enormous nose}’.
3. Ivanu-to Ivanu my èto poslali
   lit. ‘To.Ivan-as.for to.Ivan we this have.sent’. =
   ‘I confirm that we have sent this to Ivan’.
4. Perestroila-to, ja znaju, ona dom perestroila
   lit. ‘She.has.rebuilt-as.for, I know, she house she.has.rebuilt’. =
   ‘I confirm that she has rebuilt the house’.

Here is the «I.confirming» [that X] idiom on four levels of linguistic representation (with ‘X’ = ‘doma/at.home’):

SemS        : ‘was–2→at.home←2–confirm–1→I’
DSyntS     : «confirming»←ATTR–doma←II–bytʹ_{IND, PAST}
SSyntS      : to←restr–doma←an-non.imm-exact-redupl–doma←copul-completive–bytʹ_{IND, PAST}
DMorphS : doma-to … bytʹ_{IND, PAST, SG, MASC}  doma

Comments

1) The «I.confirming» idiom needs a complex enough description (which cannot be offered here): its L_х cannot be a non-finite form of a verb, and it has a particular communicative structure (the actant ‘X’ is an Emphasized Sem-Theme (see Mel’čuk 2001: 210–218; Sem-Theme is the fragment of the Sem-structure, i.e. a semantic chunk, about which something is said; Emphasized means ‘having emotive importance for the Speaker’).

2) If the actant ‘X’ is implemented by a finite verb, two additional complications arise: (i) this idiom has a variant, described in Subsection 4.4.1—the finite verb is reduplicated by an infinitive; (ii) all syntactic dependents of L(X) can be, and often are, transferred to the reduplicate Lʹ(X); this is also true for the case in 4.4.1. For instance (the transferred dependents are boxed):

(14) Perestroila-to ona dom, ja znaju, perestroila;
   cf. (13d) above, where ona and dom depend on the reduplicand.

4.4. The antepos-non.imm-inexact-reduplicative SSyntRel

Here too, as in Subsection 4.2, the name “antepos-non.imm-inexact-reduplicative” covers various particular inexact SSyntRels. The Russian language uses one of those: the antepos-non.imm-inf-reduplicative SSyntRel.

4.4.1. The antepos-non.imm-inf-reduplicative SSyntRel

The antepos-non.imm-INF-reduplicative SSyntRel serves the same syntactic idiom «I.confirming» [that X] ‘I confirm that X’, described in Subsection 4.3. It is, so to speak, a contextual variant of this idiom foreseen for the case when the actant ‘X’ is a finite verb, as illustrated in (15):

(15)    ----  antepos-non.imm-INF-redupl  ---
     Perestroitʹ_Lʹ(X)-to, ja znaju, ona dom perestroila_L(X)
     lit. ‘To.rebuild-as.for, I know, she house she.has.rebuilt’. =
    ‘I confirm that I know that she has rebuilt the house’.

SemS        : ‘I←1–confrm–2→rebuild–2→house’
DSyntS     : «I.confirming»←ATTR–perestroitʹ_{PERF, IND, PAST}–II→dom_SG
SSyntS      :  -to←restr–perestroitʹ_PERF, INF←antepos-imm-INF-redupl–pere-stroitʹ_{PERF, IND, PAST}–dir-obj→dom_SG
DMorphS : perestroitʹ_{PERF, INF}-to  …  dom_{SG, ACC}  perestroitʹ_{PERF, IND, PAST, SG, FEM}

4.5. The postpos-imm-exact-reduplicative SSyntRel

This SSyntRel is part of the signifier of several Russian reduplicative syntactic idioms: «very», see (16); «very-very», see (17); «abnormally», see (18); «in.the.strict.sense», see (19); [X] ˹tak Lʹ(X)˺, see (20); ˹Čto [X], to Lʹ(X)˺, see (21):

(16)  «VERY»

1. Tak žalko ètix glupyx_L(X)- –postpos-imm-exact-reduplicative→glupyx_Lʹ(X)
           detišek! ‘One is so sorry for these very stupid kids!’
2. Ščenok byl glupyj-glupyj ‘The puppy was very stupid’. ~
    Ščenok kazalsja glupym-glupym ‘The puppy seemed very stupid’.
3. Pojti tuda bylo glupo-glupo ‘To go there was very stupid’.
4. Ivan ulybalsja glupo-glupo ‘Ivan was smiling in a very stupid way’.

On reduplication of Russian and English adjectives, see Apresjan, V. 2018.

NB      The postposition of the reduplicate in the «very» idiom is established by analogy with such cases as glupo-preglupo in the next idiom.

(17)  «VERY-VERY»

1. Tak žalko ètix glupyx_L(X)-preglupyx_Lʹ(X) detišek!
   ‘One is so sorry for these very-very stupid kids!’
2. Ščenok byl glupyj-preglupyj ‘The puppy was very-very stupid’. ~
   Ščenok kazalsja glupym-preglupym
   ‘The puppy seemed very-very stupid’.
3. Pojti tuda bylo glupo-preglupo ‘To go there was very-very stupid’.
4. Ivan ulybalsja glupo-preglupo
      ‘Ivan was smiling in a very-very stupid way’.

(18) «ABNORMALLY»
   Doždʹ lil_L(X)-lil_Lʹ(X), a potom vdrug zasijalo solnce
   lit. ‘The.rain was.falling-was.falling, but then suddenly shined sun’. =
   ‘The rain was falling non-stop for too long, but then suddenly the sun shined’.

NB      As indicated in Subsection 2.2.3, p. 889, this syntactic idiom allows the reduplicand and the reduplicate to be separated by a particle, in this case—by ne ‘not’: e.g., Ivan ne pisal-ne pisal{, a včera srazu tri pisʹma} lit. ‘Ivan didn’t write-didn’t write, but yesterday {we got} three letters at.once’.

(19)  «IN.THE.STRICT.SENSE»
      Maša priexala s parnem_L(X)-parnem_Lʹ(X), a ne s parnem-drugom
      lit. ‘Masha came with guy-guy, but not with guy-friend’. =
     ‘Masha came with her boyfriend, not with her male friend’.

(20) [X] ˹tak Lʹ(X)˺

1. V mašinopisnom tak v mašinopisnom
      lit. ‘In typewritten {form} then in typewritten ’. =
   ‘I agree with the fact that this text [mentioned before] is typewritten’.
2. Bez tak bez lit. ‘Without then without’. =
   ‘I agree to do without it [something mentioned before].

(21) ˹Čto [X], to Lʹ(X)˺
      Čto dëševo, ja soglasen, to dëševo
      lit. ‘That {it is} cheap, I agree, then {it is} cheap’. =
      ‘I agree: I confirm that this is really cheap’.

4.6. The postpos-imm-inexact-reduplicative SSyntRel

As before, “postpos-imm-inexact-reduplicative” is a cover name. In Russian, we find the following particular postpos-imm-inexact-reduplicative SSyntRel.

4.6.1. The postpos-imm-instr-reduplicative SSyntRel

This SSyntRel serves the reduplicative syntactic idiom «real» [X], see (22):

(22)

1. Ivan byl durak–postpos-imm-INSTR-reduplicative→durakom
   ‘Ivan was a real fool’.
2. Ivan s vidu – durak durakom ‘In appearance Ivan is a real fool’.
3. Ivan sidel mračnyj, rasterjannyj, durak durakom
   ‘Ivan was sitting somber, confused, as a real fool’.
4. Ivan vël sebja durak durakom ‘Ivan was behaving as a real fool’.
5. Iz ètix škol deti vyxodjat duraki durakami
      ‘Kids graduate from these schools real fools’.

This idiom on four levels of linguistic representation, with ‘X’ = ‘durak/fool’:

SemS            : ‘Ivan←1–was–2→fool←1–real’
DSyntS         : bytʹ_{IND, PAST}–II→durak_SG–ATTR→«real»
SSyntS         : bytʹ_{IND, PAST}–copular-completive→durak_SG–postpos-imm-INSTR-reduplicative→durak_SG
DMorphS     : bytʹ_{IND, PAST, SG, MASC} …  durak_{SG, NOM}  durak_{SG, INSTR}

 Comment

This idiom has a complex syntactics: roughly, the reduplicand L(X) can depend only on a verb of the copula or quasi-copula type from a limited set (for instance, not on one of the standard Russian copulas—the verb javljatʹsja ‘be’!) or on the fictitious lexeme «kak» ‘as’ (for details, see Mel’čuk 2023b). This is, however, not relevant for the description of the postpos-imm-instr-reduplicative SSyntRel.

4.7. The postpos-non.imm-exact-reduplicative SSyntRel

This SSyntRel is part of the signifier of the reduplicative syntactic idiom «I.INSISTING» [on X], see (23):

(23)   --- post-non.imm-ex-redupl ---↓

1. Da prišla_L(X)    Maša,       prišla_Lʹ(X)!
   lit. ‘But she.arrived Masha, she.arrived!’ =
   ‘But Masha arrived, she did!’
2. Ivana_L(X) ja vstretil, Ivana_Lʹ(X)
   lit. ‘Ivan_ACC I met, Ivan_ACC’. = ‘It is Ivan whom I met, Ivan’.
3. Sup vegetarianskij_L(X),vegetarianskij_Lʹ(X)
   lit. ‘Soup is vegetarian, vegetarian’. =
   ‘The soup is vegetarian, don’t doubt’.

The «I.INSISTING» idiom on four levels of linguistic representation, with ‘X’ = ‘prišla/arrived’:

4.8. The postpos-non.imm-inexact-reduplicative SSyntRel

This SSyntRel does not exist in Russian.

5. Conclusions

Russian has seven reduplicative SSyntRels:

The antepos-imm-dat-reduplicative SSyntRel (vsem goram gora)
The antepos-imm-long.instr-reduplicative SSyntRel (belym-belo)
The antepos-non.imm-exact-reduplicative SSyntRel (Karlik-to Ivan karlik.)
The antepos-non.imm-inf-reduplicative SSyntRel (Perestroitʹ-to ètot dom ona perestroila.)
The postpos-imm-exact-reduplicative SSyntRel (glupyj-glupyj)
The postpos-imm-instr-reduplicative SSyntRel (durak durakom)
The postpos-non.imm-exact-reduplicative SSyntRel (Prišla Maša, prišla.)

These SSyntRels belong to the domain that L. Iomdin aptly baptized “microsyntax”: ‘syntactic phenomena intimately related to phraseology’; he has convincingly demonstrated its prime import­ance for linguistic theory (Iomdin 2008, 2010, 2020 and Avgustinova & Iomdin 2019). However, as of today, this domain still does not receive sufficient attention of researchers. The proposed set of Russian reduplicative SSyntRels is intended as a modest contribution to the project “Syntactic Typology: Surface-Syntactic Relations in the World Languages,” which, hopefully, will be launched one day.

Appendix 1: Some important linguistic notions mentioned in this paper

Clausative

The clausative is a part of speech whose elements are syntactically full clauses; e.g.: Yes! | Down [with the virus]! | Plop! | For Heaven’s sake!

Fictitious lexeme

A fictitious lexeme is an artificial lexeme introduced by the researcher in order to represent—in the lexicon and in the DSyntS—either a meaningful SSynt-relation or a syntactic (= non-segmental) idiom (see Mel’čuk 2018b). Fictitious lexemes are enclosed in angular brackets «…». For instance, the fictitious lexeme «very» encodes the Russian syntactic idiom implemented by adjectival reduplicative phrases, such as bolʹšoj-bolʹšoj lit. ‘big-big’ = ‘very big’. As any lexeme, a fictitious lexeme has its lexical entry with a lexicographic definition, a government pattern, etc.: see the lexical entry for the fictitious lexeme [X] «will.punish» [Z for Y-ing], Section 3, p. 891. It is, of course, the lexical entry of the corresponding idiom.

Grammeme

A grammeme is a value of an inflectional category; for instance, in English, the category of number has two grammemes: SG ~ PL.

Deep(-syntactic) grammemes are all semantically full grammemes characterizing a given lexeme in a DSyntS; surface(-syntactic) grammemes are only those semantically full grammemes that are expressed synthetically, or morphologically, i.e. inside a wordform, rather than analytically, by grammatical lexemes. Thus, to represent the phrase had been working in a DSyntS the verbal lexeme work_(V) has the set of deep grammemes IND, PERF, PROGR, PAST:

work_{(V)ind, perf, progr, past}

Its surface-syntactic correspondence is work_(V)PPRES (working), the grammemes IND, PERF, PROGR and PAST being expressed by the forms of the auxiliary verbal lexemes have and be.

Surface-syntactic relation [SSyntRel]

A surface-syntactic relation r is a direct syntactic dependency link between two lexemes L₁ and L₂ in an SSynt-structure: L₁–r→L₂, such that r fully specifies L₁’s and L₂’s mutual linear position in the deep-morphological structure and their surface-syntactic grammemes, if any. (See, e.g., Mel’čuk 2021b: Ch. 2,
Section 3.) SSyntRels are language-specific.

Surface-syntactic structure [SSyntS]

The surface-syntactic structure of an utterance is a tree whose nodes are labeled with the lexemes of the utterance (each lexeme being supplied with all its SSynt-grammemes) and the branches, with the corresponding SSyntRels. For instance, the Russian sentence (24a) and its SSyntS:

(24) a. Sup kipel-kipel i vykipel
        lit. ‘Soup was.boiling-was.boiling and boiled.away’. =
       ‘The soup was boiling for too long and finally boiled away’.
     b.

Appendix 2: Russian surface-syntactic relations mentioned in this paper

The reduplicative SSyntRels are not included in this list.

approx(imate)-quant(itative)    : tonn–approx-quant→desjatʹ ‘maybe 10 tons’

circum(stantial)                           : spal–circum→spokojno ‘slept quietly’ prijti–circum→v pjatnicu ‘come on Friday’

subj(ecive)-compar(ative)-conj(unctional)  : silʹnee, čem–subj-compar-conj→Ivan                                 ‘stronger than Ivan is’

coord(inative)                               : Ivan–coord→i Maša ‘Ivan and Masha’

coord-conj(unctional)                 : Ivan i–coord-conj→Maša ‘Ivan and Masha’

cop(ular)-compl(etive)                : Oni byli–cop-compl→bolʹny ‘They were ill’.
                                                        Ivan Ø^bytʹ–cop-compl→karlik ‘Ivan is a.dwarf’.
                                                        bytʹ–cop-compl→drugom ‘be a.friend’

dir(ect)-obj(ectival)                     : čitatʹ–dir-obj→romany ‘read novels’

indir(ect)-obj(ectival)              : bytʹ–indir-obj→Ivanu drugom lit. ‘be to.Ivan a.friend’

modif(icative)                               : dobryj←modif–drug ‘good friend’

prepos(itional)                              : prijti v–prepos→pjatnicu ‘come on Friday’ daleko ot–prepos→goroda ‘far from the.city’

quant(itative)                               : desjatʹ←quant–tonn ‘10 tons’

restr(ictive)                                   : tolʹko←restr–pil ‘only drank’
                                                          ne←restr–pil lit. ‘not drank’
                                                       Ivan–restr→že lit. ‘Ivan as.for’

subj(ectival)                           : Oni←subj–byli bolʹny ‘They were ill’.
                                                 Ivan←subj–Ø^bytʹ karlik ‘Ivan is a.dwarf’.

Appendix 3: Syntactic idioms mentioned in this paper

«ABNORMALLY» [X] (Sup kipel-kipel i vykipel
                           lit. ‘Soup was.boiling-was.boiling and boiled.away’.)
[X Y-u] ˹BYTʹ NE V Lʹ(X)˺ (Nam prazdnik ne v prazdnik
                             lit. ‘To.us feast is not into feast’.)
[X] ˹BYTʹ VSEM Lʹ(Y)-am˺ [Y] (Èto vsem goram gora
                             lit. ‘This is to.all mountains mountain’.)

«COMPLETELY» [X] (černym-černy lit. ‘{are} by.black-black’)
˹ČTO [X], TO Lʹ(X)˺ (Čto Ivan umnyj, to umnyj
                              lit. ‘That Ivan is smart, then {he} is smart’.)

«I.CONFIRMING» [that X] (Karlik-to Ivan karlik lit. ‘Dwarf-as.for he is dwarf’.)
                                 Spatʹ-to Ivan spal lit. ‘To.sleep-as.for Ivan was.sleeping’.)

«I.INSISTING» [on X] (Mebelʹ vynosite, mebelʹ! lit. ‘Furniture take.out, furniture!’)

«IN.THE.STRICT.SENSE» [X]
     (English: Not talk-talked.
     Russian: Moskva-Moskva, a ne Moskva Tovarnaja lit. ‘Moscow-Moscow, and not
     Moscow Tovarnayа’.)

«REAL» [X] (durak durakom lit. ‘fool by.fool’)
[X] ˹TAK Lʹ(X)˺ (Piva tak piva! lit. ‘Of.beer then of.beer!’)

«VERY» [X] (xolodnyj-xolodnyj lit. ‘cold-cold’)

«VERY-VERY» [X] (xolodnyj-prexolodnyj lit. ‘cold-overcold’)
[X] «WILL.PUNISH» [Z for Y-ing] (Ivan tebe potancuet! lit. ‘Ivan to.you will.dance!’)

^{1 The REDUPL operation can apply to phrases as well; for instance, see some English examples in Ghomeshi et al. 2004: (1g) Oh, we’re not living-together living together or (59b) I never talked to him talked to him and such Russian examples as Čerez tri dnja tak čerez tri dnja lit. ‘In three days then in three days’. = ‘Well, in three days is OK with me’ or Veselitʹsja do utra tak veselitʹsja do utra lit. ‘To.have.fun till morning then to.have.fun till morning’. = ‘Having fun till morning should be done without hesitation and/or intensely’.}

^{2 Several publications tend to distinguish different types of reduplication by different terms, calling, for instance, the vkusnyj-vkusnyj ‘tasty-tasty’ type expressions reduplications, and the vkusnyj, vkusnyj ‘tasty, tasty’ type expressions, repetitions. However, such a practice contradicts the general principles of building deductive notional systems, where the classification must start with one most comprehensive class—in our case, the class of syntactic reduplications, which is divided in appropriate subclasses, and so forth.}

^{3 The Russian adjective has, among others, two opposed inflectional forms:}

^{—  The LONG form (e.g., širok+ij ‘broad’ or molod+oj ‘young’) is used in all possible syntactic roles of the Russian adjective; it expresses number, gender and case.}

^{—  The SHORT form (širok+Ø, molod+Ø) is used only as the copular complement of the verbs bytʹ ‘be’, statʹ  ‘become’, okazatʹsja ‘turn out’; it expresses only number and gender and does not have cases.}

^{4 Many Russian syntactic idioms feature one of several lexemes of the verb bytʹ ‘be’: bytʹI.1—semantically empty copula, bytʹI.2 ‘be identical to’, bytʹI.3 ‘be an element of a class’, and bytʹIV ‘be located at’. In what follows the lexicographic numbers with bytʹ are omitted as irrelevant for the purposes of this paper.}

^{5 But not phonemes as such: a phoneme is a linguistic means serving to distinguish segmental signifiers.}

^{6 The word order indication in the signifier of a syntactic idiom specifies the neutral, most frequent linear arrangement of the lexemes; this arrangement can change under the impact of the communicative structure of the sentence.}

About the authors

Igor Aleksandrovich Mel’čuk

Author for correspondence.
Email: igor.melcuk@umontreal.ca
ORCID iD: 0000-0002-4520-0554

Professor Emeritus

References