B01 - Prominence phenomena in Slavic languages - CRC1252 (Prominence in Language)

Project B01 examines the interaction of prominence-lending features in Slavic impersonal construc­tions: the Polish ‑no/‑to construction (mówiono ‘they said’), the reflexive impersonal (mówi się ‘they say’) and the 3pl impersonal (Russian govorjat ‘they say’). It is commonly agreed upon that these constructions imply a human subject. However, even so there are marked differences in acceptability with different verbs, which we assume to depend on features of agentivity stipulated by the semantics of the verb. In order to find out which agentivity features are relevant, we use corpus analyses, acceptability judgement tests and preference tests. For a brief introduction to the project, see