| This study examines certain correspondences between form and function in Modern Russian, asking how speakers make choices between two or more morphosyntactic forms that express a similar meaning. It focuses on asymmetries in the usage of morphosyntactic forms in affirmative and negative contexts. Negation is often thought to be simply the opposite of affirmation. However, the existence of asymmetries in usage shows that negation interacts differently with grammar (semantics, pragmatics, and information structure) than does affirmation.;By using a large-scale unedited open corpus (the open web, accessed by Google.com) to obtain gross estimations of statistical frequencies as well as plentiful examples of specific constructions, the dissertation discovers many asymmetries that had not previously been identified. The specific instances of variation discussed are: nominative and genitive case in expressions of presence or absence in a location; verbs of motion (especially aspect); the three forms of predicative adjectives (short, agreement and instrumental); and verbs expressing perception.;This dissertation discovers two important properties of negation. First, negation correlates with a reduced degree of elaboration in the mental space which is constructed, in comparison to the parallel affirmative constructions. Second, under negation the informational energy is focused on the connections between the perceiver and his/her expectations (affirmative space) and the theme in the negated space; less attention is paid to other components of the situation. The connections between the perceiver and the theme often involve thwarted expectations about the theme's appearance in the domain of the perceiver.;The present study, then, contributes to the investigation of morphosyntactic variation by integrating information about statistical patterns of usage and attention to the context, above all, to asymmetries between affirmative and negative contexts. |
