The Russian be-possessive: subjecthood and argument structure

Abstract

The paper touches upon two aspects of the Russian be-possessive: subjecthood and argument structure. A brief presentation of subjecthood tests (reflexive binding, word order, presupposed reference and substitution by PRO) demonstrates that the PP-possessor is the subject of the construction, although morphological subject characteristics embellish the possessum. A look at the argument structure of the be-possessive constitutes a step towards the understanding of the idiosyncrasies of the construction. I consider a range of the existing analyses of the argument structure of the be-possessive and argue that the construction should be analyzed as a dyadic unaccusative, as proposed in Chvany (1975).