| This dissertation is a comprehensive study of what are here referred to as Russian s-constructions: that is, constructions such as Brat s sestroj poexali v Moskvu 'Brother with sister went (pl) to Moscow' or My s toboj xodili v kino 'You and I (lit. 'we with you') went (pl) to the movies', in which two nouns or pronouns are conjoined by s 'with' instead of i 'and'; the nominal following s is in the instrumental case. Normally only nominative nouns control predicate agreement, but agreement with nominal s-constructions may be with both nouns in the construction. It is argued that s is a special coordinator in Russian, and that predicate agreement is determined by a combination of syntactic, semantic, pragmatic, and discourse factors.;Chapter I presents a typology of coordination and plurality patterns in languages from around the world. Russian coordination patterns are situated within general Slavic patterns, which in turn are placed within the broader spectrum of possibilities among the world's languages.;Chapter II discusses similarities and differences of i-coordination and s-coordination, along with general word order patterns and rules. Russian s-constructions are subdivided into inanimate nominal, animate nominal, and pronominal categories, and their frequency, word order, and agreement patterns are analyzed. Since previous studies have not dealt with most of the numerous factors involved in agreement with s-constructions, these factors are described and analyzed in detail.;Chapter III looks at previous work in general coordination and agreement theory, as well as theoretical work on 'with'-coordination in both Slavic and non-Slavic languages. Since most of these accounts have been purely syntactic models, the dissertation concludes with a proposal for a model of Slavic s-coordinations integrating syntax, semantics, pragmatics, and discourse grammar. |
