Configuring topic and focus in Russian

This dissertation examines word order and the encoding of topic and focus in Russian. I argue that certain phrase structure positions license discourse functions, and that different types of topic and focus have different syntactic and phonological encodings.;I propose that Russian sentence structure is configurational. The phrase structure, including the encoding of discourse functions, conforms to X syntax. Russian supports the VP-internal subject hypothesis; arguments remain in the VP unless they move to receive discourse function interpretations. Since finite verbs move to ;The interaction between phrase structure, discourse functions, and grammatical relations is investigated in Lexical-Functional Grammar. I propose an account of the genitive of negation based on the interaction of case assignment and Lexical Mapping Theory which makes no reference to phrase structure or grammatical functions. In general, the phrase structure rules follow an X schema. Discourse and grammatical functions are associated with phrase structure positions via functional uncertainty to produce the various surface word orders with their corresponding discourse function interpretations. In a few cases, a flat structure occurs where adjunction was proposed in Government-Binding Theory. These structures are restricted in distribution and avoid undermotivated null-headed projections. Although all nodes are optional, the rules are constrained so that each node must be filled in at least one construction. The distribution of verbal heads is governed by the interaction of morphology and lexical insertion, which sometimes results in headless projections.