Definiteness as a ‘hidden category’ in Russian?

Various phenomena of Russian grammar have so far been explained on the basis of the hypothesis that Russian nouns have the ‘covert’ category of definiteness. Usually, individual examples are cited to prove that certain phenomena depend on this category. In this paper corpus analyses are used to refute the hypothesis and prove that those grammatical phenomena that are frequently associated with definiteness can be better explained on the basis of other categories. For example, the choice of accusative or genitive case for the direct object under negation depends on whether the object is presupposed or asserted and which elements of the meaning are in the scope of negation. Not a single one of the phenomena inspected in this paper is based on definiteness as it exists in languages with a definite article.

Translated from “Definitheit als ‘verborgene Kategorie’ im Russischen?” in Pitsch, Hagen (ed.), Linguistische Beiträge zur Slavistik: XXI. JungslavistInnen-Treffen in Göttingen, 13.–15. September 2012, 75–96. München: Sagner 2014. DOI: 10.18716/bun/DefR.