Active transitive impersonals in Slavic and beyond: a parallel corpus analysis
Overview
Paper Summary
Active transitive impersonals (ATIs), where the verb lacks an overt nominative subject, are more common without an overt Cause phrase than with one. While ATIs are often considered an East Slavic phenomenon, they also appear in other Slavic and even some non-Slavic languages, although personal transitive constructions are often used as equivalents, especially outside of East Slavic.
Explain Like I'm Five
Scientists found that when people talk about something happening to someone or something, like "It made him shiver," without saying *what* did it, they do this more often when they don't explain *why*. This happens in many languages.
Possible Conflicts of Interest
None identified
Identified Limitations
Rating Explanation
This paper presents a reasonable corpus analysis of active transitive impersonals in Slavic languages and beyond, offering valuable cross-linguistic comparisons. However, the reliance on translations, limited dataset for some constructions, and broad categorization of equivalents constrain the generalizability of the findings, warranting a rating of 3. Further research with larger, original language datasets and more refined analysis is needed to confirm and expand upon these results.
Good to know
This is the Starter analysis. Paperzilla Pro fact-checks every citation, researches author backgrounds and funding sources, and uses advanced AI reasoning for more thorough insights.
Explore Pro →