Abstract

This thesis is about Case marking in predicational NPs and APs in Russian, meaning NPs and APs that occur after copular be and copula-like verbs. In the course of this thesis I explore the nature of copular be itself. I argue that copular be in Russian is not ambiguous between a func-tional and lexical category as shown in earlier proposals. My assumption is that copular be is always a lexical verb with different selectional properties and never a functional head. Conse-quently, the different Case markings on predicational XPs as well as the asymmetry between NPs and APs, found in Russian, stem from these verbal selectional properties as well as Case assigning mechanism and the exact position of the predicational XP within the structure. Thus, there are two structures that I propose for copulative clauses and for clauses with copula-like verbs, one in which the lexical verb selects a PredP (Small Clause) as a complement, and one in which the lexical verb selects a NP as a complement. All the data presented in my thesis can be accounted for by these two structures.