Abstract: Russian is a canonically-SVO language with relatively free word order (Bailyn 1995). As others have shown, OVS word orders for transitive clauses involve A-movement of the preverbal object (Bailyn 2004; Pereltsvaig 2021, a.o), while the fronted object of OSV sentences lacks A-properties and is derived via Ā-movement. In this squib, we account for these facts under a Minimalist analysis of inversion as smuggling (Collins 2024; Storment 2025b), showing that smuggling accounts for the OVS word order and the A-properties of the fronted object. We contrast the smuggling analysis with an alternative, leapfrogging, which we show fails to account for the OVS-OSV asymmetries regarding A-movement, as well as introducing a general theoretical issue of unrestrictiveness.
Inversion in Russian, Smuggling, and Leapfrogging
Inversion in Russian, Smuggling, and Leapfrogging (Lingbuzz)
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