Two types of verb fronting in Russian

Maria Esipova

Abstract: Russian has two types of verb fronting with doubling: when the fronted verb is an infinitive, and when it is fully inflected. I explore the semantic differences between the two types of verb fronting, previously ignored in the literature, and argue that in uninflected verb fronting the fronted constituent is semantically a predicate, while in inflected verb fronting it’s an assertion. Syntactically, thus, the two fronted constituents differ in size: it is the largest Aspect Phrase in uninflected verb fronting and a (Speech) Act Phrase with its complement elided in inflected verb fronting.