LANGUAGE-INTERNAL EXPLANATION:
THE DISTRIBUTION OF RUSSIAN IMPERSONALS
David M. Perlmutter (University of California, San Diego)
John Moore (University of California, San Diego)


This article exemplifies LANGUAGE-INTERNAL EXPLANATION. It seeks to document and to
explain the inability of Russian impersonal clauses to be infinitival. We argue that this gap is the
consequence of two independent facts of Russian grammar: a case restriction on a silent
expletive pronoun and the requirement that subjects of infinitival clauses be dative. These clash
in infinitival contexts, which explains the gap. The explanation is language-internal in that it
relies on no putatively universal principles. At the same time, each type of device posited is
needed independently in the grammars of other languages. Our result bears on the issue of what
language-particular properties expletives may have, on the issue of whether silent expletives
exist, and on the more general theoretical issue of whether clauses are required to have subjects
universally.

[Language 78:4 (December 2002)]