A Translation of Two Synchronic Russian Linguistic Articles: A Commentary on Their Functions

Within current morphosyntactic theory, the ability for a rule or taxonomy to be universal is crucial. By translating two linguistic articles, I present findings relevant to current linguistic theory within modern Russian. I demonstrate, therefore, that their findings may contribute to the universality of current morphosyntactic theory. The first article articulates a new delineation of collective numerals and their functions. Nakonečnaja-Lalanne (2013) argues that a speaker’s choice between a collective and a cardinal numeral is often semantic in nature, not random as previous scholars have argued. The second article argues that the existing taxonomy for analytical adjectives in modern Russian is not sound. Through an analysis of written corpora, Gorbov (2016) provides a detailed account against current theory from Panov (1971). Therefore, both articles which I have translated notably affect current morphosyntactic theory regarding enumeration and modification within inflectional languages. In the conclusions, I discuss the impact of both articles and ways in which their research could be expanded upon.