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Language-Internal Explanation: The Distribution of Russian Impersonals

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.