The Syntax of the Be-Possessive

This book is the first attempt to provide a unified account of the be- possessive syntax and its extension to the modal and the perfect constructions in Russian/North Russian within a generative framework. Apparently diverse constructions are construed as deriving from the have/be parameter, which depends on the utilization of the prepositional complementizer with a Case feature. The be -perfect structure provides an adequate environment where ergativity is encoded via verbal nominalization. The