Word-order variation in a contact setting: A corpus-based investigation of Russian spoken in Daghestan

Abstract This paper deals with word-order variation in a situation of language contact. We present corpus-based investigation word order the variety Russian spoken Daghestan, focusing specifically on noun phrases genitive modifier. In Daghestanian Russian, nonstandard GEN+N (prepositive or left genitive) often occurs. At first glance, this phenomenon might be easily explained terms syntactic calquing from speakers’ left-branching L1s. However, does not occur same frequency all types but is affected by several lexicosemantic and formal features both head Therefore, we are dealing simple pattern borrowing. Rather, L1 influence strengthens certain universal tendencies that motivated The comparison monolinguals’ which prepositive genitives sporadically too, supports hypothesis.