Studi Slavistici XXIII (2026) 1
Articoli

Embedded wh-Exclamatives? Evidence from Russian Quotation Particle mol and Complementizer čto

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  • Natalia Zevakhina
Natalia Zevakhina
Institute for Linguistic Studies – Russian Academy of Sciences
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.36253/Studi_Slavis-19387

Published 2026-07-02

Keywords

  • Exclamatives,
  • Exclamations,
  • Particle mol,
  • Embedded Clauses

Copyright (c) 2026 Natalia Zevakhina

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Abstract

Using syntactic embeddability diagnostics, the paper demonstrates that Russian wh-exclamatives with the quotation particle mol and/or with the complementizer čto are embeddable and thus contributes to the ongoing theoretical and cross-linguistic discussion of embedded wh-exclamatives and their (in)subordination status. This analysis is applicable to rhetorical questions (with the quotation particle mol and/or with the complementizer čto), which are traditionally viewed as unembeddable / main clause phenomena. Moreover, the paper discusses semantic features (factivity and knowledge) as well as (idiosyncratic) lexical and grammatical features of Russian matrix predicates embedding wh-exclamatives and wh-interrogatives in a cross-linguistic perspective. Taking into consideration the features of Russian matrix predicates, the paper argues for elliptical structures based on embedded wh-exclamatives, which are viewed parallel to wh-interrogatives.

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