Hierarchical Ambiguities in Copula Coordinate Structures in Slovene and Other Slavic Languages

The nature of coordination, including derivation and constituency in coordinate structures, was debated by earlier writers, such as Aristotle and Dionysius Thrax, up to the present day by linguists such as Bloomfield and Chomsky. Copulative coordination expressing the meaning 'and' is achieved in four different ways, each of which are realized in the Slavic languages. It is also possible to find some kinds of ambiguity in these structures. Contrary to expectations, in addition to classical languages (e.g., Old Persian), some Slavic languages distinguish constituency on both higher and lower levels in these structures. Slovene uses the conjunctions ter, in, p a for these purposes. Another mechanism, with the preposition z (s) (e.g., midva s Petrom), expresses a lower level of coordination.