Russian Free Phrasal Indefinite Pronouns

The paper describes Russian phrasal indefinite pronouns: both 1) phraseologized (= collocational), such as koe­kto ≈ ‘someone’, Bog znaet kto ‘God knows who’, kto ugodno ‘whoever’ or kto by to ni bylo ‘no matter who’, and 2) free, such as { Ja vstretil } nikto iz tvoix druzej ne dogadaetsja kogo ‘{I met} none of your friends will guess whom’ (a.k.a. syntactic amalgams ). Three lexical entries are presented: for the indefinite pronominal lexeme kto 1 ≈ ‘-body; -one’, for the premodifying indefi-niteness type marker idiom ˹ Bog znaet ˺ ‘God knows’, and for the postmodifying indefiniteness type marker particle -to 4 ≈ ‘some’. Formal representations of collocational and free phrasal indefinite pronouns at three levels of linguistic representation (semantic, deep-syntactic and surface-syntactic) are given, as well as rules for constructing both types of pronouns.

To the dear memory of Gaston Gross

Statement of the Paper's Goals
The intended object of the present paper is the family of Russian expressions of the following form (boldfaced): (1) Ja segodnja vstretil daže Petina mama ne dogadaetsja kogo 'I met today even Pete's mom won't guess whom' .
 Vital notions, on the first mention, are printed in Helvetica; they are discussed in the body of the paper or briefly explained in the Appendix, p. 23.
Calling such an expression as daže Petina mama ne dogadaetsja kogo a pronoun is, of course, an abus de langage, or a "poetic licence": the expression in question is a pronominal phrase rather than simply a pronoun.However, this loose use of the term can be accepted as a convenient abbreviation, since in the given context it cannot entail any confusion.Now, there is a striking difference between phrasal indefinite pronouns of the above two types: -The indefinite pronouns of the koekto and kto ugodno type are phraseologized, that is, non-free, phrases, and their number is finite (as will be shown, about 360: see Table 1, p. 5); they must be listed and described in the lexicon.-The indefinite pronouns of the daže Petina mama ne dogadaetsja kogo type are free phrases, and their number is infinite; they cannot be presented in the lexicon and must be specified by rules.Therefore, the final goal of this paper is twofold: to propose 1) the formal representations of Russian free phrasal indefinite pronouns on the semantic [Sem-], deep-syntactic [DSynt-] and surface-syntactic [SSynt-] levels and 2) the formal rules relating these representations, that is, the rules that describe the production of these pronouns by the Speaker.
But there is a complication: the syntactic head of a free-phrase pronoun in question is a pronominal lexeme, such as kto 'who ' , čto 'what' , gde 'where' , etc. Traditionally, these lexemes are called "interrogative pronouns, " yet in the role that interests us here, they are by no means interrogative: their meaning and their syntactic behavior are drastically different from those of interrogative pronouns.Informally, they are also known as WH-words (in Russian, as K-words)-a convenient name, which, however, does not reflect their notional status.Strictly speaking, what are they indeed?Unfortunately, the available literature does not give a satisfactory formal enough answer.Hence, the paper's preliminary goal is: To propose a formalized description, even if a cursory and sketchy one, of the closed system of Russian indefinite pronouns-both the indefinite pronominal lexemes and the indefinite pronominal phrasemes.The indefinite pronominal phrasemes are discussed in Section 2, and Section 3 is dedicated to the freely built phrasal indefinite pronouns.
Two remarks before I proceed.• The literature on indefinite pronouns is too rich for a reasonable overview, but fortunately there is the fundamental monograph (Haspelmath, 1997), which offers a detailed and multifaceted characterization of indefinite pronouns in the world's languages; what follows is based to a great degree on this work.As far as Russian is concerned, one finds in the studies (Padučeva, 1985(Padučeva, , pp. 209-220, 2015(Padučeva, -2017(Padučeva, , and 2018) ) a rigorous description of the main Russian indefinite pronouns, and I largely use Padučeva's results.A precise and compact description of Russian phrasal indefinite pronouns is offered in (Iomdin, 2010).Finally, recently the set of Russian indefinite pronominal lexemes has been semantically and combinatorially treated as a particular lexicographic type in (Apresjan, V. & Iomdin, B., 2022), so that the present paper is a contribution to the research endeavor launched by this article.• What follows is but a pilot study-a very first step towards the declared goals.

Russian Phraseologized (= Collocational) Indefinite Pronouns
Russian phraseologized indefinite pronouns will be dealt with in two stages: their structure and linguistic nature (2.1) and their lexicographic treatment (2.2).

The Structure and the Linguistic Nature of Russian Collocational Indefinite Pronouns
The Russian language has a (more or less) closed set of indefinite pronominal expressions having the following composition: premodifying lexical unit←pronominal-auxiliary-indefinite pronominal lexeme or indefinite pronominal lexeme-pronominal-auxiliary→postmodifying lexical unit Thus, Russian phraseologized indefinite pronouns are two-component phrases, which are collocations (Mel' čuk, 2023b, pp. 112-136).The base of such a collocation is an indefinite pronominal lexeme, and the collocate is a lexical unit [LU] that is a marker of the indefiniteness type [IT-marker];1 see Table 1, next page.Let it be emphasized: A Russian phraseologized indefinite pronoun such as koe-kto ≈ 'some-body' , kto-to ≈ 'some-body' or kto-nibudʹ ≈ 'some-body' is not a wordform (as is often tacitly admitted), but a phrase; more specifically, it is a collocation, whose base is the nominal pronoun kto 'who' and whose collocates are the particles koe-≈ 'some-' , -to4 ≈ 'some-' and -nibudʹ ≈ 'some-' .To see this, consider the linear separation of the complex pronoun's components by a preposition (koe s kem lit.'some with body'), the "intraword inflection" (k+ogoto lit.'who+m+body' , s k+emnibudʹ lit.'with who+m+body') and the parallelism with such obvious cases of phrasal pronouns as Bog znaet kto 'God knows who' or kto by … ni (prixodil) lit.'who … wouldn't (come)' ≈ 'whoever (comes)' .NEO.2023.35.13 p. 6/28 Igor Mel'čuk
2) The English glosses supplied in Table 1 are more than approximate: the meanings of the corresponding Russian pronouns are complex and very different from those of the English indefinite pronouns.As said above, the accurate semantic description of Russian indefinite pronouns is not attempted in this paper: strictly speaking, such a description concerns the IT-markers rather than the pronominal lexemes themselves, cf.(Levontina &Šmelëv, 2005 and2018); see also (Padučeva, 1985(Padučeva, , pp. 209-220, 2015(Padučeva, -2017(Padučeva, and 2018)).
3) Some Russian indefinite pronominal collocations are homonymous with idioms; for instance: -The collocation čto-to 'something' is homonymous with two (invariable) idioms: Note a possible contamination of the IT-marker ˹by … ni˺ with the IT-marker ˹by to ni bylo˺, if the indefinite pronoun is kto 'who': (3) a. ˹by … ni˺: Kto by to ni byl, my ego najdëm 'No matter who this is, we'll find him' .
Here, the verb byl can be replaced with any verb, provided it fits semantically (okazalsja 'turned out; found oneself ' , učinil 'committed' , etc.), and to, which is a demonstrative pronoun, with èto 'this' .
b. ˹by to ni bylo˺: Pustʹ prixodit kto by to ni bylo 'Let no matter who come' .
Here nothing can be replaced.
Note also that the combination of an indefinite pronominal lexeme with the postmodifier ˹tolʹko … ne˺ is not an indefinite, but an exclamatory pronoun:2 (4) Kto tolʹko k Ivanu ne prixodit!lit.'Who only to Ivan doesn't come!' = 'How many different people come to see Ivan!' NEO.2023.35.13 p. 8/28 Igor Mel'čuk The meaning of an exclamatory pronoun includes the component 'many different …'; such a pronoun can be only used in exclamatory utterances and, signaling an emotional state of the Speaker, it is a non-descriptive lexeme-unlike all indefinite pronouns, which are descriptive lexical expressions.
Russian indefinite pronominal collocations will be characterized in three steps: the base of the collocation, its collocate, and the deep-/surface-syntactic relation [D/S-SyntRel] between them.

The Base of a Russian Indefinite Pronominal Collocation
The base of a Russian indefinite pronominal collocation has been called above indefinite pronominal lexeme.It is a polysem of an interrogative pronoun.In this way, twelve Russian indefinite pronominal collocations are directly related to Russian interrogative pronominal lexemes (in fact, to all Russian interrogative pronominal lexemes, except kotoryj 'which').
NB As indicated in (Haspelmath, 1997, pp. 26-27), such state of affairs-that is, indefinite pronouns being formally based on interrogative pronouns-is typical of the majority of the world's languages (63 out of 100 languages in Haspelmath's sample).
A Russian indefinite pronominal lexeme has a meaning corresponding to the one-central-component of an interrogative pronoun's meaning: namely, the meaning of one of the so-called basic ontological categories, a notion that goes back to Aristotle.For instance, kto-to means 'a person whose identity is unknown to the Enunciator' (≈ 'somebody'), and koe-gde, 'in several places whose identity is known to the Enunciator, but unknown to the Addressee' (≈ 'in some places').
A Russian indefinite pronominal lexeme has a theoretically interesting property: it cannot be used without its obligatory collocate, that is, without an IT-marker.In other words, an indefinite pronominal lexeme appears in a sen- NEO.2023.35.13 p. 9/28 Russian Free Phrasal Indefinite Pronouns tence only as the base of one out of ≈ 30 collocations.These lexemes constitute a subclass of degenerate lexemes (Mel' čuk, 2023b, p. 45), that is, of lexemes functioning exclusively within phrasemes; this particular subclass is naturally called collocate-bound lexemes.All 12 Russian indefinite pronominal lexemes are collocate-bound.

The Collocate of a Russian Indefinite Pronominal Collocation
Premodifying and postmodifying LUs appearing as collocates in Russian indefinite pronominal collocations are special particles-lexemes and idioms; as said above, they are markers of indefiniteness type, that is, they express particular "indefiniteness" meanings.The exact meaning and the combinatorial properties of an IT-marker must be described in detail in its own lexical entry.In the entry of its base-that is, in the entry of an indefinite pronominal lexeme-the corresponding IT-markers are only approximately specified by non-standard lexical functions [LFs].These specifications are supposed to be sufficient (in the process of sentence production) just for the first rough choice by the Speaker; the finergrained selection is performed based on the IT-marker's own lexical entry.

The SSyntRel Between the Components of a Russian Indefinite Pronominal Collocation
In the deep-syntactic structure, an IT-marker, being a modifier of the indefinite pronominal lexeme, is subordinated to it by the attr(ibutive) deepsyntactic relation, as all modifiers are.In the surface-syntactic structure, a special pronominal-auxiliary surface-syntactic relation [SSyntRel] is proposed to express this syntactic link (Mel' čuk, 2012, p. 12). 4 The pronominal-auxiliary SSyntRel covers ≈ 360 indefinite pronominal collocations plus an open set of freely constructed phrasal indefinite pronouns.It determines the linear position of the IT-marker with respect to the pronominal lexeme: -If anteposed, this marker is placed closer to the pronominal lexeme than restrictive particles, but further than monosyllabic prepositions: tolʹko ne aby 〈Bog znaet〉 s kem 'only not with anybody 〈with God knows whom〉' vs. *aby 〈Bog znaet〉 tolʹko ne s kem.5 -If postposed, the collocational IT-marker follows the pronoun immediately.
The ante-/post-position of the indefiniteness type marker is ensured by the indication in its syntactics (i.e., in its lexical entry): «anteposed» or «postposed».Now the ground is ready to show the formal representation of Russian indefinite pronominal collocations.As an illustrative specimen the collocation Bog znaet kto 'God knows who' is taken, its base being the indefinite pronominal NEO.2023.35.13 p. 10/28 Igor Mel'čuk lexeme kto1, and as the collocate, the idiom ˹Bog znaet˺.This collocation is quite typical of indefinite pronominal collocations-"seen one, seen them all." (5) The structures of the Russian collocational indefinite pronoun ˹Bog znaet˺ kto at three levels of linguistic representation.
 The underscoring of a semanteme in a Sem-structure indicates its communicatively dominant role.

Lexical Entries for Three Components of Russian Collocational Indefinite Pronouns
To throw more light on Russian collocational indefinite pronouns, three lexical entries are cited in full: for an indefinite pronominal lexeme (kto1), for a premodifying indefiniteness type marker (the idiom ˹Bog znaet˺), and for a postmodifying IT-marker (the particle -to4).

Lexical Entries for Three Components of Russian Collocational Indefinite Pronouns
To throw more light on Russian collocational indefinite pronouns, three lexical entries are cited in full: for an indefinite pronominal lexeme (KTO1), for a premodifying indefiniteness type marker (the idiom ˹BOG ZNAET˺), and for a postmodifying IT-marker (the particle -TO 4 ).

Comments
The formulations of the above non-standard LFs are based on the data from Padučeva's work; here are the abbreviations adopted.Specified [X]: concretely referential X, that is, X referring to a particular entity present in the real world.Non-specified [X]: non-referential X. NEO.2023.35.13 p. 12/28 Igor Mel'čuk NB A non-referential LU X cannot be used in an "strongly affirmative" context (i.e., in an affirmation about a specified-referential-situation): *Ktonibudʹ prišël včera 'Somebody came yesterday' .vs. Ktonibudʹ, vozmožno, prišël včera 'Somebody probably came yesterday' .
| Ktonibudʹ pridët zavtra 'Somebody will.cometomorrow' .| Ktonibudʹ prišël včera?'Did somebody come yesterday?' .The problem of the correlation between referentiality of an expression and its use in an affirmative context must be resolved at the semantic level: what is at stake here is the combinability of meanings rather than that of words.
[X] unknown to the Enunciator: X such that the Enunciator does not know X's identity.Arbitrary [X]: X that is a freely choosable element of a particular set.To put the proposed description of the indefinite pronominal lexeme kto1 in an appropriate context, it is worth sketching the structure of the polysemous vocable kto 'who' , of which kto1 is a lexeme.Igor Mel'čuk

Comments
1) The order-or, more precisely, the numbering-of the lexemes inside the vocable kto follows their growing semantic complexity (however, the semantically empty pronoun kto4 is placed the last): 'person' < 'person.who'< 'person whose identity…' < 'a non-specified person' < 'identity of person who …' .
2) All the lexemes of this vocable have the same signifier, so that it is indicated just once, for the whole vocable.
3) kto2a: a pseudo-relative pronoun.A pronoun of this class is underlying the formation of a pseudo-relative clause (Mel' čuk, 2021, pp. 249 4) kto2b: a genuine indefinite pronominal lexeme.Its meaning involves the identity of a person rather than the person himself: one can naturally say Ja znaju, kto prišël, no ja eë ne znaju 'I know who came, but I don't know her [i.e., we never met]' .
Vot kto …! 'Now I know who …!' is a non-standard collocation of kto2b (and of all indefinite pronominal lexemes), where vot 'I.indicate.here'expresses the meaning 'now I know' .

Signified
'˹Bog (ego) znaet˺ X' = 'concretely-referential X whose identity the Enunciator does not know and which he disapproves of ' .

Comment
This idiom (as all other idioms of this type with znaet) may include the expletive pronoun on 'he/she/it' in the accusative, syntactically depending on znatʹ 'know' .9Two cases, semantically equivalent, are possible: -either the pronoun on is used in a non-referential way, that is, in the singular of the neuter gender, as ego 'it' (16a); -or it is coreferential with the SSynt-subject of the clause that contains the idiom, and then on agrees with this subject in number and gender (16b): ( The addition of the expletive on enhances the colloquial character of the idiom.NEO.2023.35.13 p. 16/28 Igor Mel'čuk -to4, particle.

Comment
Russian has two lexemes to, homographous with -to4: to1 'now …, now …' , a repeated coordinating conjunction, and to2 ≈ 'then' , a collocate of several subordinating conjunctions; both can be stressed: to1, as in Ivan to plakal, to smejalsja, to smolkal 'Ivan now was crying, now was laughing, now was silent' .to2, as in Esli Ivan doma, to my ostanemsja 'If Ivan is home, then we'll stay' .
Two fully homonymous unstressed particles are -to3 ≈ 'as for …' and -to5 'The Enunciator does not want to be more precise': -to3, as in Ivanto sumeet ' As for Ivan, he'll manage' .-to5, as in Ivan pobyval tamto i tamto 'Ivan was to several places, it does not matter exactly where' .Thus, the preliminary goals (p. 3) are reached; now I can switch to the final goal: the description of freely constructed Russian phrasal indefinite pronouns.NEO.2023.35.13 p. 17/28 Russian Free Phrasal Indefinite Pronouns

Russian Freely Constructed Phrasal Indefinite Pronouns
Russian freely constructed phrasal indefinite pronouns (a.k.a.syntactic amal gams) form an open set of two-component lexical expressions-free phrases-of the following form: premodifying quasi-clause←pronominal-auxiliary-indefinite pronominal lexeme The 12 Russian indefinite pronominal lexemes have been characterized in Section 2.
A quasi-clause premodifying an indefinite pronominal lexeme constitutes a marker of indefiniteness type (= an IT-marker).Informally, it is a freely constructed clause which has a Main Verb, but where the verb's subject or direct object (depending on the verb) has been "amputated"; this amputated element corresponds to the meaning 'identity of [the entity designated by the indefinite pronominal lexeme]' .Thus, the resulting quasi-clause boldfaced in (17a) does not have its subject, and the quasi-clauses in (17b) lack their direct object: (17) a. Ko mne podošël tebe uže Ø BYT ʹ jasno kto to me came to.youalready be clear who 'It is already clear to you who came over to me' .b-i.Ko mne podošël ja ne rešusʹ skazatʹ daže mame kto to me came I not will.daretell even to.Mom who b-ii.Ko mne podošël ja ne rešusʹ skazatʹ kto daže mame to me came I not will.daretell who even to.Mom 'I won't dare to tell who came over to me even to Mom' .
The phrase tebe uže jasno kto means 'a person whose identity is already clear to you' , where 'X's identity' = 'information that allows for (at least, partial) X's identification' .Similarly, the phrase ja ne rešusʹ skazatʹ daže mame kto means 'a person such that I won't dare to tell his identity even to Mom' .The wordform kto in the sentences of ( 17) belongs to the lexeme kto2b, which has the meaning 'person whose identity …'; the Main Verb of the sentence semantically bears on 'person' , while the Main Verb of the quasi-clause that constitutes the IT-marker depending on the indefinite pronominal lexeme bears on 'identity' .The kto2b 'person whose identity …' lexeme is thus indeed an "amalgam." (Lakoff 's term is very convenient.) By their grammatical nature, the underscored phrases in ( 17) are phrasal indefinite pronouns, similar to such phrasal indefinite pronouns as koe-kto ≈ 'somebody' , aby kto ≈ 'no matter who' or ˹malo li˺ kto ≈ 'many arbitrary people' .NEO.2023.35.13 p. 18/28 Igor Mel'čuk But while the latter pronouns are collocations of the lexeme kto1 and must be listed in its lexical entry, the expressions of the type ja ne rešusʹ skazatʹ daže mame kto are free phrases.Nevertheless, their freedom is constrained.
On the one hand, any of the lexical components of such a phrase can be replaced: for instance, one can say Ix lagerʹ okazalsja tolʹko professor Tugokaki -ty ego znaešʹ -sumel soobrazitʹ gde lit.'Their camp turned out to be only Professor Tugokaki-you know him-could figure out where'; etc.Therefore, such expressions cannot be listed in a lexicon and have to be described by rules, more specifically, by semantic and deep-syntactic rules.However, the syntactic head of a free phrasal indefinite pronoun is necessarily one of the twelve indefinite pronominal lexemes.This is a lexical constraint.
On the other hand, the premodifying quasi-clause semantically bears on the semanteme 'identity [of …]' and expresses the meaning 'X knows/doesn't know …' .Therefore, its Main Verb has the meaning whose communicatively dominant sermanteme is, at some depth of semantic decomposition, the semanteme 'know' .This is a semantic constraint.
To illustrate the formal representations of Russian indefinite pronominal free phrases at the semantic, deep-syntactic and surface-syntactic levels, the sentence Ivan dal knigu ja ne rešusʹ skazatʹ tebe komu 'Ivan gave the book I won't dare to tell you to whom' is chosen.(18) Structures of the phrase ja ne rešusʹ skazatʹ tebe komu on three levels of linguistic representation The structures given are partial: only the fragments relevant to my purposes here are shown, and the grammemes are not spelled out.
Based on the structures in (18), it is easy to formulate the corresponding rules.
 The shading indicates the context of the rule: the fragments of the manipulated structures which are not affected by the rule itself, but whose presence is necessary for the rule to apply correctly.

Sem-structure DSynt-structure SSynt-structure
Based on the structures in (18), it is easy to formulate the corresponding rules.
 The shading indicates the context of the rule: the fragments of the manipulated structures which are not affected by the rule itself, but whose presence is necessary for the rule to apply correctly.
(19 ) a. Semantic rule for the lexeme KTO2b  Similar Sem-and DSynt-rules must be written for the other 11 Russian indefinite pronominal lexemes (čto2b 'non-human entity whose identity …' , gde2b 'in a place whose identity …' , etc.).A pair of such rules-a Sem-rule and a DSynt- rule-has to be placed into the lexical entry of each corresponding indefinite pronominal lexeme.
Alternatively, one could write just one general schema for all 12 Sem-rules and one general schema for all 12 DSynt-rules specifying Russian free phrasal indefinite pronouns.These schemata are part of the grammar of Russian; namely, they must be included in "Syntax, " Section "Indefinite Pronouns." Based on the structures in (18), it is easy to formulate the corresponding rules.
 The shading indicates the context of the rule: the fragments of the manipulated structures which a affected by the rule itself, but whose presence is necessary for the rule to apply correctly.Based on the structures in (18), it is easy to formulate the corresponding rules.
 The shading indicates the context of the rule: the fragments of the manipulated structure affected by the rule itself, but whose presence is necessary for the rule to apply correctly.
(19 ) a. Semantic rule for the lexeme KTO2b b.Deep-syntactic rule for the lexeme KTO2b Similar Sem-and DSynt-rules must be written for the other 11 Russian indefinit lexemes (ČTO2b ‗non-human entity whose identity …', GDE2b ‗in a place whose etc.).A pair of such rules-a Sem-rule and a DSynt-rule-has to be placed into of each corresponding indefinite pronominal lexeme.
Alternatively, one could write just one general schema for all 12 Sem-rules a schema for all 12 DSynt-rules specifying Russian free phrasal indefinite pronouns.are part of the grammar of Russian; namely, they must be included in "Syntax," Sec General schemata of semantic and deep-syntactic rules for Russian free phrasal inde NEO.2023.35.13 p. 20/28 Igor Mel'čuk

Not to Be Confounded
In order to round off my presentation, I will cursorily characterize in parallel the following four syntactic phenomena, which are different in nature, but superficially fairly similar: they all involve the notorious WH-words.The first two of these are indefinite pronominal phrases (the object of the present paper), and the other two are pseudo-relative clauses.They can be and sometimes are confounded, so that it seems useful to insist once more on their distinctions.
Collocational indefinite pronouns in Russian constitute, as said above, a closed set: ≈ 360.They are listed in the lexicon, where they are specified by non-standard lexical functions in the lexical entries of their bases (indefinite pronominal lexemes, see Table 1, page 5).The formal description of Russian collocational indefinite pronouns is illustrated in Subsection 2.1, p. 10, (5).

Not to Be Confounded
In order to round off my presentation, I will cursorily characterize in parall syntactic phenomena, which are different in nature, but superficially fai involve the notorious WH-words.The first two of these are indefinite pron object of the present paper), and the other two are pseudo-relative clause sometimes are confounded, so that it seems useful to insist once more on thei
Free phrasal indefinite pronouns constitute an open set and are described by the general schemata of the Sem-and DSynt-rules, presented at the end of the previous section.The formal description of Russian free phrasal indefinite pronouns is illustrated in Section 3,(20).
NB The difference between collocational and free phrasal indefinite pronouns is not always obvious.Thus, for instance, why neznamo←pron-auxil-kto is a collocational pronoun, but neizvestno←pron-auxil-kto is a free phrasal pronoun?Because neznamo is a single lexeme, while neizvestno is an element of a quasi-clause with the zero form of bytʹ 'be' , cf.Èto sdelal vsem nam Ø BYTʹ 〈bylo〉 soveršenno neizvestno kto lit.'This did to.allus is 〈was〉 absolutely unknown who' .
Pseudo-relative clauses are, strictly speaking, essentially unrelated to phrasal indefinite pronouns, but formally they are easily confounded with the latter, although A. Grosu (2006) clearly showed that they are absolutely different.Here are the structures of a Russian sentence with a pseudo-relative clause of the relevant type (the grammemes are not represented): (21) My primem, kogo ty privedëšʹ lit.'We will.receivewho you will.bring' .
Recall that the pseudo-relative pronoun in the construction under consideration has to satisfy the requirements of the so-called matching parameter: roughly speaking, it must satisfy the government patterns of the two Main Verbs-that of the superordinate clause and that of the pseudo-relative one (Mel' čuk, 2021, p. 235, footnote 7).11 • Finally, elliptic pseudo-relative clauses represent a version of pseudorelatives.In ( 22), the SemS, the DSyntS and the SSyntS of a sentence with an elliptical pseudo-relative clause are given (as above, the grammemes are not shown).• Elliptic pseudo-relative clauses (results of the -Sluicing‖ transformation), such as {Ivan priexal, no ja ne znaju,} otkuda ‗Ivan came, but I don't know from.where'.
Collocational indefinite pronouns in Russian constitute, as said above, a closed set: ≈ 360.
They are listed in the lexicon, where they are specified by non-standard lexical functions in the lexical entries of their bases (indefinite pronominal lexemes, see Table 1, page 00).The formal description of Russian collocational indefinite pronouns is illustrated in Subsection 2.1, (5).
Free phrasal indefinite pronouns constitute an open set and are described by the general schemata of the Sem-and DSynt-rules, presented at the end of the previous section.The formal description of Russian free phrasal indefinite pronouns is illustrated in Section 3, (20).
NB The difference between collocational and free phrasal indefinite pronouns is not always obvious.Thus, for instance, why neznamo←pron-auxil-kto is a collocational pronoun, but neizvestno←pron-auxil-kto is a free phrasal pronoun?Because NEZNAMO is a single lexeme, while neizvestno is an element of a quasiclause with the zero form of BYTʹ ‗be', cf.Èto sdelal vsem nam Ø BYT ʹ bylo soveršenno neizvestno kto lit.
‗This did to.allus is wasabsolutely unknown who'.
Pseudo-relative clauses are, strictly speaking, essentially unrelated to phrasal indefinite pronouns, but formally they are easily confounded with the latter, although A. Grosu (2006) clearly showed that they are absolutely different.Here are the structures of a Russian sentence with a pseudo-relative clause of the relevant type (the grammemes are not represented): (21) My primem, kogo ty privedëšʹ lit.‗We will.receivewho you will.bring'.

Sem-structure DSynt-structure SSynt-structure
Recall that the pseudo-relative pronoun in the construction under consideration has to satisfy the requirements of the so-called matching parameter: roughly speaking, it must satisfy the government patterns of the two Main Verbs-that of the superordinate clause and that of the pseudo-relative one (Mel'čuk, 2021, p. 235, footnote 7). Ø «people» stands for the Russian zero lexeme with the meaning 'indefinite people' (similar to Fr. on or Ger.man).
The double strikethrough indicates the lexeme that is to be elided, that is, to remain unexpressed in the morphological string of the sentence.

Conclusions
The results of the present study may be summed up in the following points, relative to lexicology and syntax.

Lexicology
• The characterization of a class of collocate-bound lexemes (which form a subclass of degenerate lexemes) that includes two groups of Russian indefinite pronominal lexemes.Of course, context-dependent LUs have been well known in linguistics; however, an accurate description of a linguistically important homogeneous set of lexemes that are used only as the bases of collocations was absent.• A general schema for a lexicographic description of Russian pronominal vocables including indefinite, interrogative and pseudo-relative pronominal lexemes.

Syntax
• The introduction of the class of pseudo-relative pronominal lexemes.
• The introduction of the auxiliary-pronominal SSyntRel.
• The rules that specify the open set of Russian free phrasal indefinite pronouns.(22) My primem, kogo nam veljat ‗We will.receivewhom they tell us {to receive}'.
The two-headed dashed arrow represents the coreference of two lexemes.Ø «people» stands for the Russian zero lexeme with the meaning ‗indefinite people' (similar to Fr. ON or Ger.MAN).
The double strikethrough indicates the lexeme that is to be omitted (= elided) from the morphological string of the sentence.

Conclusions
The results of the present study may be summed up in the following points, relative to lexicology and syntax.

Lexicology
• The characterization of a class of collocate-bound lexemes (which form a subclass of degenerate lexemes) that includes two groups of Russian indefinite pronominal lexemes.Of course, context-dependent LUs have been well known in linguistics; however, an accurate description of a linguistically important homogeneous set of lexemes that are used only as the bases of collocations was absent.
• A general schema for a lexicographic description of Russian pronominal vocables including indefinite, interrogative and pseudo-relative pronominal lexemes.

Syntax
• The introduction of the class of pseudo-relative pronominal lexemes.
• The introduction of the auxiliary-pronominal SSyntRel.
• The rules that specify the open set of Russian free phrasal indefinite pronouns.
Although the present study deals exclusively with Russian, the observations proposed seem to have a more general validity for the linguistic typology.Although the present study deals exclusively with Russian, the observations proposed seem to have a more general validity for the linguistic typology.12

Appendix: Some Vital Notions collocation, base of collocation, collocate
A collocation is a compositional semantic-lexemic phraseme L1-synt→L2 such that one of its components, say, L1, is selected by the Speaker freely-for its meaning and syntactic properties, while the other, that is, L2, is selected to express a particular meaning as a function of L1.L1 is the base of the collocation, and L2 is its collocate.For example: doL 2 a favorL 1 vs. giveL 2 a kissL 1 vs. takeL 2 actionL 1 .

communicatively dominant semanteme
A communicatively dominant semanteme 'σ1' in a configuration of semantemes 'σ1-σ2' is the semanteme to which the configuration 'σ1-σ2' can be reduced such that the meaning conveyed is simply impoverished, but not distorted; the communicative dominance of 'σ1' is shown by underscoring.For example: in ' A bird is.singing' the semanteme 'sing' is communicatively dominant, since the utterance is about singing; in 'a singing bird' , the semanteme 'bird' is communicatively dominant, since this utterance is about a bird.

descriptive vs. non-descriptive lexical expressions
A descriptive lexical expression serves to communicate a meaning that denotes something in the real world and is spelled out in such a form that admits interrogation and negation; a non-descriptive lexical expression serves to signal a meaning that denotes an internal state of the Speaker in such NEO.2023.35.13 p. 24/28 Igor Mel'čuk a form that does not admit interrogation and negation.For example: I like it very much vs.Wow!See (Iordanskaja &Mel' čuk, 1995) and(Mel' čuk, 2001, pp. 351-356).

Enunciator, the
The Enunciator is the person to whom the whole given utterance U is attributed.The primary Enunciator is the Speaker, who produces U; the secondary Enunciator is the person to whom the Speaker attributes an utterance Uʹ quoted inside U (i.e., Uʹ is Indirect Speech).Thus, the primary Enunciator of the sentence Ivan said that Masha was tired is the Speaker, who wrote it, that is, me, Igor Mel' čuk; the secondary Enunciator, to whom I attribute the utterance Masha was tired, is Ivan.(On the contrast "the Speaker vs. the Enunciator, " see, in particular, Iordanskaja & Mel' čuk, 1995).
An idiom is a non-compositional semantic-lexemic phraseme; for example: ˹all thumbs˺ 'very awkward' or ˹hit the road˺ '[to] leave' .

lexeme
A lexeme is the set of all wordforms and analytical-form phrases that have a common signifier and semantically differ only by inflectional significations; for example: I ={I, me}; see = {see, sees, saw, seeing, have seen, am seen, will see, …}.
In prose, a lexeme is one word taken in one well-defined sense.

lexical unit
A lexical unit [LU] is a lexeme or an idiom; every LU has its own lexical entry, and every lexical entry corresponds to an LU.

phraseme
A phraseme is a phrase that cannot be produced freely, that is, in such a way that each of its lexical components is selected by the Speaker independently of its other components.Phrasemes come in four families: idioms.collocations, nominemes, and clichés.

polysem
An LU L1 is a polysem of LU L2 if and only if L1 and L2 both belong to the same vocable L. For example: breadI 'baked leavened food' and breadII 'livelihood-as if it were breadI' are polysems of the vocable bread.NEO.2023.35.13 p. 25/28 Russian Free Phrasal Indefinite Pronouns pronoun/pronominal lexeme A pronoun is a lexeme that has 1) a very poor meaning or no meaning at all, 2) a particular syntactic behavior (e.g., cannot receive dependents) and 3) quite a special morphology (e.g., in English only personal pronouns have cases, and only demonstrative-pronominal adjectives have the plural (this ~ these, that ~ those).Pronouns can belong to all parts of speech: they can be nouns (I, somebody), adjectives (some, none), adverbs (here, then) and verbs (do).

pseudo-relative clause
A pseudo-relative clause is a subordinate clause that formally has the structure of a relative-it is introduced by a WH-word, but is semantically equivalent to a nominal or prepositional phrase: it does not modify a noun, but is used as an actant.For example: I am interested in what John said or He sent me where John was staying.(Pseudo-relatives are also known as free, or head less, relatives.)See Mel' čuk (2021, pp. 249-252).

vocable
A vocable is the set of all LUs whose signifiers are identical and whose signifieds share important enough components (these components are called semantic bridges).
To illustrate the formal representations of Russian indefinite pronominal free phrases at the semantic, deep-syntactic and surface-syntactic levels, the sentence Ivan dal knigu ja ne rešusʹ skazatʹ tebe komu ‗Ivan gave the book I won't dare to tell you to whom' is chosen.(18)Structures of the phrase ja ne rešusʹ skazatʹ tebe komu on three levels of linguistic representationThe structures given are partial: only the fragments relevant to my purposes here are shown, and the grammemes are not spelled out.

(
19) a. Semantic rule for the lexeme kto2b b.Deep-syntactic rule for the lexeme kto2b

( 20 )
General schemata of semantic and deep-syntactic rules for Russian free phrasal indefinite pronouns ○

(
19 ) a. Semantic rule for the lexeme KTO2b b.Deep-syntactic rule for the lexeme KTO2bSimilar Sem-and DSynt-rules must be written for the other 11 Russian indefinite pronom lexemes (ČTO2b ‗non-human entity whose identity …', GDE2b ‗in a place whose identity
KTO'who' , noun, pronominal.The expression 'person←P' = 'person.whoP'stands for 'the person who does/undergoes P'; P represents the syntactic head of a pseudo-relative clause.In other words, the lexeme kto2а can be used only in a pseudo-relative clause.I am.worried about person.whoyouspoke.aboutyesterday 'I am worried about the person you spoke about yesterday' .I.indicate.hereto.person.whoIgave book 'This is the person to whom I gave the book' .soI.indicate.hereto.person.whose.identityIgave book 'Now I know the identity of the person to whom I gave the book!' kto2c 'neopredelënnyj čelovek' = 'a non-specified person' , indefinite, colloquial.Completely synonymous with ktonibudʹ.