The aim of the present paper is to show that the set of possible analyses of linguistic expressions can be reduced if an appropriately structured grammar is presupposed and if it is not just syntax that is considered. The framework of the Minimalist Program (Chomsky 1992) is enriched by an additional level of grammar where syntactic representations are mapped onto semantic representations that obey the combinatorial requirements of the lambda calculus as introduced by Bierwisch.

Included in the investigation are non-embedded sentences of Russian: (i) sentences with main verbs that are inflected for tense, (ii) sentences with non-inflected main verbs that co-occur with an auxiliary (the periphrastic future, the participial passive), and (iii) sentences that contain a predicative AP, NP, or PP and an element that resembles the auxiliary of the periphrastic constructions. The latter type seems to lack a main verb.

The questions to be answered are: What constitutes the core of the sentence? What is the category on which the functional superstructure rests? How is this category structured internally?

There are two major findings: (i) The XP constituting the core of the sentence - the syntactic predicate - must introduce an event variable into the semantic representation of the sentence. (ii) If the XP lacks the required temporal specification, tense is realized in an exceptional way by spelling-out the features generated under the functional head T. (i) excludes the possibility of analyzing the copula as a lexicalization of T. The copula is a main verb that projects a VP. (ii) makes it clear that the auxiliary of periphrastic constructions functions as quasi-affix. Hence, there is a bipartition of sentences. They display either the canonical realization of tense, an affix, or the exceptional realization of tense, a quasi-affix (i.e. an auxiliary).

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