Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2plfb Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-24T01:04:17.588Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Specification, equation, and agreement in copular sentences

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 June 2016

Caroline Heycock
Caroline Heycock*
Affiliation:
University of Edinburgh
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article presents new data from a number of Germanic languages concerning the agreement patterns found in copular clauses that contain two nominais; in both clauses with specificational readings (such as The problem is your parents) and those with what are here termed readings of assumed identity (such as If I were you or In my dream I was you). It is argued that the specificational sentences involve asymmetric equative structures where one nominal is interpreted as in a concealed question, and that the cross-linguistic differences in agreement patterns found in the languages considered follow from the copula lexicalizing either Tense or a lower head.

Résumé

Résumé

Cet article présente de nouvelles données tirées de certaines langues germaniques et qui illustrent les schémas d’accord dans les propositions copulatives avec deux substantifs ; les propositions à lecture spécificationnelle (telles que The problem is your parents) ainsi que celles à «lecture d’identité empruntée» (telle que If I were you ou In my dream I was you). L’article propose que les phrases specificationnelles comprennent des structures équatives asymétriques où un substantif est interprété exactement comme dans le contexte d’une question furtive, et que les différences interlinguistiques dans les schémas d’accord relevés dans les langues sous considération découlent de la lexicalisation par la copule de la tête tensée T° ou d’une tête plus basse dans la structure.

Keywords

Germaniccopulaequationspecificationagreementgermaniquecopuleéquationspécificationaccord
Type
Articles
Information
Canadian Journal of Linguistics/Revue canadienne de linguistique , Volume 57 , Issue 2: Properties of predication/Proprietes de la predication , July 2012 , pp. 209 - 240
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Linguistic Association/Association canadienne de linguistique 2012 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Alsina, Alex. 2003. La inversión copulativa. Talk given at Universitat Pompeu Fabra, February 2003.Google Scholar
Barnes, Michael P. 1987. Some remarks on subordinate-clause word-order in Faroese. Scripta Islándica 38:3–35. Reprinted in Barnes 2001.Google Scholar
Barnes, Michael P. 2001. Faroese language studies. No. 5 in Studia Nordica. Tórshavn: Føroya Fróskaparfelag and Novus Forlag.Google Scholar
Berg, Thomas. 1998. The resolution of number conflicts in English and German agreement patterns. Linguistics 36:41–70.Google Scholar
Birner, Betty. 1992. The discourse function of inversion in English. Doctoral dissertation, Northwestern University.Google Scholar
Bowers, John. 1993. The syntax of predication. Linguistic Inquiry 24:591–656.Google Scholar
Büring, Daniel. 1998. Identity, modality, and the candidate behind the wall. In Proceedings of Semantics and Linguistic Theory (SALT) 8, ed. Strolovich, Devon and Lawson, Aaron, pp. 36–54. Ithaca: CLC Publications.Google Scholar
Costa, João. 2004. Subjects in Spec,vP: Locality and agree. In Collected papers on romance syntax, MIT Working Papers in Linguistics (MITWPL), vol. 47, ed. Castro, Ana, Ferreira, Marcelo, Hacquard, Valentine, and Salanova, Andrés Pablo. Cambridge, MA.Google Scholar
Declerck, Renaat. 1988. Studies on copular sentences, clefts and pseudo-clefts. Dordrecht: Leuven University Press.Google Scholar
Diesing, Molly. 1992. Indefinites. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Den Dikken, Marcel. 1995. Copulas. Ms., Free University Amsterdam.Google Scholar
Den Dikken, Marcel. 1997. Predicate inversion in DP. In Possessors, predicates and movement in the Determiner Phrase, ed. Alexiadou, Artemis and Wilder, Christopher, pp. 177–214. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Den Dikken, Marcel. 1998. Appraising “The raising of predicates”. Linguistische Berichte 174:246–263.Google Scholar
Den Dikken, Marcel. 2006. Relators and linkers: The syntax of predication, predicate inversion and copulas. Linguistic Inquiry Monographs, vol. 47. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Den Dikken, Marcel, Meinunger, André, and Wilder, Chris. 2000. Pseudoclefts and ellipsis. Studia Linguistica 54:41–89.Google Scholar
Fischer, Golda. 2003. The problem is/are your parents: Resolving number conflicts in equative sentences in Dutch and German. Honours dissertation, University of Edinburgh.Google Scholar
Harley, Heidi and Ritter, Elizabeth. 2002. Person and number in pronouns: A feature-geometric analysis. Language 78:482–526.Google Scholar
Heggie, Lorie. 1988. The syntax of copular structures. Doctoral dissertation, University of Southern California.Google Scholar
Heim, Irene. 1979. Concealed questions. In Semantics from different points of view, ed. Bäuerle, Rainer, Egli, Urs, and Stechow, Arnim von, pp. 51–74. Berlin: Springer.Google Scholar
Heycock, Caroline. 1991. Layers of predication: The non-lexical syntax of clauses. Doctoral dissertation, University of Pennsylvania.Google Scholar
Heycock, Caroline. 1994a. The internal structure of small clauses. In Proceedings of North East Linguistics Society (NELS) 25, vol. 1, ed. Beckman, Jill, pp. 223–238. Amherst, MA: Graduate Linguistic Student Association (GLSA).Google Scholar
Heycock, Caroline. 1994b. Layers of predication: The non-lexical syntax of clauses. New York: Garland.Google Scholar
Heycock, Caroline. 1998. Phrases réduites inverses. In “Être” et “avoir”: syntaxe, sémantique, typologie, ed. Rouveret, Alain, pp. 95–114. Saint-Denis: Presses Universitaires de Vincennes.Google Scholar
Heycock, Caroline. 2009. Agreement in specificational sentences in Faroese. Nordlyd (Troms$ Working Papers in Language and Linguistics) 36:56–77.Google Scholar
Heycock, Caroline and Kroch, Anthony. 1997. Inversion and equation in copular sentences. Paper presented at the workshop on (Pseudo)clefts at the Zentrum fur Allgemeine Sprach-wissenschaf (ZAS), Berlin, November 1997.Google Scholar
Heycock, Caroline and Kroch, Anthony. 1999a. Agreement, inversion and interpretation in copular sentences. Paper presented at Formal Approaches to Slavic Linguistics 8, Philadelphia.Google Scholar
Heycock, Caroline and Kroch, Anthony. 1999b. Pseudocleft connectedness: Implications for the LF interface level. Linguistic Inquiry 30:365–397.Google Scholar
Heycock, Caroline and Kroch, Anthony. 2002. Topic, focus, and syntactic representations. In Proceedings of West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics (WCCFL) 21, ed. Mikkelsen, Line and Potts, Christopher, pp. 101–125. Somerville: Cascadilla Press.Google Scholar
Higgins, Francis Roger. 1973. The pseudo-cleft construction in English. Doctoral dissertation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).Google Scholar
de Hoop, Helen. 1992. Case configuration and Noun Phrase interpretation. Doctoral dissertation, University of Groningen.Google Scholar
Lahousse, Karen. 2009. Specificational sentences and the influence of information structure on (anti-)connectivity effects. Journal of Linguistics 45:139–166.Google Scholar
Lenerz, Jiirgen. 1977. Zur Abfolge nominaler Satzglieder im Deutschen. Tubingen: Gunter Narr.Google Scholar
Mikkelsen, Line. 2002. Specification is not inverted predication. In Proceedings of North East Linguistics Society (NELS) 32, ed. Hirotani, Masako, pp. 403–422. Amherst, MA: Graduate Linguistic Student Association (GLSA).Google Scholar
Mikkelsen, Line. 2004. Specifying who: On the structure, meaning, and use of specificational copular clauses. Doctoral dissertation, University of California at Santa Cruz.Google Scholar
Mikkelsen, Line. 2005. Copular clauses: Specification, predication and equation. Linguistik Aktuell, vol. 85. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Mikkelsen, Line. 2011. On prosody and focus in object shift. Syntax 14:230–264.Google Scholar
Milsark, Gary. 1974. Existential sentences in English. Doctoral dissertation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).Google Scholar
Moro, Andrea. 1990. There-raising: Principles across levels. Paper presented at the 13th Generative Linguistics in the Old World (GLOW) Colloquium, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Moro, Andrea. 1997. The raising of predicates: Predicative Noun Phrases and the theory of clause structure. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Moro, Andrea. 2000. Dynamic antisymmetry. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Neeleman, Adriaan. 1994. Complex predicates. Doctoral dissertation, Universiteit Utrecht.Google Scholar
Partee, Barbara. 1986. Ambiguous pseudoclefts with unambiguous be. In Proceedings of North East Linguistics Society (NELS) 16, ed. Berman, Stephen, Choe, Jae-Woong, and McDonough, Joyce, pp. 354–366. Amherst, MA: Graduate Linguistic Student Association (GLSA).Google Scholar
Partee, Barbara. 1998. Copula inversion puzzles in English and Russian. Ms.Google Scholar
Partee, Barbara. 2000. Copula inversion puzzles in English and Russian. In University of Massachussetts Occasional Papers (UMOP) 23: Issues in Semantics and its Interface, ed. Kusumoto, Kiyomi and Villalta, Elisabeth, pp. 198–208. Amherst, MA: Graduate Linguistic Student Association (GLSA).Google Scholar
Patten, Amanda. 2010. Cleft sentences, construction grammar and grammaticalization. Doctoral dissertation, University of Edinburgh.Google Scholar
Pereltsvaig, Asya. 2001. On the nature of intra-clausal relations: A study of copular sentences in Russian and Italian. Doctoral dissertation, McGill University.Google Scholar
Petersen, Hjalmar P. 2000. IP or TP in modern Faroese. Working Papers in Scandinavian Syntax 66:75–83.Google Scholar
Rohrbacher, Bernhard. 1999. Morphology-driven syntax: A theory of V to I raising and prodrop. Linguistik Aktuell, vol. 15. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Romero, Maribel. 2005. Concealed questions and specificational subjects. Linguistics and Philosophy 28:687–737.Google Scholar
Sigursson, Halldór Ármann. 2006. The Nom/Acc alternation in Germanic. In Comparative studies in Germanic syntax, ed. Hartmann, Jutta M and Molnárfi, László, pp. 13–50. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Thráinsson, Hõskuldur, Petersen, Hjalmar P., Jacobsen, Jógvan í Lon, and Svabo Hansen, Zakaris. 2004. Faroese: An overview and reference grammar. Tórshavn: Faroese Academy of Sciences.Google Scholar
Vikner, Sten. 1995. Verb movement and expletive subjects in the Germanic languages. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Williams, Edwin. 1983. Semantic vs. syntactic categories. Linguistics and Philosophy 6:423–446.Google Scholar
Zamparelli, Roberto. 2000. Layers in the Determiner Phrase. New York: Garland.Google Scholar