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Well-formed lists: specificational copular sentences as predicative inversion constructions1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 December 2016

AMANDA L. PATTEN
AMANDA L. PATTEN*
Affiliation:
Department of English Language and Applied Linguistics, University of Birmingham, 3 Elms Road, Edgbaston Birmingham B15 2TT, [email protected]
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Abstract

This article re-examines the case for analysing specificational NP be NP sentences as predicative inversions. Taking a constructional and functional perspective, I show that only predicational sentences exhibiting a relation of class inclusion permit a specificational interpretation, and argue, following Higgins (1979), that the form of specificational inversion sentences is dependent upon the construction-specific concept of specificational meaning. In this way, the account provides an explanation for the restrictions on NP predicative inversion that have posed a problem for inverse analyses developed from within the formalist tradition. Since the distributional facts can be better captured than with the alternative equative approach (which treats specificational sentences as instances of semantic equation), the article concludes that specificational copular sentences are best analysed as instances of predicative inversion.

Type
Research Article
Information
English Language & Linguistics , Volume 22 , Issue 1 , March 2018 , pp. 77 - 99
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Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2016 

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Footnotes

1

The ideas put forward in this article were presented at ICLC-12 Alberta (June 2013); I would like to thank George Lakoff and other audience members for their encouragement and questions. I would also like to thank Graeme Trousdale, Ewa Dąbrowska and two anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments on an earlier version of this article.

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