A remark on Béjar & Kahnemuyipour 2017: Specificational subjects do have phi-features

In a number of languages, agreement in specificational copular sentences can or must be with the second of the two nominals, even when it is the first that occupies the canonical subject position. Béjar & Kahnemuyipour (2017) show that Persian and Eastern Armenian are two such languages. They then argue that ‘NP2 agreement’ occurs because the nominal in subject position (NP1) is not accessible to an external probe. It follows that actual agreement with NP1 should never be possible: the alternative to NP2 agreement should be ‘default’ agreement. We show that this prediction is false. In addition to showing that English has NP1, not default, agreement, we present new data from Icelandic, a language with rich agreement morphology, including cases that involve ‘plurale tantum’ nominals as NP1. These allow us to control for any confound from the fact that typically in a specificational sentence with two nominals differing in number, it is NP2 that is plural. We show that even in this case, the alternative to agreement with NP2 is agreement with NP1, not a default. Hence, we conclude that whatever the correct analysis of specificational sentences turns out to be, it must not predict obligatory failure of NP1 agreement.

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

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.

The Topic-Comment Structure in Copular Sentences: Evidence from Wolof

This paper investigates the syntax of information structure of Double-DP copular sentences in Wolof, a Niger-Congo language spoken primarily in Senegal. English copular sentences of the structure DP be DP are classified into several types. The most discussed distinction is the one between predicational sentences and specificational sentences. The two sentences differ in several ways. First, while the post-copular DP (DP2) in a predicational sentence predicates a certain property of a discourse referent es-tablished by the pre-copular DP (DP1), in a specificational sentence DP2 provides a value for a variable introduced by DP1. Furthermore, it is proposed that different copular sentences are associated with different information-structural properties. In particular, specificational sentences are claimed to obligatorily focus the post-copular constituent (Higgins 1979; Declerck 1988; Mikkelsen 2005, etc.), while predicational sentences carry no such requirements.

Specification, equation, and agreement in copular sentences

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.

REFERENTIALITY OF THE PRONOUNS IT AND THAT IN COPULAR SENTENCES

The aim of this paper is to clarify the referential status of it and that used as the subject of specificational sentences. Whether considered to be referential or non-referential, these pronouns are often treated similarly in the literature, their functional differences being hardly recognized. After a brief survey of recent literature, it will be argued that both pronouns are connected with the notion of a noun phrase involving a variable, as proposed by Nishiyama (2003), and are considered to be non-referential. It will then be suggested that a specificational sentence with it as its subject assigns the value for a variable, while a specificational sentence with that as its subject confirms the identity of the value which has already been assigned.

An analysis of The thing is that S sentences

I refer to the sentences that are the subject of this paper as Thing sentences (TSs), illustrated by The thing is that it’s not my phone. These are copular specificational sentences with a definite singular subject and a finite complement clause. Prior research claimed that TSs focus attention on their complement clauses, are pragmatic or discourse markers, indicate a shift in subtopic or topic, communicate that the proposition represented by the complement clause is in “disconformity” with, or problematic in, its context, and that it represents a cause, reason, justification, or grounds for other propositions; these interpretations are claimed to be conventionally associated with the construction. I show that these earlier works are descriptively inaccurate and explanatorily incomplete. While the cause, reason, justification, and grounds interpretations have not been explained, some authors have claimed that the problem interpretation is due to the semantic poverty of thing. I demonstrate that the construction presents the complement proposition as both focused and presupposed and consequently as partially discontinuous with the discourse topic as it has developed up to the point at which the TS is uttered, thereby effecting a shift in the development of the current topic, though never a shift to an unrelated topic. I argue against analyzing TSs as discourse or pragmatic markers and I demonstrate that TSs need not communicate that their complements are problematic, that the range of other interpretations is greater than hitherto proposed, that these are due to the operation of general interpretive schemata, and therefore are not conventionally associated with the construction. I show that the presuppositional effects are due to the minimal semantic specification of thing and the fact that it is definite, and that the focusing effects are due to the predicate position of the clause and to the specificationality of the construction which makes the clause an argument of the subject and thus a marked focus. This analysis of Thing sentences demonstrates that speakers are attuned to the expectations of their audiences and exploit the lexical and syntactic resources of the language to create expression types to manage such things as topical development, and in the case of Thing sentences to signal an unexpected development of the current topic, leading to a change in its trajectory. The analysis shows that at this point in its history, TS interpretations are due to its linguistic features interacting in context with general pragmatic principles.

Specificational Copular Sentences in Russian and English

The Russian sentence (1), from Padučeva and Uspensky (1979), and English (2) are examples of specificational copular sentences: NP2 provides the ‘specification’, or ‘value’ of the description given by NP1. (1) Vladelec ètogo osobnjaka – juvelir Fužere. owner-NOM this-GEN mansion-GEN jeweler-NOM Fuzhere ‘The owner of this mansion is the jeweler Fuzhere.’ (2) The biggest problem is the recent budget cuts. Williams (1983) and Partee (1986) argued that specificational sentences like (2) result from “inversion around the copula”: that NP1 is a predicate (type ) and NP2 is the subject, a referential expression of type e. Partee (1999) argued that such an analysis is right for Russian, citing arguments from Padučeva and Uspensky (1979) that NP2 is the subject of sentence (1). But in that paper I argued that differences between Russian and English suggest that in English there is no such inversion, contra Williams (1983) and Partee (1986): the subject of (2) is NP1, and both NPs are of type e, but with NP1 less referential than NP2, perhaps “attributive”. Now, based on classic work by Roger Higgins on English and by Paducheva and Uspensky on Russian, and on a wealth of recent work by Mikkelsen, Geist, Romero, Schlenker, and others, a reexamination the semantics and structure of specificational copular sentences in Russian and English in a typological perspective supports a partly different set of conclusions: (i) NP1 is of type and NP2 is of type e in both English and Russian; (ii) but NP1 is subject in English, while NP2 is subject in Russian; and (iii) NP1 in specificational sentences is universally topical (discourse-old), but only in some languages (like English) is that accomplished by putting NP1 into canonical subject position. In other words, both English (2) and Russian (1) move the -type NP1 into some sentence-initial position for information-structure reasons, but in English NP1 ends up as syntactic subject, whereas in Russian, it’s inverted into some other left-periphery position.

Specificational sentences and the influence of information structure on (anti-)connectivity effects

This paper argues that the difference between connectivity and anti-connectivity effects in specificational copular sentences is heavily influenced by semantics and information structure. It shows that anti-connectivity effects with respect to binding disappear when the influence of information structure is neutralized, whereas anti-connectivity effects with respect to scope result from the semantics of specificational sentences. These data lead to the conclusion that anti-connectivity effects cannot be used as evidence against a syntax-based approach to specificational sentences and binding, that the analysis of specificational sentences should include both a syntactic and a semantic device, and that the syntactic analysis of specificational sentences should rely crucially on their information structure. I present and adopt Heycock & Kroch's (2002) analysis for specificational sentences, in which connectivity effects result from the assembling of ground and focus. The fact that connectivity effects are also exhibited by verb–object–subject word order in French and Spanish, which is marked for the ground-focus partition, is presented as an important piece of independent evidence in favor of this analysis.