Predication and Equation

Abstract

In this article, we argue that a structural distinction between predicational and equative copular clauses is illusory. All semantic predicational relationships are constructed asymmetrically via a syntactic predicational head; differences reduce to whether this head bears an event variable or not. This allows us to maintain a restrictive view of the syntax-semantics interface in the face of apparently recalcitrant data from Scottish Gaelic.

La sintaxis de la predicación no verbal en maya yucateco

“…This view is criticized by Bowers (1993), who provides a wealth of data in favor of relating subjects and non-verbal predicates via a dedicated predicational head, Pr. Many theories of non-verbal predication share with Bowers the idea that the subject and predicate are related as a specifier and complement of a particular head, but differ as to its label and whether its sole purpose is to establish predicational relations (Adger & Ramchand 2003;Baker 2003;Den Dikken 2006;Citko 2008). Finally, a third possibility is explored in Moro (1997;, who revives Williams' (1975) original small clause proposal for complements of verbs like consider.…”

“…While the original formulation of the EPP (extended projection principle, see Chomsky 1981) was to ensure the head purportedly responsible for establishing subject-predicate relations, namely IP, had a subject or some other material to occupy its specifier, the nature of the EPP has changed significantly in the years since (Alexiadou & Anagnostopoulou 1998;Adger &Ramchand 2003 andBowers 2010 for a discussion of different strategies employed cross-linguistically for satisfying the EPP). I will assume that the EPP on Infl in Yucatec is a purely formal feature that can be satisfied by moving an XP to its specifier and, in keeping with the idea presented in §2.2, the XP in the specifier of Infl is interpreted by the semantic component as the focus of the sentence.…”

Short answers in Scottish Gaelic and their theoretical implications

“…Before moving on, it is important to emphasize that the initial position is not solely reserved for verbal predicates, but rather it can be occupied by any predicates that may occupy that position in SG clauses generally. A well-known property of SG and Goidelic more generally is that non-verbal predicates may also occupy the initial position in some circumstances (see Carnie 1995, Adger and Ramchand 2003, McCloskey 2005 and references cited therein). Thus in addition to the predicational structure that we've seen in all of the examples above, where the initial position is occupied by either the main verbal predicate or the substantive auxiliary bith, there is an additional predicational structure in which the copula is/bu occurs initial followed immediately by the non-verbal predicate and then the subject.…”

Aspectual composition in "ser/estar + adjective" structures: adjectival scalarity and verbal aspect in copular constructions

“…With respect to the distribution of adjectives with the copular verbs, we assume that ser and estar are generated as Vs. They are thus lexical (although meaningless) verbs, and not auxiliaries generated in T (see, among others, Adger & Ramchand 2003, for the predicative copula in Irish; Matushansky 2002, for seem in English). 14 Ser and estar are generated in the same position and project the 13 The fact that some adjectives do not show (totally free) variable behaviour in this respect must be related to the inability of the concepts that the adjectives evoke to be modeled according to the scalar requirements imposed by the pos morpheme (moreover, as Husband 2010 claims, it must be accepted that extralinguistic factors play a role in our acceptability judgments).…”