Refine
Document Type
- Article (4)
- Part of a Book (3)
Has Fulltext
- yes (7)
Keywords
- Kopulasatz (7) (remove)
Publicationstate
Reviewstate
- Peer-Review (4)
- (Verlags)-Lektorat (1)
Publisher
- Cambridge University Press (2)
- Benjamins (1)
- De Gruyter (1)
- Erich Schmidt (1)
- Mouton de Gruyter (1)
- Pacini editore (1)
In this paper we discuss a type of copular clause – specificational copular clauses – in which subject properties may be split between two nominative noun phrases. In particular, while the first noun phrase occupies the canonical preverbal subject position, in some languages the finite verb can agree with the postverbal nominative. Such agreement might be expected, on some theoretical assumptions, to show person restrictions. We discuss this phenomenon in two SVO Germanic languages – Icelandic and Faroese – and present new data from Faroese showing that the person effect here follows from the existence of distinct probes for Number and Person agreement.
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.
In this article, we investigate the semantics of causal modifiers headed by vor (‘with’, ‘from’) in adjectival copular sentences with sein (‘to be’). We distinguish two readings of the causal vor-phrases: a pure causal reading as in rot vor Wut (‘red with rage’), sprachlos vor Freude (‘speechless with joy’), and a causal-local reading as in rot vor Blut (‘red from blood’) or schwarz vor Menschen (‘black with people’). Based on corpus data, we provide descriptive generalisations for the use and meaning of vor and its two readings. A uniform formal semantics analysis is presented to account for both readings, according to which the meaning of vor can be captured with a cause relation between two tropes. In the case of the causal-local reading, the causing trope is interpolated via coercion from the compositionally provided concrete object. Finally, we compare vor and von (‚from‘).
This paper explores the syntax of agreement in Insular Scandinavian in copular clauses with two potential goals for agreement. Data from three production experiments - one in Faroese and two in Icelandic - establish several new facts. First, in both languages agreement with the second nominal (DP2) is possible/preferred. Second, there is considerable variation (both within and between languages, and indeed speakers) in the patterns observed. Third, Icelandic shows a surprising pattern of “partial” agreement with DP2 - agreement in number but not person. We discuss the implications for current theorising about agreement, proposing that in these languages, at least, agreement is downwards, and that the available agreement options depend in part on the syntactic position of DPI when agreement is established.