Nonverbal Predication: Copular Sentences at the Syntax-Semantics Interface

ISBN-13: 9780199543557 / Angielski / Miękka / 2013 / 240 str.

Roy, Isabelle

Opis

This book considers the syntax and semantics of non-verbal predicates (i.e., nominal, adjectival and prepositional predicates) in copular sentences. Isabelle Roy explores how a single structure for predication can account for the different interpretations of non-verbal predicates. The book departs from earlier studies by arguing in favor of a ternary distinction between defining / characterizing / situation-descriptive predicates rather than the more common stage-level/individual distinction. The distinction is based on two semantic criteria, namely maximality (i.e., whether the predicate describes an eventuality that has spatio-temporal properties or not) and density (i.e. whether the spatio-temporal properties are perceived as atomic or not). The author argues in favor of a strong correlation between the semantics properties of predicates and their internal syntactic structure. Her analysis accounts for seemingly unrelated cross-linguistic data: the indefinite article in French, the distribution of the two copulas 'ser'/'estar' in Spanish, and case marking on Russian predicates.

Recenzje

This monograph tackles a very difficult topic, predicative copular sentences, in such a way as to make longstanding linguistic problems look fairly straightforward ... well-designed, carefully organized, and thorough.

O autorze

Isabelle Roy is an Associate Professor at the Unversity of Paris 8. She received her PhD from the University of Southern California in 2006.