Nonverbal Predication : Copular Sentences at the Syntax-Semantics Interface PDF
by Isabelle Roy
Part of the Oxford Studies in Theoretical Linguistics series
Description
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 commonstage-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 arguesin 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.
Information
-
Download - Immediately Available
- Format:PDF
- Publisher:OUP Oxford
- Publication Date:25/04/2013
- Category:
- ISBN:9780191664960
Information
-
Download - Immediately Available
- Format:PDF
- Publisher:OUP Oxford
- Publication Date:25/04/2013
- Category:
- ISBN:9780191664960
