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In:The Ziggurat of Grammar: In honor of Ur Shlonsky
Edited by Lena Baunaz, Giuliano Bocci and Andrew Nevins
[Language Faculty and Beyond 20] 2025
► pp. 185–199

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Chapter 10
Subjects and situations in copular sentences

 | University of Siena
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Published online: 13 November 2025
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https://doi.org/10.1075/lfab.20.10bia
Abstract
Shlonsky (2000) identified distinct syntactic positions in Hebrew copular sentences. This paper discusses copular sentences in Italian and provides arguments for a “subject” position to which one of the two DPs move: the logical subject in direct structures, and the predicative DP in inverse structures. This position is located above the Tense Phrase , which , we assume, encodes the sentence’s topic situation. As a result, the DP hosted in this position must be interpretively anchored to an independent resource situation. The analysis is cast in terms of Kratzer’s possibilistic situation semantics.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction: Distinguishing subject positions
  • 2.Reconstruction
  • 3.Situation anchoring
    • 3.1Possibilistic situation semantics, in a nutshell
    • 3.2Situation anchoring at the syntax-semantics interface
  • 4.A note on “subjecthood”
  • 5.Concluding remarks
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
References (35)
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