Cover not available

Article published In: Copulas in Spanish and Beyond
Edited by Silvia Gumiel-Molina and Isabel Pérez-Jiménez
[Spanish in Context 20:2] 2023
► pp. 389–410

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload PDF
EPUB logo with download linkDownload EPUB
authorization required

The case for broader copulas

Evidence from Spanish, Tsez, and more

 | University of the Free State
Published online: 2 November 2023
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/sic.00092.wil
Abstract
Discovering, comparing, and contrasting natural kinds is critical for scientific progress. It should be the goal of linguistic inquiry to seek out natural kinds within and between languages. Unfortunately, the most common definition of a copula is consistently inadequate for categorizing and comparing the data in cross-linguistic research on this topic. The categories of pseudo-copula and semi-copula have been offered to account for constructions which resemble the copular relationship between subject and complement, though with added meaning in that relationship. I will argue that copulas, defined more broadly, function in diverse ways cross-linguistically to instantiate the alterable feature-driven relationship between subject and complement. This article presents a gradient view of copulas based on a set of binary featural parameters with which a language may represent with one or more copulas. A formal description of this phenomena is also offered within in the framework of Distributed Morphology, building on Wilson, Daniel J. 2020. Syntactic and Semantic Variation in Copular Sentences: Insights from Classical Hebrew. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.The problem: Copulas, semi-copulas, and pseudo-copulas
  • 3.Feature inventory and the subject-complement relationship
  • 4.The hypothesis
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Note
  • Special glossing for Tsez data
  • References
References (39)
References
Abdulaev, Arsen K., and Isa K. Abdullaev. 2010. Cezyas folklor/Dido (Tsez) folklore/Didojskij (cezskij) fol´klor. Leipzig–Makhachkala: “Lotos.”Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Adger, David, and Gillian Ramchand. 2003. “Predication and Equation.” Linguistic Inquiry 34 (3): 325–359. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Arche, María J. 2012. “On the aspectuality of the Individual-Level/Stage-Level dichotomy.” Borealis 1(2): 109–132. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Arregi, Karlos, and Andrew Nevins. 2012. “Morphotactics: Basque auxiliaries and the structure of spellout.” Springer Science and business Media.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bjorkman, Bronwyn A. M. 2011. “BE-ing the Default: The Morphosyntax of Auxiliaries.” PhD dissertation, MIT, Cambridge MA.
Camacho, José. 2012. “Ser and Estar: The individual/stage-level distinction and aspectual predication.” The handbook of Hispanic linguistics, 453–475. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2015. “What do Spanish copulas have in common with Tibetan evidentials?” In New Perspectives on the Study of Ser and Estar [Issues in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics 5], ed. by Isabel Pérez-Jiénez, Manuel Leonetti and Silvia Gumiel-Molina, 173–201. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Carlson, Gregory. 1977. Reference to Kinds in English. PhD dissertation. University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
Croft, William. 2022. Morphosyntax: Constructions of the World’s Languages Cambridge, CUP. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Embick, David. 2015. The morpheme: A theoretical introduction. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Embick, David, and Rolf Noyer. 2007. “Distributed morphology and the syntax/morphology interface.” The Oxford handbook of linguistic interfaces, 289–324. Oxford: OUP.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Escandell-Vidal, María Victoria. 2017. “Evidential commitment and feature mismatch in Spanish estar constructions.” Journal of Pragmatics 1281: 102–115. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Escandell-Vidal, María Victoria, and Manuel Leonetti. 2002. “Coercion and the stage/individual distinction.” In From words to discourse: Trends in Spanish semantics and pragmatics, ed. by J. Gutierrez-Rexach, 159–179. Oxford, England: Elsevier Science. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Halle, Morris, and Alec Marantz. 1993. “Distributed Morphology and the pieces of inflection.” In The View from Building 20: Essays in Linguistics in Honor of Sylvain Bromberger, ed. by K. Hale and S. J. Keyser, 111–176. Cambridge MA: The MIT Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Harley, Heidi. 2014. “On the identity of roots.” Theoretical linguistics 40 (3–4): 225–276. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hengeveld, Kees. 1992. Non-Verbal Predication. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Irwin, Patricia. 2018. “Existential unaccusativity and new discourse referents”, Glossa: a journal of general linguistics 3(1): 24. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kopeć, Zbigniew. 2020. “Towards a Construction Grammar Analysis of English Pseudo-Copular Constructions with Perceptual Impression Verbs.” Bulletin de la Société Polonaise de Linguistique 761: 321–335. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kratzer, Angelika. 1996. “Severing the external argument from its verb.” In Phrase Structure and the Lexicon, ed. by J. Rooryck and L. Zaring, 109–137. Dordrecht: Springer. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Leonetti, Manuel, Pérez-Jiménez, Isabel, and Silvia Gumiel-Molina. 2015. “Ser and estar.” In New perspectives on the study of Ser and Estar, ed. by Isabel Pérez-Jiménez, Manuel Leonetti and Silvia Gumiel-Molina, 1–20. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lyons, John. 1968. Introduction to Theoretical Linguistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Marantz, Alec. 1997. “No escape from syntax: Don’t try morphological analysis in the privacy of your own lexicon.” University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics 4 (2): 201–225.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2013. “Verbal argument structure: Events and participants.” Lingua 1301: 152–168. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Marín, Rafael. 2009. “Spanish individual-level and stage-level adjectives revisited.” Unpublished manuscript, Université Lille.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2010. “Spanish adjectives within bounds.” In Adjectives: Formal analyses in syntax and semantics, ed. by Patricia Cabredo-Hofherr and Ora Matushansky, 307–332. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Markman, Vita. G. 2008. “The case of predicates (revisited): Predicate instrumental in Russian and its restrictions.” Journal of Slavic Linguistics 1(2): 187–246. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Matushansky, Ora. 2019. “Against the PredP theory of small clauses.” Linguistic Inquiry 50 (1): 63–104. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Myler, Neil. 2016. Building and Interpreting Possession Sentences. Cambridge MA: The MIT Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2018. “Complex copula systems as suppletive allomorphy.” Glossa: A Journal of General Linguistics 3 (1): 51. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Nevins, Andrew, and Jeffrey K. Parrott. 2010. “Variable rules meet impoverishment theory: Patterns of agreement leveling in English varieties.” Lingua 120 (5): 1135–1159. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Petré, Peter. 2014. Constructions and Environments: Copular, Passive, and Related Constructions in Old and Middle English. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Pierce, Charles S. 1909. ‘Copula’. Term in Mats Bergman and Sami Paavola (Eds.), The Commens Dictionary: Peirce’s Terms in His Own Words. New Edition. Retrieved from [URL], 10.09.2021.
Pustet, Regina. 2003. Copulas: Universals in the Categorization of the Lexicon. Oxford: OUP. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Raxilina, Ekaterina B. 2008. Cognitivny analiz predmetnyx imen: semantika i sočetaemost’ (Cognitive analysis of subject names). Russkie Slovari. Moscow.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Stassen, Leon. 1997. Intransitive Predication. Oxford: OUP. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Vendler, Zeno. 1957. “Verbs and times.” The Philosophical Review 661: 143–160. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Vydrin, Valentin. 2020. “Non-verbal predication and copulas in three Mande languages.” Journal of West African Languages 7 (1): 77–105.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue