Semantiac and Pragmatic Study on Copular Sentences

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We have considered various types of copular sentences in English and Japanese. Analysis of copular sentences requires an accurate understanding of the semantic functions each NP performs in a particular position. The notion of NPTV (NP involving a variable) has been proved to be crucial in explaining the characteristics of non-referential NPs which typically appear in specificational sentences.Nishiyama (2003) presents the following findings among others:(1) The ambiguity of the construction 'A wa B ga C (da)' is satisfactorily explained only in terms of the presence or absence of the notion of specification.(2) There are types of predicational sentences with the form 'A wa B da' in which B has the sense of specification incorporated within itself.(3) There is an interconnection between copular sentences and existential sentences in that the referential/non-referential distinction of NPs is essential in classifying their subtypes.Kumamoto (2001, 2003, 2004) applied the notion of NPIV to the analysis of English copular sentences and existential sentences to make the following findings:(4) it-clefts and list-there-sentences have similarity in that the notion of NPIV is involved in both cases : the former specify the value for a variable and the latter assert the existence of possible values.(5) Counterfactual copular sentences on the replacement reading are adequately explained not in terms of the notion of attributive NP but in terms of the notion of NPIV