The syntax of nominal copular clauses: theoretical and empirical perspectives

语言的一个基本方面是句子由主语和谓词组成。在最好理解的情况下，谓词以动词为中心，如(1a)“我的表弟教书”中的“教导”。但是，谓词也可以围绕名词构成，如“教师”，如(1b)“我的表弟是教师”。英语这里需要的系词“be”在其他一些语言中是不存在的：从语义上讲，“名词性系词从句”(1b)中的谓词是“教师”。名词性从句的性质是语言学和哲学长期关注的问题：本项目旨在通过对名词性从句的句法和语义进行系统和详细的跨语言调查来解决此类从句所提出的具有挑战性和潜在启发性的问题，从而将经验图景从研究较多的语言扩展到较少研究的语言。将调查的问题包括(I)-(Iii)中的问题：(I)语言使用了多少种结构不同的名词性从句？如果我们从上面(1b)这样的谓词例子和(2)这样的‘身份陈述’之间的传统区别开始，那么史蒂芬·金就是理查德·巴赫曼。(与‘Richard Bachman is Stephen King’的意思相同)我们如何分析(3)‘在黑暗中，我以为你的阿姨是你！’这样的例子！(与‘在黑暗中，我以为你是你的阿姨’的意思不同)，这也涉及两个人--就像(2)中的‘身份陈述’--但如果颠倒了，它们的意思就会改变？一些语言在所有这些情况下都使用相同的系词，而另一些语言则使用相同的系词，这仅仅是巧合吗？或者，尽管意义不同，但其中一些语言实际上在结构上是相同的？既然同一性在逻辑上是一种典型的对称关系，为什么它在语言中的表达通常是不对称的？(2)名词短语谓词的结构与名词短语的其他用法是否有所不同？关于复杂表达的意义是如何从它们的组成部分建立起来的，答案告诉了我们什么？(3)名词性系词句是不寻常的，因为第二个名词短语可以有一些意想不到的主语属性。例如，在一些语言中，典型的主语位置由第一个名词短语占据，但动词与第二个名词短语一致，后者也适用于主语。所以，在现在的英语中，我们说的是‘The Problem is Me’，而不是‘the Problem Am I’，而在德语中，情况正好相反(只有第二个版本的问题才是可接受的)。这些“边缘案例”允许我们改进和测试关于基本过程的性质的相互竞争的假设，如协议和案例分配。在缺乏相关语言文件的情况下，将使用在线问卷在精心设计的实验中获取数据，这些实验将扩大可获得的关于预测的详细信息的范围，其语言范围比通常可用的语言范围更广。除了在该项目内进行的实证和分析工作外，它还将通过制作和传播一个详细的框架来促进未来的跨语言工作，以获取关于联结结构的数据，该数据旨在供使用文件较少的语言的研究人员使用。

One fundamental aspect of language is that sentences are composed of a subject and a predicate. In the best understood cases, the predicate is built around a verb, like "teach", as in (1a) 'My cousin teaches.' But predicates can also be built around nouns, like "teacher", as in (1b) `My cousin is a teacher.' The copula "be" that English requires here is absent in some other languages: semantically the predicate in the "nominal copular clause" (1b) is `a teacher'. The properties of nominal copular clauses are a long-standing issue for linguistics and philosophy: this project aims to address the challenging and potentially revealing questions posed by such clauses through systematic and detailed cross-linguistic investigation into their syntax and semantics, broadening the empirical landscape beyond well-studied languages to less studied ones. Issues that will be investigated include those in (I)-(III): (I) How many structurally different kinds of nominal copular clauses do languages use? If we start from the traditional distinction between predicative examples like (1b) above and `identity statements' like (2) 'Stephen King is Richard Bachman.' (has the same meaning as 'Richard Bachman is Stephen King')how do we analyse examples like (3) 'In the dark, I thought your aunt was you!' (does not have the same meaning as `In the dark, I thought you were your aunt')which also involve two individuals - like the `identity statement' in (2) - but change their meaning if reversed? Is it just a coincidence that some languages use the same copula in all these cases - and others - or are some of them in fact structurally identical despite differences in meaning? Given that identity is a quintessentially symmetric relation in logic, why is its expression in language typically asymmetric? (II) Is the structure of noun phrase predicates different from the structure of noun phrases in their other uses? What does the answer tell us about how the meaning of complex expressions is built up from their parts? (III) Nominal copular sentences are unusual in that the second noun phrase can have some unexpected subject properties. For example, in some languages the typical subject position is taken by the first noun phrase, but the verb agrees with the second, which also has the case for a subject. So, while in Present Day English we say `The problem is me' and not `The problem am I', in German the situation is the reverse (only the equivalent of the second version is acceptable). These "edge cases" allow us to refine and test competing hypotheses about the nature of fundamental processes like agreement and case-assignment. Where documentation is lacking for relevant languages, online questionnaires will be used to elicit data in carefully constructed experiments that will extend the range of detailed information available about predication in a broader range of languages than is typically available. In addition to the empirical and analytical work done within the project, it will also contribute to future crosslinguistic work by producing and disseminating a detailed framework for eliciting data on copular constructions designed for use by researchers working with less well documented languages.