The contrastive topic requirement on specificational subjects

Bibliographic Data

ID20258672
AuthorsDaniel Milway (0000-0001-9708-3268, University of Toronto, corresponding author)
Year2020
Volume65
Issue2
Pages181-215
Publication date2020-06-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueThe Canadian Journal of Linguistics / La revue canadienne de linguistique (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0008-4131 • E-ISSN: 1710-1115
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/cnj.2020.5
OpenAlexW3027372603
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited17

This paper offers a discourse-pragmatic account of the constraint on indefinite DPs as subjects of specificational copular clauses ( a doctor is Mary ). Building on Mikkelsen's (2004) proposal that specificational subjects are topics, I argue that they must be contrastive topics which properly contain F-marked constituents. I show that this can account for the absolute ban on simple indefinite subjects, and allow for more complex indefinites to be subjects. Finally, I discuss the syntactic analysis that would be predicted given my pragmatic analysis, and the puzzles that arise from it

Constraint (computer-aided design) · Contrastive analysis · Epistemology · Linguistics · Simple (philosophy) · Computer Science · Linguistics and Discourse Analysis · Mathematics · Natural Language Processing Techniques · Philosophy · Psychology · Syntax, Semantics, Linguistic Variation

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