Revisiting Connectivity in Copular Sentences

Monday, 30 March 2009, Colloquium

Yael Sharvit , UCONN

Abstract

he received wisdom regarding Connectivity in copular sentences (e.g., Higgins 1973) is that specificational copular sentences show Connectivity effects (i.e., an element inside the post-copular phrase behaves as if it were syntactically bound by an element inside the pre- copular phrase), whereas predicational copular sentences do not. Thus, (1) has only a specificational reading (a Condition A effect) and (2) only a predicational reading (a Condition C effect).

(1) What John(i) is is a nuisance to himself(i).
     (==> John is a nuisance to John)

(2) What he(i) is is a nuisance to John(i).
     (=/=> John is a nuisance to John)

I argue that sometimes, predicational copular sentences show Connectivity effects as well. The reason this fact has gone unnoticed is that the “predicates” that induce Connectivity are not easy to find (they denote properties of functions; not properties of individuals). Importantly, syntactic theories of Connectivity are not capable of accounting for such effects. I show that a semantic theory based on Jacobson (1994) (which allows “binding” without c-command) does. There will be a special reception in honor of next year’s prospective students in the Linguistics Department beginning at 3:15pm. Please stop by, have a drink, and introduce yourself.