Specificational pseudoclefts (SPCs) have been a great challenge for a syntactic theory, because, despite the surface division between the preand postcopular elements, the post-copular ‘pivot’ behaves as if it occupied the gap position in the precopular wh-clause. This paper argues that movement-based or deletion-based syntactic approaches and purely semantic approaches have problems in dealing ...

This study aimed to explain the valence of Malay verbs in Akit dialect Padang island, Regency Kepulauan Meranti. The method used was qualitative descriptive. data collected using equivalent and observation method. were oral interviews, observation, intuition methods. analysis split, deletion, substitution, expansion techniques. results explained informal showed that people on this island langua...

This  qualitative  study  investigates  the  uses  of  be  in  Contemporary  English.  Based  on  this  study, one  easy  claim  and  one  more  difficult  claim  are  proposed.  The  easy  claim  is  that  the  traditional distinction between be as a lexical verb and be as an auxiliary is faulty. In particular, 'copular-be', traditionally considered to be a lexical verb, is in fact a prototypi...

In this paper, we argue that specificational copular clauses are derived equations which are distinct from genuine equatives. While the latter has an equative copula, the former achieves a semantics of equation through type-shift. The account presented here not only allows us to maintain a predicate inversion analysis for specificational copular clauses but also explain when a predicate can be ...

We propose an intermediary-level semantic representation, providing a higher level of abstraction than syntactic parse trees, while not committing to decisions in cases such as quantification, grounding or verbspecific roles assignments. The proposal is centered around the proposition structure of the text, and includes also implicit propositions which can be inferred from the syntax but are no...