Abstract
A cross-linguistic investigation of interrogative and declarative specificational copular clauses leads to the conclusion that specificational subjects must be non-rigid designators that are ‘indirectly contextually anchored’. Indirect contextual anchoring is a relation between the denotation of an intensional noun phrase and the context of utterance, established with the help of a referential expression contained in the noun phrase. Based on complement selection facts, the paper argues that the specificational reading of copular clauses is induced by the copula of specification, for which a definition is provided.
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Comorovski, I. (2008). Constituent Questions and the Copula of Specification. In: Comorovski, I., von Heusinger, K. (eds) Existence: Semantics and Syntax. Studies in Linguistics and Philosophy, vol 84. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-6197-4_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-6197-4_2
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