Syntactic Structure of Specificational and Predicational Copular Clauses
Syntactic Structure of Specificational and Predicational Copular Clauses

Summary/Abstract: The main aim of this paper will be the analysis of specificational copular clauses in Serbian and their syntactic behavior in comparison to predicational copular clauses and predicate topicalized structures. Specificational copular clauses consist of the copula be and a non-referential expression in the clause initial and a referential DP in the clause final position (Winner is Peter). The main question is whether we can apply predicate inversion to Serbian specificational copular clauses. One of the most important arguments will be the subject-verb agreement as well as the case distribution in Serbian. Tests that Mikkelsen (2004) used for the distinction of Danish specificational clauses and predicate topicalized structures were used in Serbian. It will be argued that in Serbian DPref, in predicational clauses moves to the subject position in the TP layer, satisfying case and agreement features, while DPpred in specificational clauses moves to the subject position in the SpecTP, satisfying [top], thus leaving DPref in situ. It is assumed that these two types of copular clauses have similar syntactic structures in comparison to predicate topicalized structures.

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