Predicates and Their Subjects

By Susan Rothstein

Book Overview

Predicates and their Subjects is an in-depth study of the syntax-semantics interface focusing on the structure of the subject-predicate relation. Starting from where the author's 1983 dissertation left off, the book argues that there is syntactic constraint that clauses (small and tensed) are constructed out of a one-place unsaturated expression, the predicate, which must be applied to a syntactic argument, its subject. The author shows that this predication relation cannot be reduced to a thematic relation or a projection of argument structure, but must be a purely syntactic constraint. Chapters in the book show how the syntactic predication relation is semantically interpreted, and how the predication relation explains constraints on DP-raising and on the distribution of pleonastics in English. The second half of the book extends the theory of predication to cover copular constructions; it includes an account of the structure of small clauses in Hebrew, of the use of 'be' in predicative and identity sentences in English, and concludes with a study of the meaning of the verb 'be'.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1402020589
• ISBN13: 9781402020582
• Release Date: June 2008
• Publisher: Springer
• Length: 352 Pages
• Weight: 1.15 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.1" x 9.2"