Monoclausal Copular Clauses: Their Structure and Case Assignment

• Published in: SKASE journal of theoretical linguistics Vol. 18; no. 1; pp. 35 - 58
• Main Author: Masood, Talat
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: The Slovak Association for the Study of English 01.06.2021
• Subjects: Spyware; New York; United Kingdom; Netherlands; Pakistan; United States
• ISSN: 1336-782X; 1336-782X

Copular clause, the 'Trojan Horse' for linguistic theory, has always proved troublesome whenever an attempt to describe its structure was made. The issue of structure is not only important in its own right but has consequences for the theory of structural Case assignment as well. The primary goal of this paper is to adopt a novel approach to account for the structure and case assignment in copular clauses. The secondary goal of this paper is to present the facts of copular constructions in Pashto; as, copular constructions in Pashto have so far remained unexplored from any perspective, be it traditional or generative. The new approach consists in proposing, a) a new divide of the copular clauses along the predicate nominal and predicate modifier dichotomy, b) new points of entry into the derivation for both the subject nominals and predicate nominals/ modifiers, c) a different small v unable to assign accusative case or host an agent nominal in its specifier, and d) a different case assignment/ checking mechanism for the predicate nominal. This mechanism is not only able to explain the structure and case assignment facts of Pashto monoclausal copular clauses but can also account for the monoclausal copular clauses of other languages. Keywords: monoclausal copular clause, argument structure, case assignment, predicate nominal, movement