On the Polyfunctionality of Copula Sentences in Japanese

This paper sets out the puzzle of the polyfunctionality of copula sentences in Japanese, and proposes a principled solution from the viewpoint of Semantic Incrementality. Some copula sentences have specificational and identity functions, and they display different behaviours in terms of connotation and anaphora. It is proposed that the single item no as a pronominal nominaliser captures the two functions uniformly, whereas their distinct properties can be reduced to Semantic Incrementality (i.e. the timing of copying a type-e term). The analyses have interesting implications for some ellipsis constructions.