This paper proposes an approach to the interpretation of copular sentences in English that analyses be as a one-place predicate with underspecified semantic content. The interpretation of a copula clause is determined through the interaction of syntactic and pragmatic processes and depends on the properties of expressions collocated with be and general contextual factors, both local and non-loc...

The current study addresses the extent of phonological planning during spontaneous sentence production. Previous work shows that at articulation, phonological encoding occurs for entire phrases, but encoding beyond the initial phrase may be due to the syntactic relevance of the verb in planning the utterance. I conducted three experiments to investigate whether phonological planning crosses mul...

English was long considered the only language to possess Verb Phrase Ellipsis (VPE), a process in which a verb phrase, identified in many standard accounts with the vP, goes missing under identity with the vP of an antecedent clause. An example of VPE in English is given in (1), where the elements struck through are not pronounced. A schematization of the relevant part of the structure is given...

Abstract Task-based language teaching is considered an effective way to achieve a harmony between grammar and communication. The present study investigates two different ways of teaching modal verbs: task-based versus traditional approaches. To this purpose, an Oxford Placement Test was administered to select 40 homogeneous participants out of a larger population who took this test. The selecte...

A functional typology of copular “be” in Russian allows us to systematically relate variants of predication with and without copula. The analysis sketched in this article does not need empty categories; neither does it have to stipulate categories, category changes or constituents that are not morphologically signalled. With regard to HPSG formalization, the presented approach independently mot...

This paper deals with three copular constructions in French that take bare nominals as a predicative complement (attribut du sujet). From a lexical point of view, these constructions, which are typical of colloquial French, are very open frames. After a detailed analysis of the syntactic and semantic properties of these constructions, I will examine them in the light of a more theoretical quest...

...............................................................................................ii Acknowledgement...................................................................................iv Dedication...........................................................................................vii Chapter

This study aims to investigate the semantic and syntactic features of verbs used in the introduction section of Applied Linguistics research articles published in Iranian and international journals. A corpus of 20 research article introductions (10 from each journal) was used. The corpus was analysed for the syntactic features (tense, aspect and voice) and semantic meaning of verbs. The finding...