Copula Clauses in Australian Languages: A Typological Perspective  

Oleh:

Dixon, R. M. W.

Jenis: Article from Journal - ilmiah internasional
Dalam koleksi: Anthropological Linguistics (ada di JSTOR) vol. 44 no. 1 (Mar. 2002), page 1-36.
Fulltext: Vol. 44, No. 1, pp. 1-36.pdf (3.73MB)

Isi artikel

Copula clauses are distinguished from transitive and intransitive clause types. They have two core arguments, copula subject (CS) and copula complement (CC), together with a copula verb (which may sometimes be omitted). A general characterization of copula clauses is presented, in terms of syntax, form, meaning, and occurrence. For a verb to be identified as a copula, it must occur with these two core arguments (CS and CC) and show a relation of identity/equation or of attribution. It may also have some or all of the senses: location, possession, wanting or benefaction, and existence. The copula verbs reported in the literature on Australian languages are then summarized, and the analytical problems associated with them are discussed. These problems include: whether verbless and copula clauses should be combined as one clause type, the difficulties associated with attribution, the need to distinguish between a copula verb and an inchoative derivational suffix, and the distinction between the existential use of a verb of rest or motion and a copula verb. It appears that Australian languages show a recurrent tendency to create copula verbs (generally, by grammaticalization of stance verbs 'sit', 'stand', and 'lie', or of 'stay' or 'go'), and also that the property of having a copula clause type tends to diffuse from language to language, within the continent-wide Australian linguistic area.

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