When Richard met CG: reference-point and English copy-raising

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to develop a Cognitive Grammar-based analysis of English Copy-raising (CR) constructions such as Richard seems like he is dancing. We argue that the notion of reference-point plays a crucial role in licensing the matrix-subject of the construction. In CR, with the epistemic verbs seem and appear, the matrix-subject functions as a reference-point in relation to the pronominal copy (if a copy exists) in the embedded clause. The aboutness topicality of the matrix-subject in CR is expected, owing to its reference-point property. The epistemic CR construction is acceptable without a pronominal copy if the matrix-subject functions as a reference-point in relation to the complement clause. The same type of analysis is applied to the CR construction with perceptual resemblance (PR) verbs – sound, look, feel, and smell – leading to the conclusion that the strong dichotomy between epistemic and PR verbs is illusory. It is further demonstrated that expletive there-raising in CR is motivated by the same reference-point phenomenon. The difference between there-raising and other CR examples stems from the role of there as a setting subject. Our reference-point-based analysis predicts a metonymic interpretation of the matrix-subject, which we attribute to the connection between reference-point and metonymy.

Taking it up a level: Copy-raising and cascaded tiers of morphosyntactic change

“…Cases of apparent copy-raised NPs that correspond to embedded objects—or, indeed, to no overt embedded nominals at all—are typically considered noncanonical (e.g., Bender & Flickinger, 1999:17; Heycock, 1994; Kim, 2014; Landau, 2011; Park & Turner, 2017:479–481; Potsdam & Runner, 2001; Rogers, 1974) and might be subject to dialectical variation in terms of their acceptability (Asudeh, 2012; Asudeh & Toivonen, 2007, 2012), but they are not nearly as protest-worthy as attempting to force an object into infinitival subordination with seem, as in (5b).…”

“…Among the verbs seem, appear, look, sound, and feel, there are only so many chances to find active variation between finite and infinitival subordination (Landau, 2011:784; Mack, 2010:chap. 4; Matushansky, 2002:228; Park & Turner, 2017:474). Seem and appear each support both types of subordinate clause, but feel generally does not allow infinitival subordination (Mack, 2010:179; Park & Turner 2017:474), and the acceptability of look to V (verb) and sound to V appears to be “lexically and dialectally conditioned” (Mack, 2010:179; see also Algeo, 1988:23) 9…”

“…Matushansky (2002:228) treated both look to be and sound to be as infelicitous. Park and Turner (2017:474) ruled out infinitival complementation with all three of look, sound, and feel .…”

“…11.This “register mismatch” between appear and like (Ari-Gur, 2016) may account for why Matushansky (2002:228) briefly expressed the opinion that appear “does not allow the complementizer like in most dialects,” though Park and Turner (2017:478) used appears like nonchalantly.…”