What’s special about specificational clauses — Part II

Two kinds of copular clauses (1) Ingrid Bergman is the lead actress in that movie. [Predicational] (2) The lead actress in that movie is Ingrid Bergman. [Specificational] Conclusions from Part I (3) topic/focus topic/focus Predicational clause Ingrid Bergman is the lead actress subject predicate complement semantic ingredients referential DP predicative XP subject predicate complement Specificational clause The lead actress is Ingrid Bergman topic focus Predicational and specificational clauses: • are both subject-initial clauses. • both involve one predicative and one referential XP, but • differ in how the two XPs are aligned with (surface) syntactic positions