Haddican, William and Zweig, Eytan orcid.org/0000-0002-3535-7259 (2012) The syntax of manner quotative constructions in English and Dutch. Linguistic Variation. pp. 1-26. ISSN 1569-9900
Abstract
This paper proposes an account of some properties of the manner quotative constructions be like [Quote] in English and hebben (zo)iets van [Quote] in Dutch. We make two main claims about these constructions. First, in the spirit of Rothstein’s (1999) proposal for adjectival predicates of copula be, we propose that eventive direct speech interpretations of these quotatives are derived via a coercion mechanism akin to those that make count readings out of mass nouns in the nominal domain. Second, adapting a proposal for be like originally made by Kayne (2007), we propose that some exceptional syntactic properties of be like as a quote introducer in English are explained by the presence of a silent something quantifier, which takes a like-headed PP as its complement. We compare English be like quotatives with innovative (zo)iets van quotative constructions in Dutch, which contain an overt something quantifier and behave similarly.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of York |
Academic Units: | The University of York > Faculty of Arts and Humanities (York) > Language and Linguistic Science (York) |
Depositing User: | Pure (York) |
Date Deposited: | 07 Jun 2012 17:13 |
Last Modified: | 02 Apr 2025 23:05 |
Published Version: | https://doi.org/10.1075/lv.12.1.01had |
Status: | Published |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1075/lv.12.1.01had |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:65003 |