Talk:Equative

Comments on entry

1. Classify the languages discussed relative to the contrast between equative predication versus nominal predication. Identify the ways in which they differ, i.e. semantically, syntactically, and morphologically. In particular, make sure to also discuss the small clause contexts, as these show that the copulas is required only in contexts that require tense-marking. In other words, in English, the copula is not conditioned by equative structures. One language to check is Thai.

2. In addition to the DP1 = DP2 contexts, also add section on DP = CP, and DP = [DP [CP ]]. See description on Wikipedia course page for details.

3. Also add a section on the formal analysis of equatives. See esp. references by Heycock, Ramchand, Adger.

4. In terms of organization, I suggest the following: §1 DP = DP; §2 DP = CP; § DP = [DP[CP…]]; §4 Theoretical debate--RM Dechaine (talk) 18:29, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

References

Hits of the 1970's

Huttenlocher, J., Higgins, E. T., Milligan, C., & Kauffman, B. (1970). The mystery of the “negative equative” construction. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 9(3), 334-341. (i) The article is mainly focusing on the construction of negative equatives. Several examples compare difficulty of arranging items according to negative equative instructions to the difficulty of syllogisms with analogous premises. (ii) Our Wikipedia project group is working on equative constructions, therefore negative equatives are a very relevant topic. (iii) The author predicted a correspondence between the difficulty of reasoning problems and the difficulty of arranging real items according to equivalent descriptions. (iv) Since this article was written during the 1970s, some knowledge based on the construction of negative equatives might need to be updated. (v) This article gives us general overview of negative equative construction.

Charles-Edwards, T. M. (1971). Varia IV. Wb. 28 c 14 and the 'Exclusive' Use of the Equative in Old Irish. Ériu, 22, 188-189. Retrieved from: http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/stable/30007611 This article discusses the nature of the equative in Old Irish which had previously been claimed to be an ‘exclusive’ type. It points out that this equative is not in fact exclusive. It is relevant to our project as it focuses on the discussion of a type of equative in Irish. It would also be a useful source of cross-linguistic data on equatives. It is, however, written for a journal publication that is devoted to Irish and Celtic philology and literature, therefore the journal is not linguistically focused and articles such as this one may not be intended for linguistics scholars. The author is also obviously arguing specifically against a particular professor who first raised the issue. Nevertheless, I thought that it gave us valuable insight on the properties of equatives in a language other than English.

Hits of the 1980's

Robert D. Borsley. (Sep., 1981). Wh-Movement" and Unbounded Deletion in Polish Equatives. Journal of Linguistics (Vol. 17, No. 2, pp. 271-288). Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/stable/pdfplus/4175592.pdf &acceptTC=true&jpdConfirm=true 1) The article argues against Chomsky’s views by analyzing Polish equatives that involves both the operation of wh-movement and deletion. It claims that all instances of unbounded deletion obeying island constraints are instances of wh-movement and deletion. 2) The article provides evidence of involvement of equatives in Polish that can’t be proved in English. It provides arguments against Chomsky’s views which can be further investigated. 3) The article is written in the first person point of view and is against Chomsky’s views, which involves wh-movement and deletion in equatives. 4) The article is a bias against Chomsky’s views, so it’s quite based on a personal opinion. Moreover, it is old since it was published in 1980s. 5) The article shows some interesting evidence of Wh-movement and deletion in equatives that is not found in English.

Agnoli, F., & Gobbo, C. (1985). Comprehension of Two Types of Negative Comparisons in Children. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 14 (3), 301-316. doi: 00906905/85/0500-0301504.50/0 Retrieved from: http://link.springer.com.ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/article/10.1007%2FBF01068088

     This article is about a study done on English-speaking and Italian-speaking children to investigate each one's ability to solve instructional relation problems tested positive comparative, negative-equative, and comparative-with-less constructions. Their findings showed that there was greater accuracy when the grammatical subject, and not the object, was the focus of the question. This would be an interesting addition to our knowledge pool as it is our second article on negative equatives, so hopefully the evolution of its conception over time can be observed. It is written for a journal on psycholinguistic research, so the perspective could be both linguistic and cognitive. The final discussion also admits that there was a high frequency of errors in one particular condition. However, despite this, the article seems noteworthy and the direct comparison of results from speakers from different language backgrounds is relevant for our purposes. 

Hits of the 1990's

Jacobsson, B. (1990). SUBJECT-VERB CONCORD IN EQUATIVE SENTENCES IN ENGLISH. Studia Linguistica, 44(1), 30-58. Retrieved September 28, 2014, from the WILEY Online Library database. This article examines equative sentences, with a focus on subject-verb coordination. This includes specific arguments for coordination in pseudo clefts, including in wh-movement cases. This is a scholarly article written for the journal Studia Linguistica, which defines the perspective as one of a theoretical linguist. It is written to include the assumed knowledge of an academic in the field, including abbreviations (IE NP). This itself can be included as a negative, especially since the nature of Wikipedia is to have knowledge be available to a wider audience. The article itself, though, it written is a very straightforward way. This lends itself well to a Wikipedia article, as it has subheadings that can translate well to subheadings in a Wikipedia article.

       Heycock, C., & Kroch, A. (1999). Pseudocleft Connectedness: Implications for the LF Interface Level. Linguistic Inquiry, 30(3), 365-397. 

This article focuses entirely on the relationship of pseudoclefts as equatives in syntactic theory. This relationship is argued to be relevant when presenting a semantic interpretation in binding theory. The specificity of this article makes it relatively dense, which is a shortcoming when putting together a Wikipedia article about a relatively broad topic. The article is a collaboration between two scholars and is meant to be read by other scholars. It explains instances in which pseudocleft sentences pose an “issue” in linguistic theory, namely the possibility of treating them as cases of “inverse predication.” This article assumes the reader has an advanced knowledge of linguistic theory and syntax – good for more in-depth research into the nature of equatives. It also makes use of formal logic to show the semantic relationships in equatives, which I think would be valuable as a subheading in the Wikipedia article, showing the semantic nature of equatives, rather than just the semantics. This would also help to link the article to other articles in Wikipedia that refer to antecedents, semantics, and formal logical in linguistics. Hits of the early 2000's

       David Adger., Gillian Ramchand. (2003). Predication and Equation. Linguistic Inquiry (Vol. 34, No. 3 , pp. 325-359). Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/stable/pdfplus/4179238.pdf?acceptTC=true&jpdConfirm=true 

1) The article approaches the structures of predication and equative copular clauses, arguing that they are constructed via a syntactic predication head asymmetrically. It examines one particular language: Scottish Gaelic, and addresses the fact that the differences in the type of predication expressed do not depend on the equativeness of the sentence, but on whether the predicate head is eventive or not. 2) The article can be useful since it talks about the structural relationship between predication and equation. It also analyzes the constructions of copulas and how they apply to English. 3) The article is written in the first person. It supports its own idea that the structures distinction between predication and equative clauses is illusory. 4) The article only argues its own position and provides no counter-arguments. 5) The article makes a clear statement although it mostly focuses on predication.

Ward, G. L. (2004). Equatives and Deferred Reference. Language, 80(2), 262-289. Retrieved October 1, 2014, from the JSTOR database. This article focuses entirely on the relationship of deferred references as equatives in syntactic theory. This relationship is argued to be relevant when presenting a semantic interpretation in binding theory. The specificity of this article makes it relatively dense, which is a shortcoming when putting together a Wikipedia article about a relatively broad topic. It explicates instances in which pragmatic mapping is used in an analysis of deferred equatives. This article assumes a large amount of knowledge about linguistic theory and syntax – good for more pointed research into the nature of equatives. That being said, it also gives a historical account of previous research relative to the article. It also makes use of formal logic to show the semantic relationships in equatives, illustrating mechanisms such as reflexive anaphors and referent identity. This would be valuable as a subheading in the Wikipedia article, showing the semantic nature of equatives, rather than just the syntactic. This would also help to link the article to other articles in Wikipedia, such as those referring to referent, antecedent, semantics and lexical mapping in linguistics.

Combettes, B. (2008). L'alternance si / aussi dans l'expression du comparatif d'egalite facteurs d'evolution en moyen francais. Lingvisticae Investigationes, 31(1), 124-124. doi:10.1075/li.31.1.07com This article examines modern french equatives and explores their etymologies and meanings as stemming from Latin. The author posits that although other languages have distinct categories of equatives vs. comparatives, the French categories for equatives and comparatives overlap to a large extent. Equatives such as 'si' and 'tant', while equative in nature, preserve some of their comparative meanings as they were originally derived from Latin. These findings are of great value to our project as most European languages are in some way derived from Latin and thus these etymologies may help explain meanings of equatives in other European languages. Using the original meanings of words derived from Latin roots, we can track the evolution of their functions as they were borrowed by other languages. This work is written from the perspective of a native speaker who has considered the origins of his language and drawn conclusions about word meanings. A possible shortcoming is that the author does not mention that some word meanings stray far from their origins and develop an unpredictable connotation in the new borrowing language. We do, however, find this article very interesting as it has the potential to consolidate our understanding of the equatives in many world languages.

Hits of the present decade (2010-2014)

Hendrick, R. (2011). Connectivity and Definiteness in an English Equative Construction. (i) This article is about the connectivity and definiteness in an English equative construction. This article also makes general point on the basis of a careful examination of sentences. (ii) This article may help us to provide more English equative construction based for our project. And also we can show connectivity and definiteness in English equative constructions. (iii) Syntactically orchestrated derivations that treat semantics and phonology as interpretative components. (iv) This article only talks about equative construction in English therefore it will not help for understanding equative construction in other languages. (v) The article provides many specific examples so it can help to understand equative construction better.

Heycock, C. (2012). Specification, equation, and agreement in copular sentences.The Canadian Journal of Linguistics/La revue canadienne de linguistique, 57(2), 209-240.

     This article contributes to the discussion of whether specificational sentences such as “The cleverest woman in the room is Sue” are inverted forms of predicational sentences or whether they are a type of equative in which only one of two phrases is an individual. The author suggests that these sentences are equatives, and that these are “asymmetric”, “inverted” equations because the noun phrase which occurs in initial position is a more intentional object than the post-copular noun phrase. This work is significant for a better understanding of the concept of “equation” and its different types as it shows equatives' function in sentences, including inversion and noun phrase agreement in such sentences. The article introduces new functional categories that can help to understand how equatives can move. It also provides data which proves that the results of previous work may lead to wrong empirical predications about what elements can occupy precopular position. The article is written by an author that works on the problem of pseudoclefts and always tries to prove that they are actually equatives. This position itself can contain some bias, but this theory nevertheless will be useful for improving the article about equative. The author expresses her position clearly and provides good evidence, and we can use this position in our project. 

Xie, Z. (2014). The degree use of the possessive verb yǒu in mandarin chinese: A unified analysis and its theoretical implications. Journal of East Asian Linguistics, 23(2), 113-156. doi:10.1007/s10831-013-9113-3 This article looks at the possessive verb 'yôu' in Mandarin Chinese. While this verb has traditionally been analyzed as the equivalent of English 'to have', this author makes the claim that the verb is used in certain sentence constructions as an equative. This work is useful for our purposes because it provides another cross-linguistic example from a fairly prevalent modern world language. Identifying which word categories can function as equatives in different languages will help us build a more comprehensive view of equatives in our Wikipedia article. The article is written again from the perspective of a native speaker of the language but provides a third-person perspective of it by writing the analysis in English. He provides empirical data gathered directly from everyday language use in his language and provides his findings. The author mentions that he is extracting from several possible meanings of the verb 'the most adequate one', which brings me to question how prevalent the selected meaning actually is. Overall I think this paper will be very useful for our Wikipedia post as it provides cross-linguistic data from a non-European language.

Lazmike (talk) 07:26, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

Milestone #3 Group peer review by group B4

Use a clearer definition when explaining the term "equative" or "equated". How it is written now seems to assume prior knowledge by the reader, and these articles are to be written in such a way that it is possible for anyone (even without linguistic knowledge) to understand. KristenMcB (talk) 07:14, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

Make sure to add examples for French and German if you have them - if not, the subheading needs to be deleted

The section "grammatical function" partially repeats the content in the introduction. I think it would be better to combine the two as the example is also somewhat repetitive. Also, "The major difference between languages is whether or not they use a copular verb or non-verbal element to equate the two expressions" hints to me that there should be a contrastive example of a non-copula usage. Stemming from this, the two major subheadings copular and non copular verb are not really explained. This sentence in that section is also not clear. "Syntactically equative sentences consist of two DP’s (demonstrative phrases) and a copular verb, which appears either as an empty auxiliary or as a true verb that shows identity between DP’s.[2]" Does it mean that a covert copula verb sits in the auxiliary position, or an overt copula is present? Are any non-copula verbs used as equatives? In the sentence above it refers to a "non-verbal element". What is meant by this? A covert copula in auxiliary position is still under a VP and is a verbal element. I suggest being more consistent with your wording in this section.

If possible, provide a theory section to give background on the topic. The mention of syntax in the “grammatical function” section would be a good place to start. Examples and including tree diagrams to show how two DP elements are equated at the syntactic level, as mentioned, would help clarify the content and delve deeper into the theoretical aspects underlying equatives.

Providing an example for Arabic would keep the page more consistent and clear. All of the other languages shown on the page use examples to clearly demonstrate how equatives work in that language, which is not very clear in the Arabic section.

More emphasis should be placed on having a clear explanation to people who have no linguistic background (not too technical) Eg. introducing the Null Equative Head in Okanagan Salish without much explanation. Make sure to define all words that would not be familiar to someone outside of the field. Remember to write at a level the average person could likely understand.

Please provide translations in the examples 12 and 13 under Russian.

Your research is really well done. It seems like you put a lot of effort into getting as much information as you could. You have a lot of different examples to illustrate equatives.

Your language is neutral, which is ideal. We did not notice any strong statements or opinions. Zlawler (talk) 06:08, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

Changed reference section to separate citations and references not cited according to the style used in other linguistic articles with high ratings.Sweeeetheart (talk) 05:07, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

After reading the "Grammatical Function" subtopic we feel as if it is still not clear what equatives do to grammatical function. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nhmathisen (talk • contribs) 04:46, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

Marisadavidson13 (talk) 23:17, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

Edited introduction; the phrase 'note that' was removed because although it contrasts the different uses of equative, it makes this point sound like a side note. Because this is the introduction I think it is better to state the concept factively and leave side notes which can be developed (either in other articles or later in this one) for later or leave them out of the intro. It also rounds off the end of the intro stylistically to have 3 points, this one becoming the final example use of equatives.

I also changed the bracketing to make the intro flow better and be more consistent with the other formatting. Generally brackets seem casual or at least choppy. They also often show less important side notes, and since the content in the brackets was important to understanding the introduction I took them out. I would also suggest removing the last brackets around (susan and our president) and treating them as you have "be" by putting them in quotations. Sweeeetheart (talk) 04:35, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

Milestone 4. Comments

I added the 'Theories and Debate' section, divided it into several subsections, made an overview, and tried to add as much information as possible. Then, as was recommended, I deleted the 'Grammatical Function' section because it provided no new information, and made the lead section a bit bigger. Translation to Russian examples was added. Where possible, I inserted links to other Wikipedia pages and gave an example of non-copular element in the equative (see the lead section). 'Haitian Creole' section was edited and extended as well. KaterynaSto (talk) 03:57, 14 November 2014 (UTC)

I added in the citation for Polish and expanded more on it with more examples. As suggested by Johnathan, I lined up the examples and translations word by word for clarity. Also, i divided Korean into two subsections since there are two equative structures in the language. Tinalin728 (talk)

My main goal for this revision was to improve the clarity in my language section. (Okanagan Salish) I used the subheaders to illustrate examples of different equative structures in the language. As a group we decided to keep the format for the article "list style," with each language section showing how equative structures appear in the language. This is for the sake of clarity, as writing sections for each structure (DP=DP, etc) would convolute how the information contained in the article is to be portrayed. I added photos of language examples to provide a more visually clear understanding of said examples. Also, on the advice of our second technical meeting, I added a sidebar for Wikipedia's "Linguistics Portal." --Jaylinm (talk) 06:40, 14 November 2014 (UTC)

I was mainly focused working on Korean language example section and trying to make more improvement in this section as other group members were working on other sections. I found the equative copula in the language as there are apparently more DP=DP structure example datas. I was also trying to find some DP=CP structure examples and also lined up those examples and make the example sentences more easier for the people who don't have the background of the language to read. I added the citation into the section and tried to fix the citation mistakes as well as extended and giving more information about the example language. Ylyvonne (talk) 07:03, 14 November 2014 (UTC)

In my revision, I organized the Chinese data into DP-DP and DP-CP sections, in doing so, adding a brief introduction and the DP-CP section. I also added Chinese into the Non-Copular section and provided data and explanation for doing so. Alicears (talk) 07:30, 14 November 2014 (UTC)

I split the introduction into three different paragraphs: a general definition; how languages differ with regards to equatives; and the other possible realization of 'equatives'. I then performed some minor corrections in the 'Debate on Taxonomy' section and added a hyperlink to the word 'taxonomy' as its definition is not well-known. I likewise added a hyperlink to the term 'predicate' and 'referent' in that section. I made minor revisions in the next three sections: 'Reduction of Taxonomy', 'Debate on Equatives' and 'Halliday's Semantic Analysis of Equatives', where I also added a hyperlink to 'ascription'. I finished by adding examples to and editing two of the sentences in the Arabic section paragraph. Lazmike (talk) 07:53, 14 November 2014 (UTC)

What is CP?

This article keeps talking about CP and DP=CP, but never actually defines the term CP, not even what it stands for. - furrykef (Talk at me) 09:30, 9 March 2024 (UTC)