Copy raising reconsidered

Abstract

There is no consensus in the literature regarding the defining characteristics of copy raising (CR), or in other words what determines
whether a CR-like expression is CR or not. As a result, existing analyses target different data sets. In this paper, I propose a different approach to these constructions, which takes a functional perspective. I propose to abandon the term copy raising, which is misleading in a number of ways. Instead, I distinguish between perceptual depiction reports and perceptual inference reports and show that the functions which they fulfill are not particular to CR-like constructions, but are in fact more general. Such an approach, I claim, resolves existing conundrums surrounding CR.

The analysis is formalized in the framework of Head-driven Phrase Structure Grammar (HPSG) and is inspired by previous accounts of CR in related frameworks such as LFG and SBCG, as well as HPSG analyses. In the spirit of HPSG, the analysis employs type inheritance hierarchies to distinguish between what is shared by the two constructions and what is construction-specific in order to account for alternative realizations of a single lexeme and to ascribe constructional (or extra-lexical) meaning to linguistic elements.