ИСТИНА

The talk addresses the information structure of specificational copular clauses in comparison with predicational ones with regard to the experimental evidence from Russian. The distinction between predicational and specificational readings is based on the order of a non-referential and a referential DP, with DP1 being referential in predicational clauses and DP2 — in specificational clauses. Investigators suggest that specificational sentences have a fixed information structure with the referential DP2 in focus. The restrictions on focus position are treated as universal, although the unavailability of focus on a non-referential DP1 has been experimentally examined only for English. This talk suggests and further tests an alternative explanation for the observed asymmetry. Specificational clauses are usually modelled as an inverted small clause with a left-dislocated non-referential DP1. The unavailability of focus on this DP1 can follow from the obligatoriness of thematization when fronting. Therefore, languages with different communicative structure might lack such restrictions on specificational clauses. I present experimental data on specificational and predicational copular clauses in Russian, which has another set of constraints on fronting in comparison with Germanic languages, in which specificational clauses have been studied previously.