The unbearable simplicity of being something

Abstract

This paper investigates a correlation between copula agreement and anaphoric potential in Czech and German copular clauses. We argue that this correlation stems from a structural ambiguity between standard predicational clauses and a novel category of classificatory clauses. To capture the intuition that nominal predicates in the latter act as classifiers rather than simple property-denoting expressions, we introduce Locus Semantics. By distinguishing between an entity and its mental representation (locus), this framework allows for a formal treatment of grammatical features as class-presuppositions. We propose that while predicational structures resolve conflicting class-presuppositions via a type-shifter—allowing only for accommodated anaphora—classificatory structures utilize a silent, mediating pronoun. This pronoun introduces a distinct locus, thereby licensing non-canonical agreement and direct discourse anaphora.