DESKRIPTYVINĖS JUNGTIES KATEGORIJOS APIBRĖŽIMO PROBLEMOS. INGRESYVINIO ASPEKTO RAIŠKOS KONSTRUKCIJOJE VARTOJAMŲ JUNGČIŲ VIRSTI IR TAPTI SINTAKSINĖ IR SEMANTINĖ DISTRIBUCIJA
DESCRIPTIVE PROBLEMS IN DEFINING THE CATEGORY OF COPULAS: SYNTACTIC AND SEMANTIC DISTRIBUTION OF THE INGRESSIVE COPULAS VIRSTI AND TAPTI

Summary/Abstract: Cognitive Grammar (Langacker 1991) allows for a unified account of copular constructions. In this framework, all types of copular constructions can be seen as the different instantiations of a single archetype of statements of identity between two entities (Mikulskas 2017). Radical Construction Grammar, the framework adopted in this article, also allows for a unified account of copular verbs, as it views both so-called ‘semi-copulas’ and typical copulas as members of a single category of copulas as long as each of them fills the same slot between the thematic argument and the predicative complement in a copular construction. According to Radical Construction Grammar, an independent word class ‘copula’ does not exist. “Instead, verbs in a particular language can be labelled ‘copular’ if they have the appropriate semantics and morphosyntax to fit in the so-called ‘copular slot’ of a copular construction” (Petré 2012: 30). From this theoretical perspective, the term ‘copula’ applies only derivatively. Thus, syntactically, copular verbs have a linking function. Additionally, some of them express various aspectual meanings and can be seen as aspectual variants of the typical copula “be”. For instance, the Lithuanian verbs tapti ‘become’, virsti ‘turn into’, darytis/pasidaryti ‘become’ (lit. ‘make oneself’) and, formerly, stotis/pastoti ‘become’ (lit. ‘stand up’), mainly in the Simple Past and Future tenses, when used in copular constructions, express ingressive aspect of the change event. These verbs, used in different constructions, such as existential, locomotional etc., retain their original meaning. Importantly, even when they are used in copular constructions, while being first of all linking verbs and aspectual markers, they can still have different syntactic and semantic properties.

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