New semantic primes and new syntactic frames: "Specificational BE" and "abstract THIS/IT"

Abstract

In this chapter we first propose a new semantic prime: specificational BE, i.e. BE (SOMEONE/SOMETHING). We then show how the new prime can be used to analyse some classic problems in the semantics of naming and reference, and make some initial observations about its cross-linguistic realisations. In the second part of the chapter, we explore a newly recognised syntactic option of the prime This, here termed "abstract THIS/IT", which is of particular importance to discourse anaphora. The third and final part of the chapter shows how using these new possibilities together enables improved analyses of certain English grammatical constructions, such as presentational "it-constructions", clefts, and specificational sentences.