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Specifying Coordination in Extra Be Sentences

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2026

Andrew McInnerney
Andrew McInnerney*
Affiliation:
University of Michigan
*
Department of Linguistics, University of Michigan, 440 Lorch Hall, 611 Tappan Street, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1220, [amcin@umich.edu]
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Abstract

I argue that the phenomenon of ‘extra be’ (e.g. That's the thing, is we lost) can be analyzed in terms of specifying coordination. Specifically, ‘extra be’ derives from a ‘colon phrase’ (:P) structure, where Spec-:P is a host sentence and Comp-:P is a pseudocleft adding information to the host. ‘Extra be’ arises when the head T of the pseudocleft raises to :0, an operation that is possible only under specific circumstances involving ellipsis in the pseudocleft. I motivate this analysis by first considering a set of syntactic, prosodic, and semantic properties exhibited by extra be sentences, including properties of ‘extra be’ itself, properties of the post-copular specificational phrase, and locality conditions in the construction. I then develop the analysis described above, emphasizing in particular the assignment of a uniform structure to both extra be sentences and their ‘extra be'-less counterparts (compare: That's the thing {: / is} we lost). Finally, I compare key features of the new analysis with those of previous proposals.

Keywords

specifying coordinationextra be sentencespseudocleftsellipsishead movementEPP

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Type
Research Article
Information
Language , Volume 98 , Issue 4 , December 2022 , pp. 775 - 811
Copyright
Copyright © 2022 Linguistic Society of America

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Footnotes

*

I am grateful to Acrisio Pires, Diane Massam, Dennis Ott, and Mark de Vries for helpful comments on earlier versions of this manuscript. Diane Massam's comments, including crucial examples, were especially valuable. This article also benefited tremendously from the constructive comments of three attentive and insightful referees, and from the careful editorial work of John Beavers and Christina Tortora.

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