Johnson 2004 - CDLI - UCLA

participant in the event in question. Categorical statements are quite the opposite: they
identify an individual and then attribute a property to that individual—note that the
semantic content of the state of affairs described by a categorical statement can be the
same as that described by a thetic statement, but the two statements will usually differ
syntactically. In syntactic terms, at least according to Basilico’s proposal, this amounts to
the fact that in a categorical statement “the subject of an adjectival SC occupies a distinct
topic position,” whereas, the subject of a verbal SC in a thetic statement “does not form a
topic” (Basilico 2003, 8). Clearly the use of topicalized nouns in conjunction with the
Akkadian HIRC can be equated with the adjectival SC in contrast to the absence of
topicalized nouns in the verbal SC found in the Sumerian HIRC.
Other factors such as the use of Sumerian HIRCs to form the complement of verbs of
direct perception also favor interpreting it as a verbal SC. While topicality and/or
definiteness can be difficult to evaluate in the text-artifactual record, the ability of a
relative clause to act as the complement of a verb of direct perception should be readily
identifiable. Min-Joo Kim, for example, has noted the nearly identical form of HIRCs and
direct perception complements [DPCs] in Korean (M. Kim 2003, 2):
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