Jaume Solà i Pujols - Departament de Filologia Catalana ...

(64) 'I think that you were not yourself at the party' =
a. 'An xoshev she-lo hayyta 'ata ba-mesiba
I think that-not you-were you at-the-party
b. ??'An xoshev she-lo hayyta 'acmexa ba-mesiba
I think that-not you-were yourself at-the-party
(65) 'I think that you are not yourself these days' =
a. 'An xoshev she-'ata lo 'acmexa be-yamin 'elu
I think that-you you-are yourself in-days these
b. ??'An xoshev she-'ata lo 'ata be-yamin 'elu
I think that-you you-are you in-days these
In fact, judgements are subtle and slightly varying. But even if some speakers do not see
any contrast, the mere fact that both a pronominal and an anaphor are possible is not at odds with
the mixed status of Hebrew w.r.t. the null subject phenomenon.
In order to account for the above facts, we will resort to our definition of Binding
Domain above, although not in a trivial way, as we will see.
Let us consider what is the structure of the above constructions. Let us assume, with
many linguists, that copulative constructions always involve predication: even in apparently
equative copulative constructions one of the two elements is the predicate. Let us also assume
that copulative constructions involve a Small Clause, so that the S-structure of John is intelligent
is 0:
(66) a. Johni is [ SC ei intelligent ]
where ei is the I-subject (the order I-subject/predicate is irrelevant).
If we apply the same analysis to the above examples, their essential structure would be,
1