Copula meaning

[Andreas Nolda]

Hi everybody,

here is the first posting to il-list! :-)

Although most subscribers appear to read German, there may be some who 
don't. So for the time being, I am writing in English.

Investigating the semantics of some type of copula sentences, I came 
across two slightly different conceptions by Hans-Heinrich Lieb for 
the word meaning of copula verbs like "to be". Take, for example, the 
following sentence:

(1)  John is sick.

According to Lieb (1985, 7), the intension of .be1. -- the word 
meaning of "to be" -- is a three-place relation between states x, 
entities x1 (corresponding to the subject referent), and *sets* y
(corresponding to the meaning of the subject complement/the 
'Prädikatsnomen') such that x1 *is in* y during x. So the canonical 
proposition for (1) would run as follows ("L", "A", "E", "@", and "^" 
denote the lambda operator, the universal quantifier, the existential 
quantifier, the element relation, and the intersection operation, 
respectively):

(2)  LV V1:
     Ax1 (Ref V1 _john_1 V x1
          -> Ex (<x, x1, {x2 | x2 @ e.sick.
                                    ^ reb(_sick_3, V, V1, .sick.)}>
                   @ e.be1. ^ reb(_is_2, V, V1, .be1.)
                 & [tense meaning]))

The minutes of the 1995/96 IL colloque (Lieb 1995/96, 29, fn. 2), 
though, outline a different conception, according to which the third 
place is not an extensional set, but an intensional *property* y which 
x1 *has* during x. Given this revised word meaning .be1'., the 
proposition for (1) would read instead:

(3)  LV V1:
     Ax1 (Ref V1 _john_1 V x1
          -> Ex (<x, x1, Lx2: x2 @ e.sick. 
                                   ^ reb(_sick_3, V, V1, .sick.)>
                   @ e.be1'. ^ reb(_is_2, V, V1, .be1'.)
                 & [tense meaning]))

Now my question is: are there any empircal or theoretical arguments 
for prefering (3) over (2)?

Andreas

References:

Lieb, Hans-Heinrich (1985). Conceptual meaning in natural language.
    _Semiotica_ 57, 1-12.
Lieb, Hans-Heinrich (1995/96). Integrative Sprachwissenschaft:
    Relativsätze. Authorized minutes of a colloquium at the Freie
    Universität Berlin in the summer semester 1995 and the winter
    semester 1995/96.
-- 
Andreas Nolda      http://www2.hu-berlin.de/linguistik/institut/nolda/

Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
Philosophische Fakultät II
Institut für deutsche Sprache und Linguistik