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<p>Dear colleagues,<br>
</p>
<p>the literature available to me adduces a Caribbean Spanish
example of what I am looking for:</p>
Juan compró fue un libro.<br>
John bought was a book<br>
'A book is what John bought.'
<p>The copula here separates the topical portion of the clause from
the comment portion, including importantly the focus (to which
this portion reduces in the example). Different sources of such a
construction are conceivable, for instance a pseudo-cleft:</p>
Lo que Juan compró fue un libro.<br>
it that John bought was a book<br>
'What John bought was a book.'
<p>What concerns me at the moment, however, is the bare copula in
the function of a focus marker. I am sure I have seen or heard
sentences like the following in Portuguese:</p>
<p>O João comprou foi um livro.<br>
</p>
<p>or with neutralization of tense and, thus, reduction to the
default form of the copula:</p>
<p>O João comprou é um livro.<br>
</p>
<p>However, I cannot seem to find evidence for this, neither primary
data nor linguistic treatments of it. Could you please help me
out? Both references to the linguistic literature and examples,
preferably from Portuguese, but also from any other language (I do
have data from Mandarin!) would be welcome.</p>
<p>Thanks in advance,</p>
<p>Christian<br>
</p>
<div class="moz-signature">-- <br>
<p style="font-size:90%">Prof. em. Dr. Christian Lehmann<br>
Rudolfstr. 4<br>
99092 Erfurt<br>
<span style="font-variant:small-caps">Deutschland</span></p>
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<td>Tel.:</td>
<td>+49/361/2113417</td>
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<td>E-Post:</td>
<td><a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:christianw_lehmann@arcor.de">christianw_lehmann@arcor.de</a></td>
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<td>Web:</td>
<td><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.christianlehmann.eu">https://www.christianlehmann.eu</a></td>
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