Inverse Copular Constructions

In linguistics, inverse copular constructions, named after Moro (1997), are a type of inversion in English where canonical SCP word order (subject-copula-predicative expression), e.g. Only some people are happy, is reversed in a sense, so that one appears to have the order PCS instead (predicative expression-copula-subject), e.g. Happy are only some people. The verb in these constructions is always the copula be (am, are, is, was, were). The predicative expression involved may be an adjective (phrase), a prepositional (phrase), etc., but the most intriguing inverse copular constructions are the ones that involve noun phrases, because such cases render the distinction between subject and predicative expression difficult to maintain. This confusion has led to focused study of these constructions, and their impact on the theory of grammar may be great since they appear to challenge the initial binary division of the sentence (S) into a subject noun phrase (NP) and a predicate verb phrase (VP) (S → NP VP), this division being at the core of all phrase structure grammars (as opposed to dependency grammars, which do not acknowledge this binary division).