The Dependency Grammar Analysis
The discussion in the preceding section has demonstrated that in order for phrase structure grammars to address inverse copular constructions, they must augment their theoretical apparatus in significant ways. This necessity is due to their almost unanimous assumption that basic clause structure contains a finite VP constituent in English (and many other languages).
In contrast to phrase structure grammars, dependency grammars are NOT challenged by inverse copular constructions in the same way because they do not acknowledge the existence of a predicate VP constituent. Instead, they position the (finite) verb as the root of all clause structure, whereby subject NP and predicative expression are equi-level dependents of this root. What this means for the analysis of inverse copular constructions is that there is no motivation to force these constructions to somehow fit the structure of canonical SCP copular clauses (subject-copula-predicative expression), for there is no predicate VP present to begin with. The following dependency trees illustrate the point:
Since there is no VP constituent present in the sentences with canonical order on the left, there is no reason to add additional theoretic apparatus to accommodate the inverse copular construction on the right. What happens is that the subject and predicative expression switch positions, whereby due to the relatively flat structure, this switch does not result in a discontinuity. The integrity of the basic hierarchical structure remains consistent across the two variants.
Read more about this topic: Inverse Copular Constructions
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