I would say the difference in construal between "George is Hamlet" and 
"Hamlet is George" has to do with the semantic difference between a 
token and a value or role to which that token is assigned. Value and 
role are like category labels: They can apply to more than one thing. 
Tokens, on the other hand are particular; there's only one George.

Grammar gives us the option of having either thing, token or value, in 
either position, subject or complement. We choose based on similar 
criteria by which we choose passive or active sentences: information 
structure. This doesn't mean there is any element of agency or 
patienthood in the token vs. the role, although again, it can be gotten 
by general-knowledge inference (if George is Hamlet, that means George 
is playing Hamlet). The lack of any hint of agency in many copular 
constructions ('The maple is a tree') supports this.

Notice that English does provide us with verbs that put agency into a 
subject of a clause with a subject complement: "George is being a jerk"; 
"Sally is acting like my mother". This implies that the language feels a 
need to differentiate the different construals.

Notice that, all the same, such sentences cannot be made passive: *A 
jerk was being been by George"; *My mother was being acted like by Sally.

Which raises the question of exactly what sort of clauses these are!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Johanna Rubba   Associate Professor, Linguistics
English Department, California Polytechnic State University
One Grand Avenue  • San Luis Obispo, CA 93407
Tel. (805)-756-2184  •  Fax: (805)-756-6374 • Dept. Phone.  756-2596
• E-mail: [log in to unmask] •      Home page: 
http://www.cla.calpoly.edu/~jrubba
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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