The relevancy of word order for classifying binominative clause

The paper discusses the order of noun phrases within the binominative clause with respect to their referential status. The two types of binominative copular clauses, predicational and specificational, are usually distinguished based on the characteristics of the noun phrase preceding the copula: whether it is more referential or less referential than the noun phrase following the copula. Meanwhile, some researchers specify the referential status of noun phrases defining specificational clauses as those in which the noun phrase that precedes the copula is attributive. Using a judgment experiment, we examine the effect of the word order of noun phrases and the effect of their referential status on acceptability. The results suggest that in case of the specificational clause there is asymmetry in acceptability ratings for the direct and inverted order of the noun phrases. This result is observed only when the copula agrees with the first noun phrase. Nevertheless, the experimental results are enough to claim that the word order of a more referential and a less referential noun phrase is not a sufficient criterion for distinguishing the two types of binominative copular clauses. These results emphasize that information on referential status should be incorporated in the formal model of a binominative clause.