Abstract

This essay is a contribution to the discussion, now going on for many years, concerning what sorts of identity relations should be represented in the syntax and semantics of formal grammar and what properties those relations should have. In what follows, I will use the neutral cover term coconstrual to refer identity relations of one sort or another between nominals when no particular syntactic or semantic analysis is presupposed (among which are dependent identity, covaluation and coreference). The central claim made here is (I), with its consequence in (Ia) and the far-from-innocent background assumption in (II). Most of my argumentation is designed to establish (Ia) to argue that it should be understood as the natural consequence of (I) and with respect to strict readings in ellipsis contexts. Although I will also argue for (II), I rely on Safir (2004b) for a more general defense of it.