Concept: equational clause

Definition

An equational clause is a °clause construction that puts two °nominals both of which are °definite in correspondence.

Comments

The definition is from Haspelmath (2025: 17). "Putting two nominals in correspondence" is a formulation chosen to be neutral between different readings such as characterizational and specificational. How to best describe the meanings of such sentences is not quite clear (cf. den Dikken & O'Neill 2017). Creissels et al. (2016: §4.2) use "identity predication" for equational clauses. ❡

Croft's (2022) use of "equational" is somewhat different, and perhaps more like Grammaticon's "tautotic".

Croft's comparative concept

equational (INF/CXN):

equational (INF/CXN) = a type of identificational information packaging in which two referents that the hearer assumed were different individuals are asserted to be, in fact, one and the same individual; and the construction that expresses that information packaging. Example: in The Morning Star is the Evening Star, it is asserted that two celestial objects that were once thought to be distinct objects (and given distinct names) are one and the same, namely the planet Venus. (Section 10.1.2)

Quotation

"We take as instances of identity predication any clause in which the predicate and the argument phrase are equireferential, i.e. establish a correspondence between two descriptions of the same referent (or set of referents). Examples are Mary is Phil’s mother, Sam is that one, Those men are the people I mentioned. This definition is narrower than Stassen’s (1997: 101) and rather corresponds to his definition of “equational statements”." (Creissels et al. 2026: 28)

Sources

Haspelmath 2025; Dikken and O’Neill 2017; Creissels et al. 2026; Stassen 1997