The nature of cognate objects. A syntactic approach

This paper provides an analysis of the so-called C(ognate) O(bject) C(onstruction) (eg. He sighed a weary sigh) on the basis of a syntactic theory of lexical decomposition. I examine the main properties of this construction and the differences it shows with respect to another one that has been related in the literature and that I will call the H(yponymic) O(bject) C(onstruction). Once these two structures are analyzed independently, we observe a difference between English and Romance with respect to their distribution. Finally, the paper is devoted to analyzing the cross-linguistic distribution of COs and to their co-relations with other unselected objects.