3a) A cat ate the small animal. 3b) A cat is a small animal. The syntactic analyses of the two sentences are differents. In the sentence 3a) we have (s, v, do) while, in the second sentence 3b) we have (s, v (copular), sP). In 3a) “a cat

1. The use of the indefinite article implies that more than one shop are involved. On second thought, I'm trying to envisage a conversation with "it's a little shop of my own"... Perhaps it could be used even if you have only

Thank you, Avangi. In my previous post, I should have used third-person verb tenses, 'sounds' and 'gives' -- proper subject-verb agreement wasn't made due to my carelessness. Going back to your request for examples of

Neither of your natural-sounding examples has an indefinite article followed by a time unit followed by "before" within an "if" clause. It seems to me that one or more of these factors must be contributing to the difference we sense. "I think