On lexical and syntactic licensing of category mixing (original) (raw)
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This paper revisits the notions of lexical category and category change from a constructionist perspective. I distinguish between four processes of category change (affixal derivation, conversion, transposition and reanalysis) and demonstrate how these category-changing processes can be analyzed in the framework of Construction Grammar. More particularly, it will be claimed that lexical categories can be understood as abstract instances of constructions (i.e., form-function pairings) and category change will be assumed to be closely connected to the process of construc-tionalization, i.e., the creation of new form-meaning pairings. Furthermore, it will be shown that the constructionist approach offers the advantage of accounting for the variety of input categories (ranging from morphemes to multi-word units) as well as for some problematic characteristics related to certain types of category change, such as context-sensitivity, counterdirectionality and gradualness of the changes.
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 1981
A traditional concern of grammarians has been the question of whether the members of given pairs of expressions belong to the same or different syntactic categories. Consider the following example sentences. ( a ) I think Fido destroyed the kennel . ( b ) The kennel, I think Fido destroyed . Are the two underlined expressions members of the same syntactic category or not? The generative grammarians of the last quarter century have, almost without exception, taken the answer to be affirmative. In the present paper I explore the implications of taking the answer to be negative. The changes consequent upon this negative answer turn out to be very far-reaching: (i) it becomes as simple to state rules for constructions of the general type exemplified in ( b ) as it is for the canonical NP VP construction in ( a ); (ii) we immediately derive an explanation for a range of coordination facts that have remained quite mysterious since they were discovered by J. R. Ross some 15 years ago; (iii...
On parts-of-speech transcategorization, "F o l i a L i n g u i s t i c a" 43, 2009 391 391-416
In this paper we investigate the linguistic phenomenon of transcategorization, that is, the categorial shift of a lexical item with no superficial marking, resulting from its employment in a new (morpho)syntactic environment. Our overall aim is to contribute to the description of transcategorization processes from a typological perspective and to highlight their synchronic consequences on the structure of the lexicon. We analyse paradigmatic instances of transcategorization from typologically different languages and discuss the notion of transcategorization with reference to related notions such as conversion, precategoriality, flexibility and polifunctionality. We argue that transcategorization, understood as a diachronic shift from a source to a target category, is more characteristic of languages with clear-cut parts-of-speech distinctions, such as fusional languages. By contrast, isolating languages, where lexical categories are not clearly marked formally, are better characterized as languages with precategorial lexemes. Our main goal is to stress the role that transcategorization plays in shaping the parts-of-speech systems of languages and to highlight its relevance in parts-of-speech theories and models.
The matrix: Merge and the typology of syntactic categories
2020
In recent works (Moro 2000; 2009; Chomsky 2013; 2017; Chomsky et al. 2019; Rizzi<br> 2015; 2016) a new type of phrasal structure has been assumed resulting from<br> Merging two XPs where neither XP projects: the unlabelled [XP YP]. This structure<br> stands out as an exception with respect to the typical X0 s and XPs. I will show<br> that by considering some basic properties of Merge in an abstract combinatorial<br> framework the stipulative character of this category is absorbed along with some<br> potential redundancies of UG.