The role of the lexicon in syntactic theory (Syntax and the Lexicon, 1992) (original) (raw)
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The Redundancy of Lexical Categories
The Redundancy of Lexical Categories, 1998
"In this paper I argue that the familiar lexical category labels, N, V, A, P or equivalently the features such as [±N, ±V] are redundant in a theory which admits a level of argument structure. I modify Zwart’s (1992) conception of a-structure by arguing that major class members always include a ‘referential role’: for nouns, (for ‘eventuality’) for verbs and (‘attribute’) for adjectives. is coindexed with the role of the modificand. A-structures are canonically associated with sets of F(unctional) features, but ‘mixed’ a-structure types may be associated with ‘mixed’ F-features, without the need to postulate ‘mixed’ lexical categories. Categorial information can thus be read off a-structure representations without the need for purely syntactic category features. I first develop a (constructional) semantics for compound nouns (N N) in which the a-structure of the modifying noun receives a new r(eferential) role with demotion of the original role. The new role is coindexed with the role of the modificand and the attributive relationship interpreted as some pragmatically characterized relationship, ρ. Relational adjectives are given a similar argument structure representation with the same semantic interpretation, but in their lexical representation. I sketch an analysis of participles in which the role of the verb is demoted by introduction of an role. Deverbal nominals are obtained by demoting the role and adding an role (essentially naming an event). By assuming that a-structure is articulated we can account for the typologically observed patterns of argument realization in nominalizations."
Syntactic category changing in syntax
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This study demonstrates that lexicons of individual languages reflect some of the functions encoded in their grammatical system. These functions determine the syntactic properties of lexical items. Since the grammatical functions coded across languages vary, so do lexicons in individual languages. This study explains the origin of features of lexical items that affect their syntactic properties. Such features have been noted by others, e.g. Levin and Rappaport-Hovav, 2005 and Ramchand, 2014, but their origin has been left unexplained. The study also raises one fundamental question that remains to be answered: Is there some principle by which some functions encoded in the grammatical system of a language are reflected in the lexicon and other functions are not? The present study considers several hypotheses to answer this question. The study also explains a long-time question in the theory of lexical semantics, viz. why verbs that refer to the same notions or events, e.g. breaking, hearing, or running, and nouns that refer to the same entities, e.g. the place where one lives, body parts, or water, have different syntactic properties across languages. 2
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 lexical and syntactic licensing of category mixing
2011
Page 1. 1 Tatiana Nikitina DRAFT: October 5, 2007 On lexical and syntactic licensing of category mixing 1. Category mixing in the syntax and in the lexicon Theories of grammar differ in the role they attribute to the level of abstract grammatical ...