Lexical categories: verbs, nouns, and adjectives

Contents......Page 8
Acknowledgements......Page 10
Abbreviations......Page 12
1.1 A theoretical lacuna......Page 16
1.2 Unanswerable typological questions concerning categories......Page 18
1.3 Categories in other linguistic traditions......Page 26
1.4.1 Goals......Page 32
1.4.2 Background theoretical assumptions......Page 34
1.4.3 Outline of leading ideas......Page 35
2.1 Introduction......Page 38
2.2 Initial motivations......Page 39
2.3 The distribution of Pred......Page 49
2.4 Copular particles......Page 54
2.5 Inflection for tense......Page 61
2.6 Morphological causatives......Page 68
2.7 Word order differences......Page 75
2.8.1 Italian......Page 77
2.8.2 Mohawk......Page 85
2.8.3 Hebrew......Page 87
2.8.4 Japanese......Page 89
2.8.5 Conclusion......Page 91
2.9 Adjectives in the decomposition of verbs......Page 92
2.10 Are there languages without verbs?......Page 103
3.1 What is special about nouns?......Page 110
3.2 The criterion of identity......Page 116
3.3 Occurrence with quantifiers and determiners......Page 124
3.4 Nouns in binding and anaphora......Page 140
3.5 Nouns and movement......Page 147
3.6 Nouns as arguments......Page 157
3.7 Nouns must be related to argument positions......Page 168
3.8 Predicate nominals and verbalization......Page 174
3.9 Are nouns universal?......Page 184
3.9.1 Languages that putatively have no words that are ever nouns......Page 185
3.9.2 Languages that putatively have no words that are always nouns......Page 188
4.1 The essence of having no essence......Page 205
4.2.1 Framing the issues......Page 207
4.2.2 Explaining the basic restrictions......Page 210
4.2.3 Further consequences of the analysis......Page 215
4.2.4 On adjectives that are always or never used attributively......Page 220
4.3 Adjectives and degree heads......Page 227
4.4.1 The basic analysis......Page 234
4.4.2 Crosslinguistic variations......Page 241
4.5 Adjectives and adverbs......Page 245
4.6 Are adjectives universal?......Page 253
4.6.1 Are there languages with two kinds of adjectives?......Page 255
4.6.2 Are there languages that have nouns instead of adjectives?......Page 260
4.6.3 Are there languages with verbs instead of adjectives?......Page 264
5 Lexical categories and the nature of the grammar......Page 279
5.1 What has a category?......Page 280
5.2.1 Syntax, morphology, and the lexicon......Page 290
5.2.2 Syntax and semantics......Page 305
5.3 Why are the lexical categories universal?......Page 313
5.4 Final remarks......Page 316
A.1 Evidence that adpositions are functional......Page 318
A.2.1 PPs are adjuncts......Page 326
A.2.2 PPs are not predicates......Page 329
A.2.3 PPs are not arguments......Page 331
A.2.4 A fuller typology of categories......Page 339
References......Page 341
Index......Page 354