A Notional Theory of Syntactic Categories

by John M. Anderson

Overview

This book presents an innovative theory of syntactic categories and the lexical classes they define. It revives the traditional idea that these are to be distinguished notionally (semantically). The author proposes a notation based on semantic features that accounts for the syntactic behavior of classes. The book also presents a case for considering this classification—again in a rather traditional vein—to be basic to determining the syntactic structure of sentences.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521034210
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	12/14/2006
Series:	Cambridge Studies in Linguistics , #82
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	368
Product dimensions:	5.94(w) x 8.98(h) x 0.79(d)

Table of Contents

Preface; List of abbreviations; Part I. Prelude: 1. Notionalism; 2. Analogism; 3. Minimalism; Part II. Fundamentals of a Notional Theory: 4. Syntactic categories and notional features; 5. Relations between elements; 6. Further categories: the role of feature dependencies; 7. Markedness and category continuity; 8. Cross-classification; 9. Gradience and second-order categories; 10. Secondary categories; 11. Non-complements; Part III. The Syntax of Categories: 12. Verbal valencies; 13. The content of the functor category; 14. The basic syntax of predications; 15. The formation of ditransitives; 16. Variation in argument structure; 17. Verbals as arguments; 18. The structure of primary arguments; References, Index.