From morphology to syntax
Andras Kornai2022, Cognitive technologies
Sign up for access to the world's latest research
checkGet notified about relevant papers
checkSave papers to use in your research
checkJoin the discussion with peers
checkTrack your impact
Abstract
Our goal is to develop a semantic theory that is equally suitable for the lexical material (words) and for the larger constructions (sentences) put together from these. In 2.1 we begin with the system of lexical categories that are in generative grammar routinely used as preterminals mediating between syntax and the lexicon. Morphology is discussed in 2.2, where subdirect composition is introduced. This notion is further developed in 2.3, where the geometric view is expanded from the standard word vectors and the voronoids introduced in Chapter 1 to include non-vectorial elements that express binary relations. These eigenspace techniques receive further use in 2.4, where some crucial relational devices of syntactic theory, thematic relations, deep cases, and kārakas are addressed. How much of syntax can be reconstructed with these is discussed in 2.5. 2.1 Lexical categories and subcategories Whether a universal system of lexical categories exists is still a widely debated question. Bloomfield, 1933, and more recently Kaufman, 2009 argued that certain languages like Tagalog have only one category. But the notion that there are at least three major categories that are universal, nouns, verbs, and adjectives, has been broadly defended (Baker, 2003; Chung, 2012; Haspelmath, 2021). 4lang subdivides verbs into two categories: intransitive U and transitive V; retaining the standard N for noun; A for adjective; and also uses D for aDverb; and G for Grammatical formative. While this rough categorization has proven useful for seeking bindings in the original 4 and in other languages, there is no theoretical claim associated to these categories, nei
Related papers
Towards a structural typology of verb classes
Advances in the theory of the lexicon, 2006
On the relation between morphology and syntax.
The Oxford Handbook of Linguistic Interfaces, 2007
According to the traditional view, the relation between morphology and syntax is the following: while morphology builds up word forms-typically by combining roots with other roots and with affixes, but also by applying other operations to them, syntax takes fully inflected words as input and combines them into phrases and sentences. The division of labour between morphology and syntax is thus perfect: morphology only operates below the word level whereas syntax only operates above the word level.
Once more on linguistic categories
Helmbrecht et al. (eds.), Form and function in language research. Papers in honour of Christian Lehmann. Mouton de Gruyter, Berlin / New York, 2009: 151-157., 2009
Argument structure in morphology and syntax: An introduction
Lingua, 2014
Argument structure in morphology and syntax: An introduction 1. Where do arguments come from?
Syntactic categories, cross-linguistic variation and universal grammar
EMPIRICAL APPROACHES TO LANGUAGE …, 2000
The con cern with word classes, parts ofspeech, or, as they are referred to in this paper, syntactic categories, dates back to antiquity-for better and for worse. For better, since in lingui stics, as in any other disc ipline, one sees further when stand ing on the shoulders of giants. But for worse, ifit is the case that the giants themselves are standing in the wrong place. Or, in the case at hand , in the wrong continent. My own interest in syntactic categories der ives from ongoing attem pts to obtain a better understanding of the major syntactic patterns of some languages whose syntactic structures appear to be very different from those of the classical languages of antiqu ity, and the well-known and well-stud ied languages of Europe. Increasing ly, these effo rts suggest that contemporary theories and frameworks do not provide the appropriate tools for a satisfactory description of such "exotic" language s. In general, ava ilable theories are of European origin, reflecting the peculiar properties of the particular European languages fam iliar to the ir progenito rs. Often, their application to languages spoken in other parts of the world is an exercise in Eurocentricity, involving the unwarranted impos ition of categories and structures that are simply irrelevant. ' In the past, grammar book s of English informed us that English nouns have six cases, which was what prompted Alice, in her adventures in Wonderland , to muse: " A mouse-ofa mouse-to a mouse-a mouse-O mouse!".l Then it was Latin grammar that was being imposed on Engli sh; now it is English grammar that is being imposed on the rest of the world' s languages, through theories based largely on English data, constructed for the most part by English-speaking lingu ists, and d isseminated almost invariably in the world language of science English. As an illustrat ion, consider the following garden-variety sentence in Tagalog: (1) Manok ang kumakain. chicken TOP PROGR-ACT.TOP.REAL-eat ' The ch icken is eating. '
Structures, patterns, constructions – studying variation and change in lexico-grammar
Studies in Language Companion Series, 2018
One-to-many-relations in morphology, syntax, and semantics
2021
The standard view of the form-meaning interfaces, as embraced by the great majority of contemporary grammatical frameworks, consists in the assumption that meaning can be associated with grammatical form in a one-to-one correspondence. Under this view, composition is quite straightforward, involving concatenation of form, paired with functional application in meaning. In this book, we discuss linguistic phenomena across several grammatical sub-modules (morphology, syntax, semantics) that apparently pose a problem to the standard view, mapping out the potential for deviation from the ideal of one-to-one correspondences, and develop formal accounts of the range of phenomena. We argue that a constraint-based perspective is particularly apt to accommodate deviations from one-to-many correspondences, as it allows us to impose constraints on full structures (such as a complete word or the interpretation of a full sentence) instead of deriving such structures step by step. Most of the pape...
The definition of the grammatical category in a syntactically oriented morphology
Unpublished Ph. D. Dissertation. Madrid: Universidad …, 2005
Journal of the Linguistic Society of Papua New Guinea THE SYNTAX OF SEMANTICS: the basics of building complex structures of meaning
This paper advocates the use of dialectical analysis (Temple: 2008-2009; 2011; 2012) in the study of language. This method grew out of two major insights: Vygotsky's 'Analysis into Units' (Vygotsky: 1934) and David Hume's Universal Principles of Human Understanding (Hume: 1748). I argue that the properties of the smallest functional units of a complex whole determine their behavior within the system and thus help us understand the behavior of the whole system. Since the smallest units of all human languages (word-meanings) universally possess psycho-physical, social and historical properties, we can extrapolate a number of linguistic universals that apply without exception in all forms of verbal thought (aka human languages). My generalizations about the universal nature, functions and behaviors of word-meanings in use are supported by examples of how the universal 'sinews' of generalization create and hold together meaning at different levels of complexity (word, phrase, sentence, discourse). Having extrapolated a number of linguistic universals from the shared properties of all word-meanings, I attempt to explain the mind-boggling diversity of linguistic forms, and discover that it is also caused by the same universal properties of word-meanings. Using mostly Latvian/Russian examples, I show how variations in physical word structure (morphology), arising from the idiosyncrasies of each 'social Mind' spinning its own 'webs of significance,' have a 'tsunami' effect throughout the syntax of every language. I conclude that, despite the diversity of forms in which associations by resemblance, contiguity and cause/effect are expressed in the grammars of different languages, the basic 'architectural principles' human minds use for building complex structures of meaning are the same in all times and places. Syntax, viewed as ingenious 'technologies' different societies have developed for expressing universal semantic relationships, becomes logically comprehensible. It just may be that a comparative study of the various renditions of generalization in the grammars of different languages may open up new horizons for linguistic analysis.
Related papers
Baker, Mark C. Lexical Categories: Verbs, Nouns, and Adjectives
Studies in Language, 2005
Grammatical categories and relations: universality vs. language-specificity and construction-specificity
A long-standing assumption in linguistic analysis is that different languages and constructions can be described in terms of the same grammatical categories and relations. Individual grammatical categories and relations are in fact often assumed to be universal. Grammatical categories and relations display however different properties across different languages and constructions, which challenges the idea that the same categories and relations should actually be posited in each case. These facts have been dealt with in two major ways in the functional-typological literature. In a widespread approach, the same categories and relations are posited for different languages and constructions provided that they all have categories and relations that display some selected properties. In a more recent approach, this idea is abandoned, and grammatical categories and relations are argued to be language-specific and construction-specific. The paper provides a critical review of these approaches, and a comparison is made with some generatively oriented approaches. In particular, it is argued that a distinction should be made between two views of grammatical categories and relations. In one view, grammatical categories and relations are classificatory labels indicating that a variety of linguistic elements display some selected property. In another view, grammatical categories and relations are proper components of a speaker's mental grammar. While cross-linguistically valid (or possibly universal) and cross-constructionally valid categories and relations can be posited when classifying linguistic elements based on observed grammatical patterns, there is no obvious evidence that such categories and relations exist at the level of mental representation. This is however because of the absence of conclusive evidence about the organization of a speaker's mental grammar, rather than because of the linguistic evidence as such.
Syntactic Categories in Tukang Besi
Revue québécoise de linguistique, 1999
Examining syntactic categories in Tukang Besi, an Austronesian language of Indonesia, we find that there are additions to the traditional fixed categories. As well as the firmly definable categories of nouns and verbs, there are many lexical items that are precategorial: they may be used, without derivation, with either nominal morphosyntax or verbal morphosyntax. Additionally, there is a class of 'adjectives' that display odd behavior in terms of morphological markedness reversals and functional use, and which, under closer examination, turn out to have a variable categorial status, dependent on the structural position in which they are used, obligatorily appearing as part of the head of their phrase, V in a VP and N in an NP. Morphosyntactic tests for the different claims are given and discussed.
Functional categories in the syntax and semantics of Malay
Ms., Monash University
HOW LEXICAL IS MORPHOLOGY? THE CONSTRUCTICON AND THE QUADRIPARTITE ARCHITECTURE OF GRAMMAR
Following Aronoff (1994), at least two different senses of the term lexicon must be distinguished. The Bloomfieldian sense of the term generally refers to the set containing any sort of entrenched or idiomatic expressions, while the second sense refers to the infinite " set of potential (regularly derived or compounded) lexemes for any given language ". A theory of lexeme formation makes crucial reference to this second sense and actually should keep it sharply distinct from the first one because it's only this latter that constitutes its real object of investigation. In this paper, this view will be taken seriously as a vantage point from which the relation between the two senses of the lexicon will be investigated. It will be shown that apparent paradoxes given by reduced phrases, phrasal compounds and coordination reduction, far from representing negative evidence, obey a clear ratio which neatly emerges if the multi-faceted perspective of the Constructicon is adopted as the interface of the different modules of grammar.
A Morpho-Semantic Analysis of Verbs as Lexical Categories
2016
A principal aspect of a language analysis is the investigation of the structure of words and their organization into the grammar of a language. A language satisfies the communicative needs of the society and people using it when certain rules are observed in the production of linguistic expressions. Lexical category is a unit of classification of words in the grammar of a language and serves to portray the unique configuration properties of certain words and word classes. This paper surveys an aspect of word categorization in Ẹdo language (lexical category) with special focus on the properties of the verb as a member of this class. Illustrations will be provided in the paper to justify first of all the dichotomy between different classes of words in the language (lexical vs functional) and the place of the verb in the category of words known as ‘lexical’. The findings of the paper will show that the verb possesses rich morphological, syntactic and semantic features that justify its ...
The discourse basis for lexical categories in universal grammar
Language, 1984
Most linguists who have investigated linguistic categories from a universal viewpoint have accepted the existence of two basic parts of speech, noun and verb. Other categories are found to be only inconsistently represented; thus adjective is manifested in many languages as a class of Stative verb. Furthermore, individual languages often have intermediate categories such as gerund, which cannot be unambiguously assigned to a single category. We suggest here that the basic categories N and V are to be viewed as universal lexicalizations of the prototypical discourse functions of 'discourse-manipulable participant' and 'reported event', respectively. We find that the grammars of languages tend to label the categories N and V with morpho-syntactic markers which are iconically characteristic of these categories to the degree that a given instance of N or V approaches its prototypical function. In other words, the closer a form is to signaling this prime function, the more the language tends to recognize its function through morphemes typical of the category-e.g. deictic markers for N, tense markers for V. We conclude by suggesting that categoriality itself is another fundamental property of grammars which may be directly derived from discourse function.* * We are grateful to several people whose comments have helped shape this study: Raimo Anttila,
Towards a Theory of Morphology as Syntax
Studies in Chinese Linguistics
Phenomena traditionally thought of as morphological can be accounted for in terms of syntactic operations and principles, hence bringing forth questions that traditional morphology fails to ask (for instance, concerning the licensing of empty morphemes). The language faculty contains no specific morphological component, nor any post-syntactic morphological operations.
Loading Preview
Sorry, preview is currently unavailable. You can download the paper by clicking the button above.