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A Theory of Predicates

Farrell Ackerman and Gert Webelhuth

Lexicalism is a theory of information associated with words and what exactly a word is. The authors propose a different idea of what can be contained in words. Lexicalism is first and foremost a hypothesis about functional-semantic information and secondarily a hypothesis about the formal expression of this information. Grammar rules cannot change the argument structure of words. Any change to the meaning of words must occur in the lexicon. A new lexical theory of complex predicates is proposed in this volume. The authors argue that previous lexicalist accounts within Lexical Functional Grammar and Head Driven Phrase Structure Grammar have abandoned certain crucial aspects of lexicalism in their efforts to account for analytically expressed predicates, in particular permitting predicate formation operations to occur within phrase structure. Although the theory is presented in detail primarily for German expressions of these predicates, consideration is given to cross-linguistic application of this theory.

Farrell Ackerman is an associate professor of linguistics at the Univerity of California, San Diego.

Gert Webelhuth is an associate professor of linguistics at the Univerity of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Contents

  • Acknowledgements
  • Chapter 1. Complex Predicates and Lexicalism
    • 1 Overview of the Problems
    • 2 Representative Phenomena
      • 2.1 Expanded Predicates and Morphosyntactic Content
      • 2.2 Sythetic and Analytic Passives
      • 2.3 Synthetic and Analytic Causatives
      • 2.4 Predicates with Seperable Particles
      • 2.5 Summary
    • 3 Lexicalism as a Cluster Concept
    • 4 The Expression Problem
    • 5 The Proliferation Problem
      • 5.1 Proliferation in Lexical-Functional Grammar
      • 5.2 Proliferation in Government and Binding Theory
    • 6 The Grammaticalization Problem
    • 7 Conclusions

  • Chapter 2. The Construct of ‘Predicate’
    • 1 Some Previous views of Predicates
    • 2 Arguments for the Construct ‘Predicate’
      • 2.1 Morphological Evidence
        • 2.1.1 Distribution of Subject Agreement Paradigms
        • 2.1.2 Distribution of Agreement Paradigms
      • 2.2 Syntactic Evidence
        • 2.2.1 The Expression of Passive
        • 2.2.2 Basic Word Order
        • 2.2.3 Sentential Negation in Hindi
    • 3 Conclusions

  • Chapter 3. Lexical and Phrasal Signs
    • 1 Introduction
    • 2 A Short Overview of Sign Structures with an Illustration from Nenets
      • 2.1 Nenets Revisited
      • 2.2 Combinatorial Items (= Signs)
      • 2.3 Combinatorial Items in More Detail
    • 3 Syntactic Schemas for Creating Phrasal Structures
    • 4 An Illustration of the Interplay between Predicate Representations and Syntactic Schemas
    • 5 Conclusion

  • Chapter 4. Grammatical Archetypes
    • 1 Introduction
    • 2 The Form-Theoretic Archetypes simplex-lci and compd-lci
    • 3 The Form-Theoretic Archetypes auxd-lci and nauxd-lci
    • 4 The Form-Theoretic Archetypes partld-lci and npartld-lci
    • 5 Assumptions about Markedness
    • 6 Sketch of a Content-Theoretic Archetype
      • 6.1 The Future Archetype Expressed by a Single Non-compound Word
      • 6.2 The Future Archetype Expressed by a Single Non-compound Word Supported by an Auxiliary
      • 6.3 The Future Archetype Expressed by a Single Non-compound Word Supported by a Particle
    • 7 Derivational Archetypes
    • 8 Type Partitions
    • 9 Archetypes and Universal Grammar
      • 9.1 The Overestimation of the Principles and Parameters Approach
      • 9.2 Archetype Activation
    • 10 Conclusion

  • Chapter 5. Morphology and Lexical Representations
    • 1 Introduction
    • 2 Predicates and the Words that Express Them
    • 3 Morphological Patterns
    • 4 Morphological Patterns and Paradigms
    • 5 Conclusion

  • Chapter 6. The Architecture of Our Theory of Predicates
  • Chapter 7. Simple Predicates Expressing Tense-Aspect
    • 1 Introduction
    • 2 The Predicate Paradigm of the Simple Predicate küssen ‘kiss’
    • 3 Constructing the Tense-Aspect Paradigm of küssen
      • 3.1 The Underived Predicate küssen ‘kiss’
      • 3.2 Basic and Expanded Types
      • 3.3 Tense-Aspect Archetypes
      • 3.4 Tense-Aspect Achetype Declaration and Configuration in German
        • 3.4.1 Tense-Aspect Predicates in German
        • 3.4.2 The Present Tense Pattern of German
        • 3.4.3 The Perfect Tense Pattern of German
      • 3.5 Tense-Aspect Predicates in the Syntax
      • 3.6 Interactions Between Tense-Aspect and Case Marking
        • 3.6.1 Georgian and Hindi Case Marking
        • 3.6.2 Finnish
    • 4 Conclusion

  • Chapter 8. Passive
    • 1 Introduction
    • 2 German Passives
      • 2.1 All Three Constructions Are Passive
      • 2.2 The Logical Subject is Not the Gammatical Subject of the Passive Sentence
      • 2.3 The Logical Subject Can be Expressed in a von-phrase in the Passive
      • 2.4 The Logical Subject is Omissible in the Passive
      • 2.5 The More Agentive the Active Verb, the More Likely it is that it Can Occur in the Passive Contruction
      • 2.6 Each Passive Construction is Characterized by the Presence of an Auxiliary
      • 2.7 No Two Constructions are Precisely Alike
      • 2.8 Idiosyncrasies of the bekommen-passive
      • 2.9 Idiosyncracies of the werden-passive
      • 2.10 Idiosyncracies of the zuinf-passive
      • 2.11 Summary of Section 2
    • 3 On some Current Theories Passive
      • 3.1 Passive In GB
    • 4 Systemizing the German Passive Types
    • 5 The Type Hierarchy for Passive Predicates
    • 6 Definitions of the Passive Types and Illustrations
    • 7 Definitions of the Passive Types and Illustrations

  • Chapter 9. Causatives
    • 1 Three Types of Causatives
    • 2 Terminology and Prethereoretical Diagnotics for Clausality
    • 3 Purely Monoclausal Causatives
      • 3.1 German I
      • 3.2 Malaysian
    • 4 Purely Biclausal Causatives
      • 4.1 German II
      • 4.2 Chi-Mwi:ni
    • 5 Mixed Causatives
      • 5.1 Italian
      • 5.2 Turkish
    • 6 Variation in Causitive Constructions
    • 7 Causative Archetypes and Their Declarations
    • 8 Purely Monoclausal Causatives
      • 8.1 Preference Principles
      • 8.2 The Effects of the PReference Principles and Defaults of the Monoclausal Causatives
      • 8.3 German
      • 8.4 Malayam
    • 9 Purely Biclausal Causatives
      • 9.1 German
      • 8.4 Chi-Mwi:ni
    • 10 Mixed Causatives
    • 11 Summary of this Chapter

  • Chapter 10. Predicates with Seperable Particles
    • 1 The Problem
    • 2 Further Evidence for the Lexicality of Particle-Verb Predicates
      • 2.1 Arguments for a Lexicalist Analysis of Participle-Verb Predicates
      • 2.2 Arguments against Multiple Lexical Entries
    • 3 The Division of Labor between the Sing Module and the Morphological Module in the Analysis of Particle-Verb Predicates
    • 4 The Morphology of Particle-Verb Predicates
    • 5 Completing the Analysis
    • 6 Conclusion

  • Chapter 11. Reprise and Evaluation
  • References
  • Index of Type Name and Attribute Name
  • General Index

9/1/97

ISBN (Paperback): 1575860864 (9781575860862)
ISBN (Cloth): 1575860872 (9781575860879)

Subject: Linguistics; Grammar--Verb Phrase

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