1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910450409703321

Autore

Baker Mark C.

Titolo

Lexical categories : verbs, nouns, and adjectives / / Mark C. Baker [[electronic resource]]

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Cambridge : , : Cambridge University Press, , 2003

ISBN

1-107-13123-5

1-280-41914-8

0-511-17861-1

0-511-04177-2

0-511-14884-4

0-511-61504-3

0-511-32371-9

0-511-04418-6

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (xvi, 353 pages) : digital, PDF file(s)

Collana

Cambridge studies in linguistics ; ; 102

Disciplina

415

Soggetti

Parts of speech

Grammar, Comparative and general - Noun

Grammar, Comparative and general - Verb

Grammar, Comparative and general - Adjective

Grammar, Comparative and general - Grammatical categories

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 05 Oct 2015).

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references (p. 326-338) and index.

Nota di contenuto

Cover; Half-title; Series-title; Title; Copyright; Dedication; Contents; Acknowledgements; Abbreviations; 1 The problem of the lexical categories; 2 Verbs as licensers of subjects; 3 Nouns as bearers of a referential index; 4 Adjectives as neither nouns nor verbs; 5 Lexical categories and the nature of the grammar; Appendix Adpositions as functional categories; References; Index

Sommario/riassunto

For decades, generative linguistics has said little about the differences between verbs, nouns, and adjectives. This book seeks to fill this theoretical gap by presenting simple and substantive syntactic definitions of these three lexical categories. Mark C. Baker claims that the various superficial differences found in particular languages have a



single underlying source which can be used to give better characterizations of these 'parts of speech'. These definitions are supported by data from languages from every continent, including English, Italian, Japanese, Edo, Mohawk, Chichewa, Quechua, Choctaw, Nahuatl, Mapuche, and several Austronesian and Australian languages. Baker argues for a formal, syntax-oriented, and universal approach to the parts of speech, as opposed to the functionalist, semantic, and relativist approaches that have dominated the few previous works on this subject. This book will be welcomed by researchers and students of linguistics and by related cognitive scientists of language.