Function and Class in Linguistic Description

This book deals with the traditional problem of the classification of linguistic units, with a primary focus on word classes. The approach is descriptive rather than theoretical, and is based on the use of distinctive features analogous to the ones used in phonology, which entails a radical reworking of the traditional classification. The first part presents some basic notions such as the use of distinctive features and the role of word classes in grammar; classification by prototypes; and the use of world knowledge as a resource to assign thematic relations to constituents in the sentence. In the second part, some descriptive problems are examined, namely the classification of verbs according to valency; connectives, adverbs, and the internal constituents of the NP; and the classification of units larger than words. This book will be of use as a guide for linguists working on the description of natural languages, as well as aresource for students on courses in linguistic theory and description.

Proposes basic principles whereby lexical items, and also larger constituents, can be classified Shows how the relation between linguistic elements and cognitive representations includes grammatically defined semantic roles Demonstrates a way to make use of the notion of "prototype" in the analysis of language, without having recourse to vague and poorly defined relations between items

Autorentext

Mário A. Perini is Professor Emeritus at the Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG), Belo Horizonte, Brazil. He is the author of Describing Verb Valency (2015) and Thematic Relations (2019).

Inhalt
Chapter 1: Introduction.- Part I: General Principles.- Chapter 2: Categorization and knowledge.- Chapter 3: Form and meaning.- Chapter 4: Word classes.- Chapter 5: Classes and the grammar.- Chapter 6: Prototypes.- Chapter 7: Assignment by default.- Part II: Descriptive Application.- Chapter 8: Classification of verbs.- Chapter 9: Constructions of directional motion: a guided tour of valential complexity.- Chapter 10: Functions and classes in the NP.- Chapter 11: Towards a taxonomy of connectives.- Chapter 12: Adverbs and their relatives.- Chapter 13: Features and grammatical description.- Chapter 14: Semantic correlations and syntactic features.- Chapter 15: Beyond the lexicon.- Chapter 16: Summary.