Lexical Categories: Verbs, Nouns and Adjectives

by Mark C. Baker

Overview

Mark C. Baker investigates the fundamental nature of nouns, verbs, and adjectives. He claims that the various superficial differences found in particular languages have a single underlying source which can be used to provide better definitions of these "parts of speech". The new definitions are supported by data from languages from every continent. Baker's book 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 subject.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521001106
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	03/13/2003
Series:	Cambridge Studies in Linguistics , #102
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	372
Product dimensions:	6.06(w) x 8.98(h) x 0.91(d)

About the Author

Mark C. Baker is Professor of Linguistics and Chair of the Department of Linguistics at Rutgers University and a member of the Center for Cognitive Science. He is the author of Incorporation: A Theory of Grammatical Function Changing (1988), The Polysynthesis Parameter (1996), and The Atoms of Language: The Mind's Hidden Rules of Grammar (2001), as well as of numerous articles in journals such as Linguistic Inquiry and Natural Language and Linguistic Theory.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements; List of 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.

Editorial Reviews

'… this book, which contains comprehensive and dynamic grammatical consequences of the universal three-way category system, is an important contribution to our understanding of lexical categories, which, seemingly self-evident, have escaped a good theoretical explanation.' Studies in English Literature

From the Publisher