LINGUIST List 9.837

Fri Jun 5 1998

Books: Predicates

Editor for this issue: Anita Huang <anitalinguistlist.org>

Directory

1. CSLI Publications, A Theory of Predicates

A THEORY OF PREDICATES

Ackerman, Farrell (University of California, San Diego) and Webelhuth,
Gert (University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill); A THEORY OF
PREDICATES; ISBN: 1-57586-087-2 (cloth), 1-57586-086-4 (paper); 402 pp.
CSLI Publications 1998: http://csli-www.stanford.edu/publications/	 

email: pubsroslin.stanford.edu

	In this work two linguists from different theoretical
paradigms develop a new general theory of natural language
predicates. This theory is capable of addressing a broad range of
issues concerning (complex) predicates, many of which remain
unresolved in previous theoretical proposals. Grounded in empirical
evidence from a wide variety of genetically and geographically
unrelated languages (German, Hungarian, Fox, Nenets, Tzotzil,
Malayalam, among others), this new theory synthesizes conceptual and
representational assumptions from several different theoretical
traditions. The authors focus on cross-linguistically recurring
patterns of predicate formation where identical contentive notions
(i.e., lexical semantic, grammatical function, and morphosyntactic
information) are expressed by predicates consisting of a single
morphological word or by combinations of independent words that need
not form a single syntactic unit. They provide a detailed
implementation of their theory for German tense-aspect, passive,
causative, and verb-particle predicates. In addition, the authors
discuss extensions of these representative analyses to the same
predicate constructions in other languages. Beyond providing a
formalism for the analysis of language-particular predicates, they
demonstrate how the basic theoretical mechanisms they develop can be
employed to explain universal tendencies of predicate formation. For
this purpose, Ackerman and Webelhuth introduce the construct
`grammatical archetype' into linguistic theory, relating universal
patterns of predicate formation to language-particular patterns in a
principled fashion.

	This book will be of interest to linguists and grammarians from any
generative, cognitive/functional, or traditional perspective. In
addition, it is accessible to interested philosophers, psycholinguists,
cognitive scientists, computational linguists, anthropological
linguists, and philologists.

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CSLI Publications

Ventura Hall

Stanford University

Stanford, CA 94305-4115

Telephone (650) 723-1839

Fax (650) 725-2166

http://csli-www.stanford.edu/publications

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