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A Fine-Grained Approach to Lexical and Functional
Syntactic Categories. Edition No. 1
VDM Publishing House, Jan 2009, Pages: 148
Most syntactic theories have come to rely on the
distinction between ‘lexical’ and ‘functional’
categories: nouns and verbs are ‘lexical’, while
determiners and inflection are ‘functional’. A
growing body of research challenges this binary
division, suggesting there are ‘semi-lexical’
elements with both ‘lexical’ and ‘functional’
properties. This book develops a fine-grained
approach where ‘lexical’ and ‘functional’ are not
taken as ends of the same continuum, but are seen as
two separate and distinct features, creating a
two-dimensional binary distinction ([±Lexical,
±Functional]). This analysis is applied to the
domain of prepositions, and resolves most of the
contradictions manifest in that domain. Support is
drawn from parallels in syntactic and semantic
behavior, as well as evidence from a longitudinal
study of five children’s early spontaneous
production. This monograph should be useful to
researchers in a variety of domains, including
syntax, aphasia, first- and second-language
acquisition. Anyone interested in the
nature of syntactic categories in general, and the
nature of prepositions and prepositional-elements in
particular, will find this book useful.
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