On the Functional Determination of Lexical Categories

Davis, Henry; Matthewson, Lisa

doi:10.7202/603175ar

Cited by 39 publications

(6 citation statements)

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“…17 While it is admittedly common in Native North American languages for plural marking to target all sorts of nouns (count or mass) and/or for plural marking and agreement in general to be completely optional (Whorf 1941 for Hopi, Davis andMatthewson 1999 for Lillooet Salish, Wiltschko 2008 for Halkomelem Salish), and while it might be tempting to conclude that the absence of a grammaticized count/mass distinction is a pervasive feature of aboriginal languages, it is not the case that all Native North American languages lack such a distinction. For example, as Mithun (1988) points out, all nouns in Taos, Kiowa, Zuni, and the Algonquian languages are inflected for number.…”

Section: The Basic Ojibwe Facts and A Puzzlementioning

confidence: 99%

Flavors of Division

Mathieu

2012

Linguistic Inquiry

110

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The theoretical aim of this article is to integrate the singulative into the theory of division proposed by Borer (2005) and other theoretical linguists (e.g., Krifka 1995 , Doetjes 1996 , 1997 , Chierchia 1998 , Cheng and Sybesma 1999 ). To illustrate my claim, I offer a brief case study of Ojibwe, an Algonquian language, which I argue uses gender shift (from inanimate to animate) to mark singulativization. Singulatives, as morphological markers, are primarily known from Celtic, Afro-Asiatic, and Nilo-Saharan languages, but are not a known feature of Algonquian languages. Further support for my claim that the grammar of Algonquian languages embeds a singulative system comes from Fox (Mesquakie).

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Section: The Basic Ojibwe Facts and A Puzzlementioning

confidence: 99%

Flavors of Division

Mathieu

2012

Linguistic Inquiry

110

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“…A number of researchers have proposed that these languages lack a distinction between verbal and nominal categories, either at the level of the root or the word (e.g., Jelinek and Demers 1994;Kaufman 2009;Tozzer 1921, and works cited therein). Other researchers argue that lexical category distinctions exist, but the evidence for these distinctions may be quite subtle (Chung 2012;Davis and Matthewson 1999;Lois and Vapnarsky 2006;Richards 2009). …”

Section: V1 and Predicate-initialitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Verb‐Initial Word Orders, Primarily in Austronesian and Mayan Languages

Clemens¹,

Polinsky²

2017

The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Syntax, Second Edition

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This chapter presents several approaches to the syntax of verb‐initial (V1) languages with a special emphasis on Mayan and Austronesian languages. Some V1 languages are strictly VSO, others are VOS, and a significant number combine both orders. This chapter focuses on data from VSO/VOS languages and the factors that underlie these alternations. A number of V1 languages can be more adequately characterized as predicate‐initial, with V1 representing just a subset of possible clause‐initial predicates. The chapter presents a number of structural properties that are or may be associated with V1 and discusses possible implicational relations between such properties and V1. While there are certain common characteristics observed across V1 languages, it is also clear that there are several distinct subtypes of V1. These subtypes call for different syntactic analyses; main approaches include the derivation of V1 via phrasal movement (VP‐raising) and via head‐movement (verb‐raising). Other syntactic approaches to the derivation of V1 include the parametrization of specifier direction within a single language, non‐configurational syntax, and subject lowering. In addition to these purely syntactic analyses, several recent approaches place the derivation of V1 outside syntax or at the syntax–PF interface. Careful, in‐depth analyses of individual languages are required to test the different approaches to V1; in quite a few cases such analyses are still lacking.

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“…The modifiers in such predicate strings must be individual-level (either nouns or adjectives, but never verbs; ; the rightmost (head) element must be a noun. ' We conclude from the evidence presented here that nouns and verbs are syntactically distinct in St'át'imcets: see Matthewson & Davis 1995, Burton & Davis 1996, Davis & Matthewson 1999, and Davis 2003 for additional evidence for this conclusion. Convincing syntactic arguments for a noun-verb distinction have now also been adduced for many other Salish and Wakashan languages: see among others N. The last of these is particularly significant because the Lummi dialect of Northern Straits Salish was the language on which Jelinek and Demers (1994) and Jelinek (1995) based their famous but now discredited claims of category neutrality.…”

Section: 1mentioning

confidence: 63%

How to investigate linguistic diversity: Lessons from the Pacific Northwest

Davis¹,

Gillon²,

Matthewson³

2014

lan

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On the basis of five case studies from languages of the American Pacific Northwest, we argue that, at least in the areas of syntax and semantics, a scientific approach to the study of linguistic diversity must be empirically grounded in theoretically informed, hypothesis-driven fieldwork on individual languages. This runs counter to recent high-profile claims that large-scale typology based on the sampling of descriptive grammars yields superior results. We show that only a hypothesisdriven approach makes falsifiable predictions, and only a methodology that yields negative as well as positive evidence can effectively test those predictions. Targeted elicitation is particularly important for languages with a small number of speakers, where statistical analysis of large-scale corpora is impossible. Given that a large proportion of the world's linguistic diversity is found in such languages, we conclude that formal, hypothesis-driven fieldwork constitutes the best way rapidly and efficiently to document the world's remaining syntactic and semantic diversity.* 1. Introduction. At least half of the world's nearly 7,000 languages will no longer be spoken by the end of this century (Harrison 2007, among many others). This imminent large-scale language extinction has alarming consequences for the investigation of linguistic diversity. If we wish to understand the scope and limits of crosslinguistic variation, it is imperative that in the near future we gather as much information about endangered languages as we can, in a form that allows systematic and accurate crosslinguistic comparison.The need for such work is accepted by linguists of all persuasions; more controversial is how we should go about it. The difficulty of the task is compounded by the fact that nearly all endangered languages are spoken by small and aging populations, and many have already fallen into disuse even among those who speak them fluently. These circumstances pose unique challenges for fieldworkers, who must find the most effective way to probe for linguistic diversity in the limited time frame still available.In this article we present, illustrate, and defend a methodological approach for detecting linguistic diversity in the areas of syntax and semantics. Our method consists of hypothesis-driven research on a range of languages. Data collection is driven by the need to test the predictions of formal hypotheses, and data are gathered primarily (but not exclusively) by means of fieldwork carried out over an extended time period with a small number of speakers.

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On the Functional Determination of Lexical Categories

Cited by 39 publications

References 16 publications

Flavors of Division

Flavors of Division

Verb‐Initial Word Orders, Primarily in Austronesian and Mayan Languages

How to investigate linguistic diversity: Lessons from the Pacific Northwest

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