The universal structure of categories : towards a formal typology / Martina Wiltschko, University of British Columbia, Vancouver.

By:

Wiltschko, Martina [author.]

Contributor(s):

Cambridge eBooks

Series: Cambridge studies in linguistics ; 142.Publisher: Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2014Description: 1 online resource (xx, 356 pages) : digital, PDF file(s)Content type:

text

Media type:

computer

Carrier type:

online resource

ISBN:

9781139833899 (ebook)

Subject(s):

Genre/Form:

Electronic books.

Additional physical formats: Print version: : No titleDDC classification:

415 23

LOC classification:

P161 .W58 2014

Online resources:

Click here to access online

Contents:

The universal structure of categories -- A history of ideas behind the spine -- The universal spine as a heuristic for the identification of grammatical categories -- Anchoring categories in independent clauses -- Anchoring categories in dependent clauses -- Nominal anchoring categories -- Categories that introduce a point of view -- Towards a formal typology.

Summary: Using data from a variety of languages such as Blackfoot, Halkomelem, and Upper Austrian German, this book explores a range of grammatical categories and constructions, including tense, aspect, subjunctive, case and demonstratives. It presents a new theory of grammatical categories - the Universal Spine Hypothesis - and reinforces generative notions of Universal Grammar while accommodating insights from linguistic typology. In essence, this new theory shows that language-specific categories are built from a small set of universal categories and language-specific units of language. Throughout the book the Universal Spine Hypothesis is compared to two alternative theories - the Universal Base Hypothesis and the No Base Hypothesis. This valuable addition to the field will be welcomed by graduate students and researchers in linguistics.

Item type:

eBooks

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Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 05 Oct 2015).

Using data from a variety of languages such as Blackfoot, Halkomelem, and Upper Austrian German, this book explores a range of grammatical categories and constructions, including tense, aspect, subjunctive, case and demonstratives. It presents a new theory of grammatical categories - the Universal Spine Hypothesis - and reinforces generative notions of Universal Grammar while accommodating insights from linguistic typology. In essence, this new theory shows that language-specific categories are built from a small set of universal categories and language-specific units of language. Throughout the book the Universal Spine Hypothesis is compared to two alternative theories - the Universal Base Hypothesis and the No Base Hypothesis. This valuable addition to the field will be welcomed by graduate students and researchers in linguistics.