Universal and language-specific aspects of adjectives
Absolute categories and relational molds
This paper argues that categoriality is a multi-layer notion. Some properties of categoriality may be cross-linguistically universal.
However, other properties of linguistic categorization differ between languages. Some of these properties can be described by
(non-categorial) properties of lexical items. However, we argue, another layer of categoriality are so-called molds,
morpho-syntactic contexts that lexical items can appear in. Molds are, crucially, defined by items in a language other
than the item to be categorized. Various phenomena in different languages, borrowing and code-switching serve to highlight the
use of molds. The same phenomena also demonstrate that no lexical items can ever be truly category-less,
in that all items have lexical properties which qualify them for, or disqualify them of, certain molds.
Article outline
- 0.Introduction
- Part I.The theoretical status and definition of word classes in generative syntax
- 1.Word classes in traditional grammars
- 2.Categorial features and featurized categories in generative approaches
- 2.1Feature systems with categorial features
- 2.2Featurized categories – without categorial features
- 3.‘Essentialist’ word class definitions
- Part II.Working without grammar-wide word classes in individual languages
- 4.Lexical molds yield richer descriptions (and are layered on top of essentialist word sets)
- 5.Adaptation to a mold in naive borrowing
- 6.Adaptation to molds in bilingual code-switching: Restricted options
- Part III.The ‘adjectival’ mold in German is about predication and attribution
- 7.‘Adjectival’ molds in German
- 8.Adapting English adjectives to the German mold in naive borrowing
- 9.In lieu of a conclusion
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Notes
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References