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Lexical Polycategoriality: Cross-linguistic, cross-theoretical and language acquisition approaches
Edited by Valentina Vapnarsky and Edy Veneziano
[Studies in Language Companion Series 182] 2017
► pp. 175–203

What determines constraints on the relationships between roots and lexical categories?

Evidence from Choctaw and Cherokee

 | University of Oklahoma
Evidence from Amerindian languages suggests that there are roots that have no inherent lexical category and roots that do. Both can co-exist in a single language. Acategorial roots, typical of Cherokee, have semantic content, but lexical category does not emerge until the level of the grammatical word. Words that share lexical roots are not predictable in their relationships. A different type of root, exemplified in Choctaw, places robust restrictions on its derivations. These roots predict not only a verb-noun correspondence, but also the semantic type of derivation. Nouns derived from verbs utilize the argument structure of the related verb to determine semantic type. Predicative roots with no argument structure have no predictable correspondences; those derivations are simply examples of conversion.
Keywords: polycategoriality, lexical roots, Amerindian languages, properties of lexical categories, conversion
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.The nature of lexical categories
    • 2.1A strict use of the term noun
  • 3.Conversion is not polycategoriality
    • 3.1Polycategoriality must involve predictable relationships
  • 4.Roots with no inherent lexical category
    • 4.1A pure noun root in Cherokee
    • 4.2Kuikuro evidence
  • 5.Lexical roots with inherent category
    • 5.1Choctaw noun-verb pairs are related through argument structure
    • 5.2Choctaw derivational affixes do not change lexical category
  • 6.A pure noun root class in Choctaw
    • 6.1Choctaw roots of the neutral morphological class that are not verbs
  • 7.The persistence of the verbal property argument structure
  • 8.Morphological class and lexical category
  • 9.Are there polycategorial roots?
  • 10.Implications
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 1 November 2017
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https://doi.org/10.1075/slcs.182.07haa
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