A Theory of Predicates

By Gert Webelhuth and Farrell Ackerman

Book Overview

Lexicalism is a theory of information associated with words and what exactly a word is. The authors propose a different idea of what can be contained in words. Lexicalism is first and foremost a hypothesis about functional-semantic information and secondly a hypothesis about the formal expression of this information. Grammar rules cannot change the argument structure of words. Any change to the meaning of words must occur in the lexicon. A new lexical theory of complex predicates is proposed in this volume. The authors argue that previous lexicalist accounts within Lexical Functional Grammar and Head-driven Phrase Structure Grammar have abandoned certain crucial aspects of lexicalism in their efforts to account for analytically-expressed predicates, in particular permitting predicate-formation operations to occur within phrase structure. Although the theory is presented in detail primarily for German expressions of these predicates, consideration is given to cross-linguistic application of this theory.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1575860864
• ISBN13: 9781575860862
• Release Date: June 1997
• Publisher: Center for the Study of Language and Informat
• Length: 416 Pages
• Weight: 1.26 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.0" x 9.0"