Farrell Ackerman

Descriptive grammarians and typologists often encounter unusual constructions or unfamiliar variants of otherwise familiar construction types. Many of these phenomena are puzzling from the perspective of linguistic theories: they neither predict these "anomalies" nor, arguably, provide the tools to describe them insightfully. This book analyzes an unusual type of relative clause found in many related and unrelated languages of Eurasia. While providing a detailed case study of Tundra Nenets, it broadens this inquiry into a detailed typological exploration of this relative clause type. The authors argue that an understanding of this construction requires exploring the (type of) grammar system in which it occurs in order to identify the (set of) independent constructions that motivate its existence. The resulting insights into grammar organization illustrate the usefulness of a construction-theoretic syntax and morphology informed by a developmental systems perspective for the understanding of complex grammatical phenomena.

Descriptive grammarians and typologists often encounter unusual constructions or unfamiliar variants of otherwise familiar construction types. Many of these phenomena are puzzling from the perspective of linguistic theories: they neither predict these "anomalies" nor, arguably, provide the tools to describe them insightfully. This book analyzes an unusual type of relative clause found in many related and unrelated languages of Eurasia. While providing a detailed case study of Tundra Nenets, it broadens this inquiry into a detailed typological exploration of this relative clause type. The authors argue that an understanding of this construction requires exploring the (type of) grammar system in which it occurs in order to identify the (set of) independent constructions that motivate its existence. The resulting insights into grammar organization illustrate the usefulness of a construction-theoretic syntax and morphology informed by a developmental systems perspective for the understanding of complex grammatical phenomena.

This book develops a comprehensive proto-property theory of argument encoding based on the work of David Dowty (1989, 1991): such a theory is intended to cover much of the empirical ground of mapping/linking theories in identifying the principles of correspondence between the lexical semantics of predicators and the relational and case encodings of their arguments. In this theory the authors identify two basic strategies for the organization of lexical information (i.e., syntagmatic being the comparison of different entities in the same environment and paradigmatic being the comparison of single object in different environments) and demonstrate how these two strategies yield widespread patterns of regularity in the lexical information associated with predicators cross-linguistically. In particular, Ackerman and Moore consider the psych predicates, causatives, so-called 'dative subjects', and object encoding in Finnic.

This book develops a comprehensive proto-property theory of argument encoding based on the work of David Dowty (1989, 1991): such a theory is intended to cover much of the empirical ground of mapping/linking theories in identifying the principles of correspondence between the lexical semantics of predicators and the relational and case encodings of their arguments. In this theory the authors identify two basic strategies for the organization of lexical information (i.e., syntagmatic being the comparison of different entities in the same environment and paradigmatic being the comparison of single object in different environments) and demonstrate how these two strategies yield widespread patterns of regularity in the lexical information associated with predicators cross-linguistically. In particular, Ackerman and Moore consider the psych predicates, causatives, so-called 'dative subjects', and object encoding in Finnic.

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.

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.