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Function and Class in Linguistic Description

The Taxonomic Foundations of Grammar

  • Book
  • © 2021

Overview

Authors:
  1. Mário Alberto Perini

    1. Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Brazil

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  • Proposes basic principles whereby lexical items, and also larger constituents, can be classified

  • Shows how the relation between linguistic elements and cognitive representations includes grammatically defined semantic roles

  • Demonstrates a way to make use of the notion of "prototype" in the analysis of language, without having recourse to vague and poorly defined relations between items

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Table of contents (15 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xii
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  2. Introduction

    • Mário Alberto Perini
    Pages 1-6

  3. General Principles

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 7-7
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    2. Classification and Knowledge

      • Mário Alberto Perini
      Pages 9-15

    3. Form and Meaning

      • Mário Alberto Perini
      Pages 17-36

    4. Word Classes

      • Mário Alberto Perini
      Pages 37-89

    5. Classes and the Grammar

      • Mário Alberto Perini
      Pages 91-109

    6. Prototypes

      • Mário Alberto Perini
      Pages 111-132

    7. Assignment by Default

      • Mário Alberto Perini
      Pages 133-150

  4. Descriptive Application

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 151-151
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    2. Classification of Verbs

      • Mário Alberto Perini
      Pages 153-165

    3. Constructions of Directional Motion: A Guided Tour of Valential Complexity

      • Mário Alberto Perini
      Pages 167-189

    4. Functions and Classes in the NP

      • Mário Alberto Perini
      Pages 191-225

    5. Towards a Taxonomy of Connectives

      • Mário Alberto Perini
      Pages 227-255

    6. Adverbs and Their Relatives

      • Mário Alberto Perini
      Pages 257-268

    7. Features in Grammatical Description

      • Mário Alberto Perini
      Pages 269-276

    8. Semantic Correlations and Syntactic Features

      • Mário Alberto Perini
      Pages 277-296

    9. Beyond the Lexicon

      • Mário Alberto Perini
      Pages 297-307

  5. Back Matter

    Pages 309-338
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Keywords

About this book

This book deals with the traditional problem of the classification of linguistic units, with a primary focus on word classes. The approach is descriptive rather than theoretical, and is based on the use of distinctive features analogous to the ones used in phonology, which entails a radical reworking of the traditional classification. The first part presents some basic notions such as the use of distinctive features and the role of word classes in grammar; classification by prototypes; and the use of world knowledge as a resource to assign thematic relations to constituents in the sentence. In the second part, some descriptive problems are examined, namely the classification of verbs according to valency; connectives, adverbs, and the internal constituents of the NP; and the classification of units larger than words. This book will be of use as a guide for linguists working on the description of natural languages, as well as a resource for students on courses in linguistic theory and description.

Authors and Affiliations

  • Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Brazil

    Mário Alberto Perini

About the author

Mário A. Perini is Professor Emeritus at the Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG), Belo Horizonte, Brazil. He is the author of Describing Verb Valency (2015) and Thematic Relations (2019).

Bibliographic Information

  • Book Title: Function and Class in Linguistic Description

  • Book Subtitle: The Taxonomic Foundations of Grammar

  • Authors: Mário Alberto Perini

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-78173-6

  • Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Cham

  • eBook Packages: Social Sciences, Social Sciences (R0)

  • Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021

  • Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-030-78172-9Published: 23 September 2021

  • Softcover ISBN: 978-3-030-78175-0Published: 24 September 2022

  • eBook ISBN: 978-3-030-78173-6Published: 22 September 2021

  • Edition Number: 1

  • Number of Pages: XII, 338

  • Number of Illustrations: 3 b/w illustrations

  • Topics: Linguistics, general, Modern Languages, Romance Languages, Social Sciences, general

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