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This chapter identifies semantic relations as members of a functional category, functor, like finiteness and determination. Each of these functional categories may be manifested as an independent item, or morphologically, or positionally. They contrast with lexical categories, which are realized as independent items only. A representational system is presented that allows for the diversity in expression of functional categories and provides, in the case of the functor, for the co-occurrence of different representations of the same category (as in Latin In Graeciam pervēnit; ‘In Greece:ACC s/he arrived’ - preposition + case), a problem identified by Kurylowicz. Case and adpositions often express more than a semantic relation but also various dimensionalities, which is illustrated by Hjelmslev’s analysis of the complex case system of Tabassaran, which is paralleled by many adpositional systems, and represented by dimensional nominals as part of the case complex.

The notional grammar described here accepts the extralinguistic groundedness of both syntactic categories and the structures that they project in terms of their valency/subcategorization. The structures are built up by the application of re‐representation via the introduction of a structural dimension associated with a particular substance: cognitive salience, perception of temporality, perception of sound. Cognitive salience is grammaticalized in terms of dependency structures involving both adjunction, where head and dependent are separately linearized, and subjunction, where dependency is internal to a particular word. Primary and secondary categories are recognized, and among the former functional vs. lexical. Primary categories determine the basic distribution of a word, and secondary, which are notionally appropriate to the primary they are associated with, and may be morphologically expressed (e.g. tense, gender), give a ‘fine‐tuning’ to this distribution. The functional category functor (adpositions, case) is given a localist interpretation. And it is shown to be crucial to the erection of complex structures, especially those including argument‐sharing in ‘raising’ structures.

In this chapter, the lexeme is characterized as an entry in a relational database defined in terms of four attributes: FORM, SYNTAX, SEMANTICS, and a LEXEMIC INDEX, which functions as a kind of database key. The SEMANTICS (SEM) attribute defines basic meaning in terms of ontological classes of events, things, properties, and relations. The FORM attribute defines the inflected word forms of a lexeme. The SYNTAX (SYN) attribute includes an argument structure representation which includes a ‘semantic function role’: the E (Event) for role for verbs, the R (Referent) role for nouns, and an innovation, the A* role, which mediates the grammatical function of attributive modifier. It is argued that the semantic function roles can replace traditional syntactic category labels ‘N’, ‘V’, ‘A’, and that this will provide a way of solving notorious problems with ‘mixed categories’.

The generative model requires that words are assigned to lexical categories and that members of a category are of equal status vis-à‐vis syntactic rules. On the basis of several examples, it is shown, on the contrary, that the distribution of a word cannot be predicted from its membership in a lexical category. Many words have a unique distribution, which has to be learned.

This chapter explores mismatches between syntactic and lexical categories, adducing evidence from Creole land Amerindian languages, with a case study of Popoloca de Mezontla. Core lexical features may not have a grammatical role and grammatical features may not have a representation in the lexicon. The case study of Popoloca shows that borrowed content words have a quite specific distribution, depending on the topic of the text they occur in. In contrast, the number of function words borrowed (in tokens) is almost comparable to that of content words. The borrowing process itself is partly constrained by lexical, and partly by syntactic feature configurations. The presence or absence of a noun/verb distinction in different languages may itself be a case of mismatch between the lexicon and the syntax.

This chapter examines the organization of overt phrasal syntactic representation, the constituent structure or c-structure. Section 3.1 discusses some traditional arguments for constituent structure representation. Many of these arguments prove to be flawed, since the theory of phrase structure has a different status in LFG than in theories in which grammatical functions are defined configurationally and abstract syntactic (and other) relations are represented in phrase structure terms. Valid criteria within LFG for phrase structure determination are proposed in Section 3.2. The inventory of constituent structure categories, both lexical and functional, that are crosslinguistically available and the theory of the organization of words and categories into phrases are explored in Section 3.3. The general theory of constituent structure organization is exemplified in Section 3.4, where we provide more specific discussion of the constituent structure organization of clauses. Section 3.5 discusses the relation between hierarchical constituent structure and surface linear order.

Don and Van Lier focus on Evans and Osada’s criterion of semantic compositionality: What is the interpretation of formally identical lexemes in different syntactic contexts, and what implications does this have for categorial distinctions in individual languages? Data of three candidates for ‘flexible languages’—Kharia (Munda, India), Tagalog (Malayo-Polynesian, Philippines), and Samoan (Oceanic, Samoa)—are compared with Dutch, a ‘differentiated language’ with distinct lexical classes of verbs and nouns. Compositional and non-compositional semantic shifts are found in all four languages. The difference between ‘flexible’ and ‘differentiated’ languages resides in the fact that lexical and syntactic categorization are part of a single operation in languages of the latter type, whereas they are distinct operations in a flexible language. Specifically, while roots in differentiated languages combine with a categorial label before they are further processed by the morphology and syntax, flexible languages can (zero-)derive and combine roots without affecting their distributional freedom.

This chapter focuses on research dealing with syntactic phenomena as well as the biological foundations and origin of syntax. It first outlines the main building blocks of syntax, starting with lexical categories and functional categories. It then considers hierarchical structure and recursion and discusses a typology of dependencies between syntactic elements, along with the relationship between such dependencies and the needs of the human parser. It also describes various kinds of syntactic universals, their treatment within different grammatical traditions, and possible responses to exceptional constructions. The chapter also explores the development of creoles from pidgins, the diachronic processes involved in language change, and the ontogenetic development of language in infants.

This chapter begins with an investigation into Chol's Split-S system, where it observes that stems that subcategorize for internal complements (transitives, unaccusatives, and passives) may inflect directly as predicates, while those that do not (unergatives and antipassives) must surface as nominals. It shows that this has consequences for the grammar as a whole and in particular for the system of aspectual splits. The chapter then discusses the consequences of Chol's system for theories of lexical categories and predication more generally.

This chapter discusses the literature dealing with the formal and functional features of the major grammatical categories noun and verb, focusing on the so-called “mixed” or “hybrid” structures known as deverbal nominalizations. It is argued that, to understand the peculiarities of these much-discussed constructions and, more generally, to investigate whether abstract linguistic concepts such as “noun” and “verb” are—as suggested in functionalist and cognitive linguistics—to a certain extent “iconic,” we should adopt an approach that devotes attention to structural as well as functional-semantic properties. The discussion will lead to the presentation of a theoretical model of functional-semantic nominality and verbality/clausality, which will serve as the core for further investigation of the functional-semantic organization of the English gerundive system.

Nordhoff’s chapter presents the parts-of-speech system of Sri Lanka Malay, which consists of verbs, nouns, and adjectives, and argues that the latter are fully flexible parts of speech, which can be used for any discourse function without further measures being taken. The presence of the additional lexical categories of noun and verb distinguishes the Sri Lanka Malay system from other languages with maximally flexible parts of speech, which are monocategorial.Nouns and verbs are recent innovations in Sri Lanka Malay due to influence from the adstrates Sinhala and Tamil, which have rigid parts-of-speech systems. This influence triggered the closer association of object-denoting lexemes with the act of reference, and action-denoting lexemes with the act of predication. This was assisted by already existing derivational processes to restrict discourse functions. Comparing Sri Lanka Malay to other languages, the forerunners of specialized parts of speech appear to be derived lexemes.

This chapter presents the conclusion, summarizing the proposal that nonverbal predicates in direct predicative uses exhibit a three-way distinction between dense, non-dense, and maximal predicates. The three-way distinction, based on the maximality and density criteria, is not a lexical distinction but originates structurally from within the extended projection of nonverbal predicates: maximality being associated with the projection of a NumP and density with the ClP. Finally, the chapter offers a brief discussion of the role of lexical categories in bringing about the three predicate interpretations, leading to open questions for future research.

At a general level, Chapter 1 is concerned with the categorization of expressions in natural languages. The authors approach this question with a relatively new tool in hand: phrasal spellout (Starke 2009). If phrasal spellout exists, a single item may correspond to several terminals, where each terminal has a distinct label. As a consequence, the approach predicts the existence of expressions whose behavior corresponds to a mixture of prototypical categorical properties. The chapter applies this relatively new analytical option to locative markers in Shona and Luganda. It contrasts them with more familiar Indo-European adpositions, in order to show that their behavior is distinct from ordinary adpositions and other word classes. The behavior of the new class, however, is not explained by positing a new category in the decomposed projection, but by proposing that it corresponds to a combination of several existing categories.

There are two distinct syntactic agreement domains in Archi, the noun phrase and the clause, each presenting different challenges for an account of the mechanisms underlying their behaviour. Within the noun phrase, modifiers can exhibit the potential for agreement with multiple controllers in different domains. Agreement controllers can also exhibit duplicitous behaviour, with different values of the same feature simultaneously being relevant in two different agreement domains. Within the clause, agreement appears straightforward at first glance, since all possible targets agree with the absolutive argument of their immediate clause. Less simple is the issue of defining a possible target; this depends on the lexical category of the target, its morphological type or sometimes the properties of individual cells in its morphological paradigm.

This chapter extends to Spanish the conclusions drawn from French and Russian, and proposes a novel view on the distribution of the two copulas ser/estar based on categorical selection, rather than semantics of the predicates (although both are ultimately related in this system). The two forms of the copula are allomorphs of a single copula, devoid of any semantic contribution. What determines the spell-out form is the categorical nature of the predicative complement: estar appears with every lexical category except nominals, while ser takes nominals only. The Spanish facts further emphasize that a three-way distinction between dense/non-dense/maximal predicates is warranted in order to account for the distribution of both the copula and the (optional) indefinite article.

This chapter shows how the proposed analysis can account for apparently unrelated phenomena in Russian, namely the morphological (short or long) form of the predicate and case assignment with respect to the alternation between nominative and instrumental marking. It shows that short-form adjectives must be treated as dense predicates; while long forms are either non-dense (and then marked instrumental) or maximal (and then marked nominative). Russian confirms that a three-way partition is warranted, as it clearly grammaticalizes a double contrast between dense/other predicates (by morphology) on the one hand and non-dense/maximal on the other (by case). It finally shows that lexical categories have a different status in predication, and specifically that whereas nominals can never occur in a situation-descriptive predication (and hence be interpreted as dense), only nominals are allowed as non-dense and maximal predicates.