Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jkksz Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-28T10:30:58.990Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

2 - Lexical and Grammatical Categories in RRG

from Part Two - Topics in RRG: Simple Sentences

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 June 2023

By
John M. Peterson
Edited by
Delia Bentley ,
Ricardo Mairal Usón ,
Wataru Nakamura  and
Robert D. Van Valin, Jr
Delia Bentley
Affiliation:
University of Manchester
Ricardo Mairal Usón
Affiliation:
Universidad National de Educación a Distancia, Madrid
Wataru Nakamura
Affiliation:
Tohoku University, Japan
Robert D. Van Valin, Jr
Affiliation:
Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf
Get access

Summary

This chapter deals with lexical and grammatical categories in Role and Reference Grammar (RRG). First, it discusses a range of functionally motivated, non-endocentric syntactic categories, such as the nucleus (NUC), containing the predicate, referential phrases (RPs) and modifying phrases (MPs). Although these units are typically realized by verbs, nouns and adjectives/adverbs, respectively, this is not always so, and many languages allow for non-verbal predicates, non-adjectival modifying phrases, etc., while other languages show little to no evidence for categories such as noun, verb or adjective. This is captured in RRG by assuming that NUC, RP and MP are not universally linked to particular lexical categories. The chapter also discusses grammatical categories which are referred to in RRG as operators, and which ground the clause, core or nucleus (TAM markers, evidentials, etc.), as well as categories which are primarily concerned with questions of reference, such as number, definiteness, deixis, etc., which ground the RP.

Keywords

lexical categoriesgrammatical categoriesgroundingoperatorsparts of speechgradience
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Handbook of Role and Reference Grammar , pp. 181 - 217
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Ambros, Arne A. 1998. Bonġornu, kif int? Einführung in die maltesische Sprache. Wiesbaden: Reichert Verlag.Google Scholar
Bisang, Walter. 2001. Finite vs. non finite languages. In Haspelmath, Martin, König, Ekkehard, Oesterreicher, Wulf and Raible, Wolfgang (eds.), Language Typology and Language Universals, Vol. 2, 1400–1413. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Broschart, Jürgen. 1997. Why Tongan does it differently: Categorial distinctions in a language without nouns and verbs. Linguistic Typology 1(2): 123–165.Google Scholar
Croft, William. 2000. Parts of speech as language universals and as language-particular categories. In Vogel, Petra M. and Comrie, Bernard (eds.), Approaches to the Typology of Word Classes (Empirical Approaches to Language Typology, 23), 65–102. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Croft, William. 2005. Word classes, parts of speech, and syntactic argumentation. Linguistic Typology 9(3): 431–441.Google Scholar
Evans, Nicholas and Osada, Toshiki. 2005. Mundari: The myth of a language without word classes. Linguistic Typology 9(3): 351–390.Google Scholar
Everett, Daniel L. 2008. Wari’ intentional state constructions. In Van Valin, Jr. (ed.), 381–410.Google Scholar
Håkansson, Gisela and Westander, Jennie. 2013. Communication in Humans and Other Animals (Advances in Interaction Studies, 4). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Haspelmath, Martin. 2007. Preestablished categories don’t exist: Consequences for language description and typology. Linguistic Typology 11(1): 119–132.Google Scholar
Haspelmath, Martin. 2011. The indeterminacy of word segmentation and the nature of morphology and syntax. Folia Linguistica 45(1): 31–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hengeveld, Kees and Rijkhoff, Jan. 2005. Mundari as a flexible language. Linguistic Typology 9(3): 406–431.Google Scholar
Himmelmann, Nikolaus P. 2008. Lexical categories and voice in Tagalog. In Austin, Peter K. and Musgrave, Simon (eds.), Voice and Grammatical Relations in Austronesian Languages (Studies in Constraint-Based Lexicalism), 247–293. Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications.Google Scholar
Hockett, Charles F. 1960. The origin of speech. Scientific American 203: 88–111. [Reprinted in Wang, William S.-Y. 1982. Human Communication: Language and Its Psychobiological Bases. Scientific American: 4–12].Google Scholar
Kerkeʈʈa, K. P. 1990. Jujhair ɖā̃ɽ (khaɽiyā nāʈak). Ranchi: Janjātīya Bhāṣā Akādemī, Bihār Sarkār.Google Scholar
Klaiman, M. H. 1991. Grammatical Voice (Cambridge Studies in Linguistics, 59). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Luuk, Erkki. 2010. Nouns, verbs and flexibles: Implications for typologies of word classes. Language Sciences 32(3): 349–365.Google Scholar
Maas, Utz. 2004. ‘Finite’ and ‘nonfinite’ from a typological perspective. Linguistics 42(2): 359–385.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Malhotra, V. (1982). The Structure of Kharia: a Study of Linguistic Typology and Language Change. Unpublished PhD dissertation. New Delhi: Jawaharlal Nehru University.Google Scholar
Nikolaeva, Irina (ed.). 2007. Finiteness. Theoretical and Empirical Foundations. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Peterson, John. 2005. There’s a grain of truth in every ‘myth’, or, Why the discussion of lexical classes in Mundari isn’t quite over yet. Linguistic Typology 9(3): 391–405.Google Scholar
Peterson, John. 2011a. Kharia. A South Munda language (Brill’s Studies in the Languages of South and Southwest Asia, 1). Leiden: Brill.Google Scholar
Peterson, John. 2011b. Aspects of Kharia grammar – A Role and Reference Grammar (RRG) approach. In Singh, Rajendra and Sharma, Ghanshyam (eds.), Annual Review of South Asian Languages and Linguistics, 81–124. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Peterson, John. 2013. Parts of speech in Kharia: a formal account. In Rijkhoff and van Lier (eds.), 131–168.Google Scholar
Pustejovsky, James J. 1995. The Generative Lexicon. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Rauh, Gisa. 2010. Syntactic Categories: Their Identification and Description in Linguistic Theories (Oxford Surveys in Syntax and Morphology, 7). Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Rijkhoff, Jan and van Lier, Eva. 2013. Flexible Word Classes: Typological Studies of Underspecified Parts of Speech. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Ross, John Robert. 1972. The category squish: Endstation Hauptwort. In Papers from the Eighth Regional Meeting. Chicago Linguistic Society. April 14–16, 1972, 316–328.Google Scholar
Roy, Sarat Chandra and Roy, Ramesh Chandra. 1937. The Khāṛiās. Ranchi: Man in India.Google Scholar
Tomasello, Michael. 2008. Origins of Human Communication (The Jean Nicod Lectures). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Van Valin, Robert D. Jr. 2005. Exploring the Syntax–Semantics Interface. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Van Valin, Robert D. Jr. 2008. RPs and the nature of lexical and syntactic categories in Role and Reference Grammar. In Van Valin (ed.), 161–178.Google Scholar
Van Valin, Robert D. Jr. (ed.). 2008. Investigations of the Syntax–Semantics–Pragmatics Interface (Studies in Language Companion Series 105). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×