Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Glossary
- List of Abbreviations
- Texts and Authors
- The Sanskrit Transcription System
- 1 Introduction
- 2 The Aṣṭādhyāyī at Work
- 3 Rule Interaction
- 4 Morphological Systems
- 5 Syntax: Argument Structure
- 6 Formal Language Theory and Computational Power
- 7 Semantics and Pragmatics: Compositionality and the Relation between Grammar and Meaning
- 8 Phonology: Phonemes and Writing Systems
- 9 Conclusion
- References
- Subject Index
- Author Index
- Index Locorum
- Word Index
5 - Syntax: Argument Structure
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 March 2024
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Glossary
- List of Abbreviations
- Texts and Authors
- The Sanskrit Transcription System
- 1 Introduction
- 2 The Aṣṭādhyāyī at Work
- 3 Rule Interaction
- 4 Morphological Systems
- 5 Syntax: Argument Structure
- 6 Formal Language Theory and Computational Power
- 7 Semantics and Pragmatics: Compositionality and the Relation between Grammar and Meaning
- 8 Phonology: Phonemes and Writing Systems
- 9 Conclusion
- References
- Subject Index
- Author Index
- Index Locorum
- Word Index
Summary
This chapter addresses the major syntactic (and partly semantic) topic of argument structure. Argument structure alternations have been central in the development of syntactic theory since Chomsky’s original transformational approach to passivization, and particularly since Fillmore’s work on ‘Case’ relations. In Pāṇinian grammar, the kāraka system provides a highly sophisticated model of argument structure, which has influenced developments in the modern Western tradition, and which also differs from modern argument structure approaches in interesting ways. The kāraka system is explained and illustrated, and compared and contrasted with modern approaches to argument alternations.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Modern Linguistics in Ancient India , pp. 107 - 136Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2024