A Fine-Grained Approach to Lexical and Functional Syntactic Categories : Evidence from English prepositions and their acquisition

ISBN-13: 9783639066869 / Angielski / Miękka / 2009 / 148 str.

Heather Littlefield

Opis

Most syntactic theories have come to rely on thedistinction between lexical and functional categories: nouns and verbs are lexical , whiledeterminers and inflection are functional . Agrowing body of research challenges this binarydivision, suggesting there are semi-lexical elements with both lexical and functional properties. This book develops a fine-grainedapproach where lexical and functional are nottaken as ends of the same continuum, but are seen astwo separate and distinct features, creating atwo-dimensional binary distinction ([±Lexical,±Functional]). This analysis is applied to thedomain of prepositions, and resolves most of thecontradictions manifest in that domain. Support isdrawn from parallels in syntactic and semanticbehavior, as well as evidence from a longitudinalstudy of five children s early spontaneousproduction. This monograph should be useful toresearchers in a variety of domains, includingsyntax, aphasia, first- and second-languageacquisition. Anyone interested in thenature of syntactic categories in general, and thenature of prepositions and prepositional-elements inparticular, will find this book useful.

O autorze

Heather Littlefield earned her MA and PhD in Applied Linguistics
at Boston University, with research interests in first language
acquisition and the syntactic properties of lexical and
functional categories. She is currently an Assistant Academic
Specialist and the Head Advisor in the Linguistics Program at
Northeastern University.