Grammatical categories (e.g. complementizer, negation, auxiliary, case) are some of the most important building blocks of syntax and morphology. Categorization therefore poses fundamental questions about grammatical structures and about the lexicon from which they are built. Adopting a 'lexicalist' stance, the authors argue that lexical items are not epiphenomena, but really represent the mapping of sound to meaning (and vice versa) that classical conceptions imply. Their rule-governed combination creates words, phrases and sentences structured by the 'categories' that are the object of the...
Grammatical categories (e.g. complementizer, negation, auxiliary, case) are some of the most important building blocks of syntax and morphology. Categ...