"Few issues in the history of the language sciences have been an object of as much discussion and controversy as linguistic categories. The eleven articles included in this volume tackle the issue of categories from a wide range of perspectives and with different foci, in the context of the current debate on the nature and methodology of the research on comparative concepts - particularly, the relation between the categories needed to describe languages and those needed to compare languages. While the first six papers deal with general theoretical questions, the following five confront specific issues in the domain of language analysis arising from the application of categories. The volume will appeal to a very broad readership: advanced students and scholars in any field of linguistics, but also specialists in the philosophy of language, and scholars interested in the cognitive aspects of language from different subfields (neurolinguistics, cognitive sciences, psycholinguistics, anthropology)"--.

• Linguistic Categories, Language Description and Linguistic Typology
• Editorial page
• Title page
• Coopyright page
• Table of contents
• 1. Linguistic categories, language description and linguistic typology – An overview
  • 1. Introduction: The rationale for this book
  • 2. Language-specific vs. universal categories, description vs. comparison – A long history made short
  • 3. The lingtyp debate and its background
  • 4. Recent insights: The Linguistic Typology debate
  • 5. Concluding remarks
  • 6. The contributions to this volume
  • References
• 2. Towards standardization of morphosyntactic terminology for general linguistics
  • 1. Terminological consistency and standardization
  • 2. Comparative concepts, language-particular categories, and natural kinds
  • 3. Examples of possible standard definitions of well-known terms
  • 4. Principles for standard morphosyntactic terms
  • 5. Shared-core definitions of comparative concepts
  • 6. Stereotypes and prototypes
  • 7. Standard comparative terms and language-particular description
  • 8. Concluding remarks
  • Acknowledgements
  • References
• 3. Universal underpinnings of language-specific categories
  • 1. Introduction
  • 2. The (non-) universality of categories
    • 2.1 An analytical conundrum
    • 2.2 A theoretical controversy
      • 2.2.1 The generativists’ take on categories
      • 2.2.2 The typologists’ take on categories
    • 2.3 The significance of distributional (formal) patterns
      • 2.3.1 Patterns of multi-functionality
      • 2.3.2 Patterns of contrast
  • 3. Why do languages categorize their UoLs and how?
    • 3.1 The universal spine hypothesis
    • 3.2 Universal ingredients of categorization
  • 4. Beyond grammatical categories: The categories of interaction
    • 4.1 The extended universal spine
    • 4.2 Confirmationals, response markers, and other categories of interactional language
      • 4.2.1 A syntactic analysis of sentence final eh?
      • 4.2.2 The paradigmatic organization of sentence final particles. Evidence from Mandarin
      • 4.2.3 The functional equivalence of particles and intonation
    • 4.3 How sound is meaning
    • 4.4 The category of huh
  • 5. Conclusion: How to do typology
  • References
• 4. Typology of functional domains
  • 1. Aims of typology
  • 2. Approaches to the study of functional categories
  • 3. Problems with conceptual frameworks (comparative concepts)
  • 4. Current approaches to the discovery of functions
  • 5. Theoretical foundations for a non-aprioristic description of functions
  • 6. Discovery of the function of a linguistic form
    • 6.1 The prerequisites for the discovery of functions
    • 6.2 Two types of functions in the present approach
      • 6.2.1 Relationship between functions as a main discovery tool
  • 7. The basic questions in the cross-linguistic study of functions
  • 8. Proposed object of typology of functions
  • 9. Point of view
    • 9.1 Point of view of the subject as a marked category
    • 9.2 Point of view of the subject as unmarked category
    • 9.3 Goal orientation
    • 9.4 Point of view of the subject and goal orientation in Hdi
  • 10. Locative predication
  • 11. Benefactive, malefactive, and the indirect object
    • 11.1 Benefactive function
    • 11.2 Indirectly affected argument
    • 11.3 Conclusions
  • 12. Advantages of comparing functions encoded in the grammatical systems
  • 13. What the typology of functional functions will look like
  • Abbreviations
  • References
• 5. Theories of language, language comparison, and grammatical description
  • A. Introduction and background
  • 1. Introduction
    • 1.1 Motivation: Why this essay, and for whom
    • 1.2 Topic and coverage (1): General
    • 1.3 Topic and coverage (2): Limitations
    • 1.4 Method (1): General
    • 1.5 Method (2): Specifics
    • 1.6 Major theses
    • 1.7 Organization
  • 2. Background
    • 2.1 Logic (1): General
    • 2.2 Logic (2): Lambda expressions
    • 2.3 Logic (3): Intensions
    • 2.4 Logic (4): The language
    • 2.5 Notions of category (1): General
    • 2.6 Notions of category (2): Descriptive categories
  • B. Determining a comparative concept: The definition of “serial verb construction”
  • 3. Background: Definition types
    • 3.1 A basic ambiguity: ‘Real’ vs. ‘nominal’ definitions
    • 3.2 Types of nominal definitions (1): Stipulative definitions
    • 3.3 Types of nominal definitions (2): Explicative definitions
    • 3.4 Explications and the status of explicative definitions
  • 4. Basic type of the definition
    • 4.1 The definition
    • 4.2 The objects of the definition: A threefold ambiguity
    • 4.3 The ambiguity resolved
    • 4.4 The definition as a nominal definition
  • 5. Subtype of the definition
    • 5.1 The definition as an explicative definition
    • 5.2 The explication
    • 5.3 The explicatum theory
  • 6. Background: Definition form
    • 6.1 Informal and formal definitions
    • 6.2 Requirements on stipulative definitions
    • 6.3 Proper definitions (1): Equivalences
    • 6.4 Proper definitions (2): Identities
  • 7. The definition of “serial verb construction”: Logical form (1)
    • 7.1 Introduction
    • 7.2 Formal rendering of the definition: The translation D1
    • 7.3 “serial verb construction”: Logical status as a 1-place predicate
  • 8. The definition of “serial verb construction”: Logical form (2)
    • 8.1 The same-language requirement: The problem of the hidden variable
    • 8.2 Dealing with the requirement
    • 8.3 Status of the hidden variable: Bound or free?
    • 8.4 “serial verb construction”: Logical status as a 2-place predicate
    • 8.5 An alternative: “serial verb construction” as a one-place function-term
    • 8.6 A basic inconsistency
  • 9. The concept of serial verb construction
    • 9.1 Basis for the concept
    • 9.2 Two ways of construing the concept
    • 9.3 Comparison
    • 9.4 Adopting the first construction of the concept
  • 10. Applying the concept term
    • 10.1 Universality statements
    • 10.2 Comparative statements
    • 10.3 Simple descriptive statements
    • 10.4 Identification statements
  • C. ‘Comparative concepts’ vs. ‘descriptive categories’: Revising the conception
  • 11. Comparative concepts (1): Basics – Revisions One to Four
    • 11.1 First Revision: Ambiguities resolved
    • 11.2 Second Revision: Reference to languages made explicit
    • 11.3 Third Revision: The nature of concepts clarified
    • 11.4 Fourth Revision: Concept types based on definition types
  • 12. Comparative concepts (2): Intension-based concept types – Revisions Five to Seven
    • 12.1 Fifth Revision: Comparative concepts as properties of construction/language pairs
    • 12.2 Sixth Revision: Comparative concepts as properties of item/language pairs
    • 12.3 The problem of dealing with linguistic functions
    • 12.4 Seventh Revision: Comparative concepts as properties of language/function pairs
    • 12.5 The intension-based system of concept types
  • 13. Comparative concepts (3): ‘Universal applicability’ – Revision Eight
    • 13.1 ‘Universal applicability’ of comparative concepts: A problematic conception
    • 13.2 Analysis
    • 13.3 Interpreting “applicable”
    • 13.4 Unfoundedness of the essential claim
    • 13.5 Eighth Revision: Rejecting universal applicability, accepting degrees of generality
  • 14. Descriptive categories (1): The nature of descriptive categories – Revision Nine
    • 14.1 The problem
    • 14.2 Ninth Revision: Adopting a form of weak constructivism throughout
  • 15. Descriptive categories (2): How not to define category terms
    • 15.1 Background
    • 15.2 The problem of comparability
    • 15.3 Identification vs. definition: Example
    • 15.4 Rejection as a definition
  • 16. Descriptive categories (3): The proper treatment of category terms – Revision Ten
    • 16.1 Category terms based on comparative concept terms (1): Lambda expressions
    • 16.2 Category terms based on comparative-concept terms (2): Constants
    • 16.3 Function category terms
    • 16.4 Tenth Revision: Category terms as standard category terms, basic and derived
    • 16.5 Non-standard category terms
  • 17. Relating comparative concepts and descriptive categories. Concept types
    • 17.1 Comparative concepts and descriptive categories: The ontological relationship
    • 17.2 A notational convention
    • 17.3 The problem of ‘portable terms’
    • 17.4 Comparative concepts: Orientation types and origin types
    • 17.5 Standard comparative concepts and the overall system of types
  • 18. The problem of type-token relations
    • 18.1 The non-existence claim
    • 18.2 The problem of general categories
    • 18.3 General categories as types: Qualifying the non-existence claim
    • a. Comparative concepts of the construction/language type
    • b. Comparative concepts of the item/language type
    • c. Comparative concepts of the language/function type
    • 18.4 General categories and systems of categories
  • 19. Theories of language, language comparison, and grammatical description
    • 19.1 Theories of language
    • 19.2 Comparative concepts and theories of language
    • 19.3 Comparative concepts and language comparison
    • 19.4 Comparative concepts and grammatical description
    • 19.5 General linguistics, comparative linguistics, and descriptive linguistics
  • Acknowledgements
  • References
• 6. Comparative concepts are not a different kind of thing
  • 1. Introduction
  • 2. A critical close reading of Haspelmath (2010a)
    • 2.1 Short summary of Haspelmath (2010a)
    • 2.2 Discussion of Haspelmath (2010a)
      • 2.2.1 The core arguments
      • 2.2.2 Haspelmath’s suggestions for concrete comparative concepts
  • Excursus
  • 3. An alternative: Monotonic, multiple inheritance
    • 3.1 Background
    • 3.2 Blueprint
    • 3.3 Implementation
      • 3.3.1 A guided tour through Figure 11
      • 3.3.2 Beyond Figure 11
  • 4. Conclusion and outlook
  • Acknowledgments
  • References
• 7. Essentials of the unityp research project
  • 0. Preliminary remarks
  • 1. Introduction
  • 2. Some essential concepts of unityp
    • 2.1 Driving force
    • 2.2 Premise (functional setting)
    • 2.3 Function
    • 2.4 Continua/dimensions
    • 2.5 Three areas of research (hierarchical levels)
    • 2.6 The three levels and the question of descriptive and comparative categories
  • 3. unityp in progress: New aspects and notions
  • 4. Categories and concepts: In memoriam Hansjakob Seiler
    • 4.1 Object relation: Bottom-up procedures and abduction
    • 4.2 Number and quantification: Abductive methodology and hermeneutic circle
  • References
• 8. The non-universality of linguistic categories
  • 1. Introduction
  • 2. Theoretical and methodological preliminaries
  • 3. Functional characteristics of pluractional markers
    • 3.1 Core functions
    • 3.2 Additional functions
    • 3.3 Rare functions
    • 3.4 The pluractional conceptual space
  • 4. Formal properties of pluractional markers
  • 5. Diachronic sources of pluractional markers
  • 6. The grammatical status of pluractional markers in cross-linguistic perspective
  • 7. Conclusion
  • Abbreviations (cf. Leipzig Glossing Rules)
  • References
• 9. Parts of speech, comparative concepts and Indo-European linguistics
  • 1. Introduction
  • 2. The comparative concept debate in the field of the PoS
  • 3. The PoS in Latin and in Sanskrit: State of the art
    • 3.1 The former (Western) classifications of Sanskrit
      • 3.1.1 Joshi (1967) and Bhat (1994, 2000)
      • 3.1.2 Works following Dixon’s approach (2004)
  • 4. A relatively new PoS theory
    • 4.1 PoS-concepts
    • 4.2 PoS-constructions
    • 4.3 PoS-lexemes
  • 5. The Latin PoS system
  • 6. The RV Sanskrit PoS system
  • 7. Discussion and conclusion
    • 7.1 Historical IE linguistics
    • 7.2 Linguistic terminology
    • 7.3 Further research prospects
  • List of abbreviations
  • References
• 10. Verbal vs. nominal reflexive constructions
  • 1. Introduction
  • 2. The debate on “reflexives”
    • 2.1 The vagueness of “reflexives”
    • 2.2 Reflexive constructions in a typological perspective
      • 2.2.1 Faltz’s definition
      • 2.2.2 “Reflexives” as markers of coreference
      • 2.2.3 “Canonical” or “prototypical” reflexives
  • 3. The morphology of reflexives
  • 4. Verbal vs. nominal reflexives
    • 4.1 Definitions of “verbal” and “nominal” reflexives
    • 4.2 Criteria for distinguishing nominal from verbal reflexives
    • 4.3 Problematic cases for the distinction between verbal and nominal reflexives
  • 5. Conclusions
  • Abbreviations
  • References
• 11. The category ‘pronoun’ in East and Southeast Asian languages, with a focus on Japanese
  • 1. Introduction
  • 2. Person as a grammatical category
  • 3. Personal pronouns
  • 4. Pronouns in East and Southeast Asian languages
    • 4.1 A focus on Japanese pronouns
    • 4.2 Korean pronouns
  • 5. Ellipsis
  • 6. Towards an emancipatory pragmatics
  • 7. Conclusion
  • Abbreviations
  • References
• Languages Index