The justification of grammatical categories
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Wallis Reid
Abstract
What is the theoretical justification for positing such constructs as conjugation classes, declension classes, parts of speech, grammatical gender, and agreement rules? This paper argues that no grammatical category or construct should be taken as an a priori given; each must be justified by the demonstration that it solves a distributional problem. This is the core analytical principle upon which Columbia School linguistics rests, and it is responsible for much that is innovative in Ricardo Otheguy’s grammatical and sociolinguistic research. The novel analytical consequences of this principle will be illustrated by applying it to the distributional problem of the different co-occurrence patterning of such apparent synonyms as blanca and blanco in Spanish.
Abstract
What is the theoretical justification for positing such constructs as conjugation classes, declension classes, parts of speech, grammatical gender, and agreement rules? This paper argues that no grammatical category or construct should be taken as an a priori given; each must be justified by the demonstration that it solves a distributional problem. This is the core analytical principle upon which Columbia School linguistics rests, and it is responsible for much that is innovative in Ricardo Otheguy’s grammatical and sociolinguistic research. The novel analytical consequences of this principle will be illustrated by applying it to the distributional problem of the different co-occurrence patterning of such apparent synonyms as blanca and blanco in Spanish.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- First principles in linguistic inquiry 1
- Categories of grammar and categories of speech 7
- Letter from Ricardo Otheguy to Shana Poplack 35
- Variable grammars 45
- Discovering structure 67
- The justification of grammatical categories 91
- Spooky grammatical effects 133
- Ditransitives and the English System of Degree of Control 157
- LatinUs* and linguistics 189
- Reviving the unicorn 209
- Bilingual acquisition 245
- An incomplete disquisition against ‘incomplete acquisition’ 269
- Index 291
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- First principles in linguistic inquiry 1
- Categories of grammar and categories of speech 7
- Letter from Ricardo Otheguy to Shana Poplack 35
- Variable grammars 45
- Discovering structure 67
- The justification of grammatical categories 91
- Spooky grammatical effects 133
- Ditransitives and the English System of Degree of Control 157
- LatinUs* and linguistics 189
- Reviving the unicorn 209
- Bilingual acquisition 245
- An incomplete disquisition against ‘incomplete acquisition’ 269
- Index 291
