Diversity and uniformity of grammar: When ungrammatical expressions become grammatical
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Taro Kageyama
Abstract
This paper will show that what appear to be outrageous mistakes made by native speakers as well as non-native speakers have potential to contribute in non-trivial ways to deepening our understanding of language in both theoretical and practical terms when they are analyzed properly. Specifically, it is shown that the irregular or ungrammatical constructions that are ruled out by purely structural constraints postulated in generative or other formal syntax could be systematically salvaged by differentiating two different semantic functions: property (or individual-level) predications that characterize the property or attribute of a subject NP and eventive (i.e., stage-level) predications that describe events, actions, or states that unfold with the progress of time. These two types of predications, which have been considered to be semantic or pragmatic in nature, are found to have systematic reflections in syntax.
© 2017 by Walter de Gruyter Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Journal of Japanese Linguistics Vol. 28 (2012). Contents
- Introduction
- Diversity and uniformity of grammar: When ungrammatical expressions become grammatical
- Benjamin Smith Lyman as a phonetician
- Deictic and anaphoric uses of the Japanese demonstratives ko-so-a
- Three uses of kata ‘person’ in Japanese
- An investigation into the interaction between intentionality and the use of transitive/ intransitive expression: A contrastive study of Japanese and Marathi
- Zibun and locality in L2 Japanese
- Pronominal interpretations in L2 Japanese
Articles in the same Issue
- Journal of Japanese Linguistics Vol. 28 (2012). Contents
- Introduction
- Diversity and uniformity of grammar: When ungrammatical expressions become grammatical
- Benjamin Smith Lyman as a phonetician
- Deictic and anaphoric uses of the Japanese demonstratives ko-so-a
- Three uses of kata ‘person’ in Japanese
- An investigation into the interaction between intentionality and the use of transitive/ intransitive expression: A contrastive study of Japanese and Marathi
- Zibun and locality in L2 Japanese
- Pronominal interpretations in L2 Japanese
