Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-mwx4w Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-28T08:06:54.899Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Meaning of Lexical Classes

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 December 2008

Gunlög Josefsson
Gunlög Josefsson
Affiliation:
Department of Scandinavian Languages, Lund University, Helgona-backen 14, SE-223 62 Lund, Sweden. E-mail: gunlog.josefsson@nordlund.lu.se
Get access

Abstract

Following the spirit of Relativized Extreme Functionalism, I argue that a set of grammatical features, traditionally thought of as devoid of semantics, lexical class (declension and conjugation), in fact has semantic content. Taking Josefsson (1995. 1997. 1998) as a point of departure, I suggest that the lexical class determines the word class of a word, hence relating the word to a major ontological category such as THING and EVENT. A certain lexical class may correspond to a semantic subclass of a major ontological category, but this does not need to be the case. The approach taken explains certain morphological phenomena in Swedish, such as stem vowels, and explains why the non-head part of a compound is undetermined for major ontological category.

Type
Articles
Information
Nordic Journal of Linguistics , Volume 24 , Issue 2 , December 2001 , pp. 218 - 231
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2001

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Chomsky, N. 1999. Derivation by Phase. MIT Occasional Papers in Linguistics. Cambridge, MA.Google Scholar
Halle, M. & Marantz, A. 1993. Distributed Morphology and the Pieces of Inflection. In Hale, K. & Keyser, S. J. (eds). The View from Building 20. Essays in Honor of Sylvain Bromberger. Cambridge. MA: MIT Press, pp. 111–176.Google Scholar
Hellberg, S. 1985. ‘They Never Come Back’. On Improductive Rules and Allomorphs. Studia Linguistica 39: 130–142.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Holmberg, A. 1992. Properties of Non-heads in Compounds: A Case Study. Working Papers in Scandinavian Syntax 49, 27–58. Department of Scandinavian Languages. Lund University.Google Scholar
Jackendoff, R. 1985. Semantics and Cognition. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Josefsson, G. 1995. The Notion of Word Class and the Internal Make-up of Words. Working Papers in Scandinavian Syntax 56. Department of Scandinavian languages. Lund University, pp. 1–45.Google Scholar
Josefsson, G. 1997. On the Principles of Word Formation in Swedish. Lundastudier i nordisk språkvetenskap A 51. Lund: Lund University Press.Google Scholar
Josefsson, G. 1998. Minimal Words in a Minimal Syntax. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lakoff, G. & Johnson, M. 1980. Metaphors We Live By. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Marantz, A. 1997. No Escape from Syntax: Don't Try Morphological Analysis in the Privacy of Your Own Lexicon. In Dimitriadis, A. et al. (eds). University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics, vol. 4.2, Proceedings of the 21st Annual Penn Linguistics Colloquium, 1997, pp. 201–225.Google Scholar
Pesetsky, D. & Torrego, E. 2000. T-to-C Movement: Causes and Consequences. To appear in Kenstowicz, (ed.). Ken Hale: a Life in Language. Cambridge MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Platzack, C. & Rosengren, I. 1997. On the Subject of Imperatives. A Minimalist Account of the Imperative Clause. Journal of Comparative Germanic Syntax 3. 177–224.Google Scholar
Söderberg, B. 1983, Från rytters och cowboys till tjuvstrykers. S-pluralen i svenska. Stockholm Studies in Scandinavian Philology 16.Google Scholar
Svenska Akademiens ordlista över svenska språket. 1998. [Word list of the Swedish language issued by the Swedish Academy]. 12th edition. Norstedts Ordbok i distribution.Google Scholar
Teleman, U. 1970. Om svenska ord. Gleerups.Google Scholar
Wessén, E. 1962. Svensk språkhistoria I, Ljudlära och ordböjningslära. Sjätte upplagan. Stockholm. Göteborg. Uppsala: Almqvist & Wiksell.Google Scholar