Download Croft (2000: 65) - Noun, verb and adjective are not categories of

Croft, W. (1991), Syntactic categories and grammatical relations: The cognitive
organization of information, Chicago, Chicago University Press.
Croft, W. (2000), Parts of speech as language universals and as languageparticular categories, in Vogel, P. / Comrie, B. (eds.), Approaches to the
Typology of Word Classes, Berlin – New York, Mouton de Gruyter, 65-102.
Visione ‘tradizionale’
- Noun, verb and adjective are categories of particular languages.
- But noun, verb and adjective are NOT language universals – that is, there are
NOT found in some languages.
Croft (2000: 65)
- Noun, verb and adjective are not categories of particular languages.
- But noun, verb and adjective are language universals – that is, there are
typological prototypes […] which should be called noun, verb and adjective.
A proper theory of parts of speech that applies to all languages must satisfy the
following three conditions in order to be successful.
First, there must be a criterion for distinguishing parts of speech from other
morphosyntactically defined subclasses.
Second, there must be a cross-linguistically valid and uniform set of formal
grammatical criteria for evaluating the universality of the parts-of-speech
distinctions.
Third there must be a clear distinction between language universals and particular
language facts.
“Syntactic categories, including those commonly labelled as parts of speech, are
derivative from constructions that define them” (Croft 2000: 85)
Actual constructions are the primitive elements
of syntactic representation and categories are
derived from them: it is a sample of different
constructions with a common function that
defines the boundaries of a category or of a
part of speech.
Typological comparison will sketch a pattern of variation and every single
language will fit somewhere in this pattern of variation
Croft (1991: 67)
Reference
Modification
Predication
unmarked nouns
genitive,
adjectivalisations,
PPs on nouns
predicate nominals,
copulas
Properties deadjectival nouns
unmarked
adjectives
Predicate adjectives,
copulas
Actions
participles, relative
clauses
unmarked verbs
Objects
action nominals,
complements,
infinitives, gerunds
The universal-typological theory of parts of speech embraces constructions with
and without function-indicating morphosyntax. Function-indicating morphosyntax
overtly encodes the functions of reference, predication and modification for
various classes of lexical items. As such, function-indicating morphosyntax falls
under the structural coding criterion of the theory of typological markedness. The
theory of typological markedness […] is a general theory of the relationship
between form and meaning across languages
The theory defines universal prototypes for the three major parts of speech, but
does not define boundaries for these categories. Boundaries are aspects of
language-particular grammatical categories, determined by distributional
analysis”
The typological universals do not predict the exact behaviour of individual
languages; rather, they predict that a language will fit somewhere in the pattern of
variation allowed by typological marking theory
The behavioural potential criterion specifies that the unmarked member
displays at least as wide a range of grammatical behaviour as the marked
member. The behavioural potential criterion is again formulated as an
implicational universal. It allows for the possibility of marked members […] to
have the same inflectional possibilities as unmarked members […] in some
language. It excludes the possibility of marked members having more
inflectional possibilities than unmarked members.
The behavioural potential criterion also allows for the limited or “defective”
behaviour of the marked member of a category […] without having to commit
to the marked member being “in” or “not in” the category in a universaltypological sense.
Moreover, the terms verb and adjective do not describe language-particular
grammatical categories anyway. They describe cross-linguistic patterns of variation.
In particular they describe a prototype. A prototype describes the core of a category;
it does not say anything about the boundary of a category […]. In fact, the universal
typological theory of parts of speech defines only prototypes for the parts of speech;
it does not define boundaries. Boundaries are features of language-particular
categories.
Noun > reference to an object
Adjective > modification by a property
Verb > predication of an action
In such a theoretical framework, we cannot exclude cases of multiple class
membership and of sporadic occurrence of linguistic constructions in atypical
roles.
Croft (2000: 96)
“it is quite common cross-linguistically to find a lexical item used in more than
one pragmatic function without overt derivation but with a significant and often
systematic semantic shift […]. The relevant cross-linguistic universal is that
these shifts are always towards the semantic class prototypically associated with
the pragmatic function”
Gender
Number
Noun
Lexeme
inflected form
Adjective
inflected form
inflected form
?compound > constructional idiom > suffix
compound > constructional idiom > phrase