Lexical categories and argument structure : a study with reference to Sakha ; (met enn samenvatting in het Nederlands)

This dissertation presents a model of lexical category determination based on properties of argument structure. To start with, there are two types of lexicons – functional and conceptual. Members of the conceptual lexicon are category-less roots which encode concepts. For each concept its thematic properties are specified in terms of ?-features [±c] and [±m] forming feature clusters. Each feature cluster corresponds to an argument of a predicate that is conventionally saturated by merging a DP in the syntax. Thematic properties of a concept determine whether it will merge in the syntax as a noun, adjective or verb. Non-predicative concepts associated with ? arguments will be categorized as nouns, predicative concepts with one argument as adjectives and predicative concepts with more than one argument as verbs. Thematic properties (number of arguments) are rooted in causal relations into which concepts enter: necessary/sufficient conditions associated with a given concept are translated as ?-feature clusters. The proposed model presents an extension of the Theta system developed in Reinhart (2000-2003). TS maintains the view that operations on argument structure can take place both in the lexical and syntactic modules. This is in stark contrast with an approach to argument structure entertained within e.g. Distributed Morphology which strips the lexicon of all computational powers. The dissertation, however, presents numerous arguments in support of the computational lexicon. The work consists of 9 chapters and 5 appendices. Chapter 0 summarizes history of categorization. Chapter 1 presents an overview of the theoretical background behind categorization and explores advantages and disadvantages of various theories and hypotheses with respect to categorization. It also introduces two competing conceptions about argument structure – syntax-oriented and lexicon-oriented. Chapter 2 gives an inventory of roots and suffixes in Sakha. It presents a number of arguments against the claim that any root can become a noun, verb or adjective by being embedded under category-determining functional heads. Chapter 3 presents evidence for the claim that, on the one hand, nouns have no theta-grids and, on the other, that they do not have be turned into arguments because they are already argumental. Different types of possession are examined and possessors are analyzed as syntactically introduced arguments. Chapter 4 is about adjectives in Sakha. It is shown that adjectives, unlike nouns, are predicative; however, unlike verbs, they have only one open position in their theta grid. To substantiate this claim, the behaviour of adjectives is compared with that of nouns and verbs in a number of syntactic contexts. Chapter 5 defends the TS-analysis of unaccusatives as derived from their transitive counterparts by means of [+c]-reduction. Chapter 6 is concerned with the nature of accusative Case. It supports and gives additional empirical motivation for the existence of the ‘Accusative Case Parameter’ according to which accusative case is decomposable into universal thematic and parameterized structural components. It is argued that Sakha lacks the structural component of accusative case. The workings of the parameter in Sakha are investigated with the help of various lexical and syntactic operations on the argument structure of verbs. The operations in question are reduction, reflexivization, passivization, causativization and reciprocalization. Chapter 7 is devoted to denominal verbs. Chapter 8 concludes.