Functional categories, morphosyntactic change, grammaticalization

Semantic Change in Grammaticalization

In this paper, I want to establish semantic reanalysis as an independent mode of meaning change in language history. My point of departure will be cases of language change that have traditionally been classed as „grammaticalization“, on one hand because we will find very nice instances of semantic reanalysis particuarly in that field, and on the other hand because I think that the notion of sem...

The production of lexical categories (VP) and functional categories (copula) at the initial stage of child L2 acquisition

This is a longitudinal case study of two Farsi-speaking children learning English: ‘Bernard’ and ‘Melissa’, who were 7;4 and 8;4 at the start of data collection. The research deals with the initial state and further development in the child second language (L2) acquisition of syntax regarding the presence or absence of copula as a functional category, as well as the role and degree of L1 influe...

Functional categories categorized Draft

In Vermaat (1999a) and Vermaat (1999b) we have shown that the basic operations Merge and Move can be covered naturally in multimodal Categorial Grammar (MMCG). On the basis of a feature correspondence between lexical feature specifications in Minimalist Grammar (Stabler, 1999, MG) and the categorial types assigned to lexical entries, a mapping can be made between MG and MMCG. As a conclusion of...

Syntax without functional categories

This paper argues against the notion 'functional category' (a kind of word-class) while accepting that individual words may be described as 'function' words or 'content' words. It focuses on the two least controversial examples of functional categories — 'determiner' and 'complementiser' — and argues that neither of these categories is needed; and if this conclusion is correct, there is even le...

Concrete contexts of morphosyntactic change: Evidence from Later Medieval Greek