Essays on Grammatical Theory and Universal Grammar

Written by leading linguists, the essays contained in this volume bring together a variety of original contributions to grammatical theory. Contributors examine various languages and discuss such topics as grammatical relations, gender systems and the semantic basis for syntactic relations.

This volume brings together a variety of original contributions to grammatical theory by a number of leading linguists. Articles by John Anderson and Jim Miller address, in different ways, the semantic basis for syntactic relations, while the contribution from John Lyons develops a theme which underlies his work on notional grammar - that of the relationship between ontology and language. Detailed studies of particular constructions in one language are provided by articles by Pulman, on prepositional relatives in English, and by Radford, on exclamative particles in modern spoken French. The volume also contains a wealth of original work by leading figures in Universal Grammar, of interest to anyone working in grammatical theory: Bernard Comrie on reference tracking systems, Bob Dixon on grammatical relations, Greville Corbett on gender systems, and John Hawkins on the explanation of Language Universals.

Introduction
John Anderson: Reflections on notional grammar, with some remarks on its relevance to issues in the analysis of English and its history
Bernard Comrie: Some general properties of reference-tracking systems
Greville Corbett: An approach to the description of gender systems
R. M. W. Dixon: Subject and object in universal grammar
John A. Hawkins: Competence and performance in the explanation of language universals
John Lyons: Semantic ascent: A neglected aspect of syntactic typology
Jim Miller: Participant Roles, synonymy, and truth conditions
Steve Pulman: Prepositional relatives and syntactic marginality
Andrew Radford: The status of exclamative particles in modern spoken French
References
Index