Chapter published in:
Lexical Polycategoriality: Cross-linguistic, cross-theoretical and language acquisition approaches
Edited by Valentina Vapnarsky and Edy Veneziano
[Studies in Language Companion Series 182] 2017
► pp. 243–271

Two classes of verbs in Northern Australian languages

Implications for the typology of polycategoriality

| University of Manchester
This paper discusses some of the implications for the typology of parts of speech – including the notion of polycategoriality – of the existence, in some Australian languages, of two clearly distinct lexical categories which meet the common definition of “verb”. Both appear exclusively in predicative function, but only one of them can form independent predicates, while the other is restricted to dependent predication. It is argued that the commonly assumed set of universal major parts of speech, even if conceived of as prototypes, is eurocentric and should be replaced by a more fine-grained set of syntacto-pragmatic functions which are better suited to identifying categorial overlap, and allow us to give proper consideration to more specialised parts of speech.
Keywords: parts of speech, dependent predicates, ideophones, preverbs, closed-class verbs, subordination, Australian languages
Published online: 01 November 2017
https://doi.org/10.1075/slcs.182.09sch
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