Word-Class Systems and Other Grammatical Properties

Abstract

Abstract This chapter explores how and to what degree languages have word classes and the parameters of variation. The two minor classes, adjectives and adpositions, can vary from very large lexical inventories to very small or even null ones, and have unique properties or be subsumed into the major classes, nouns and verbs. Cross-linguistically, each of the two major word classes seems to be specialized for a different linguistic function, argumenthood for nouns and predication for verbs. But how much is this specialization built into the grammatical organization of a given language? The greater the degree of specialization is lexically built in, the stricter a noun–verb distinction holds for a language. But clearly this degree of specialization is highly variable, and so our grammatical models need a more typologically nuanced view of the noun–verb distinction, the outlines of which this chapter develops.