On the basis of a rich and extensive body of data involving case marking, agreement, noun incorporation, complex predicates, anaphora and control in Hindi, this book explores the regularities in the expression of the arguments of predicates, with a view to understanding the nature of their relation with meanings and grammatical functions. The theoretical questions that drive the investigations are: a)What are the dimensions/levels of structure in the organization of the syntax and semantics of a predicate? (b) What are the properties of and the relations holding between the elements of structure within each? (c) What is the nature of the mapping across dimensions?
This book argues for a conception of linguistic organization involving the factorization of syntactically relevant information into at least four parallel dimensions of structure: semantic structure, argument structure, grammatical function structure, and grammatical category structure. The author argues that these dimensions are co-present, being simultaneously accessible for the statement of regularities. Different principles of grammar may either reinforce one another, or conflict with one another. The observed facts of language then turn out to be the result of interaction among the reinforcing and conflicting principles.
Tara Mohanan is professor of linguistics at the National University of Singapore.
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