Subject-auxiliary inversion

A natural category

Datos Bibliográficos

ID20344295
AutoresAdele E Goldberg, Adele Ε Goldberg (0000-0001-8636-8890), Alex Del Giudice
Año2005
Volumen22
Número2-4
Fecha de publicación2005-01-12
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessNo
TipoARTICLE
RevistaThe Linguistic Review (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0167-6318 • E-ISSN: 1613-3676
EditorialWalter de Gruyter GmbH (PUBLISHER • DE)
DOI10.1515/tlir.2005.22.2-4.411
OpenAlexW2021012625
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas11
Referencias citadas10

This article argues that subject auxiliary inversion in English (SAI) provides an example of a syntactic generalization that is strongly motivated by a family of closely related functions. Recognition of the functional properties of each subconstruction associated with SAI allows us to predict many seemingly arbitrary properties of SAI: e.g., its (partial) restriction to appear in main clauses, the fact that the inversion only involves the first auxiliary, and the fact that its use in comparatives is more limited. The dominant feature of SAI, being nonpositive, is also argued to motivate the syntactic form of SAI. It is suggested that attention to the rich data inherent in language and to findings in categorization research simultaneously serves to reinforce and benefit our understanding of both language and categorization more generally

Categorization · Generalization · Linguistics · Natural language · Natural language processing · Premise · Computer Science · Language, Discourse, Communication Strategies · Language, Metaphor, and Cognition · Mathematics · Philosophy · Psychology · Syntax, Semantics, Linguistic Variation · Artificial Intelligence