none 10.1075/tsl.132.02has John Benjamins Publishing Company John Benjamins Publishing Company 1757 121729205 3675562 1421459 202507031746000032 10.1075 2025-07-03T15:45:41Z 2020-12-01T18:07:54Z 13 0167-7373 10.1075/tsl https://benjamins.com/ catalog/tsl Luca Alfieri University of Studies Guglielmo Marconi https://ror.org/00j0rk173 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7867-0715 Giorgio Francesco Arcodia Ca’ Foscari University of Venice https://ror.org/04yzxz566 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7324-8352 Paolo Ramat University of Pavia https://ror.org/00s6t1f81 Few issues in the history of the language sciences have been an object of as much discussion and controversy as linguistic categories. The eleven articles included in this volume tackle the issue of categories from a wide range of perspectives and with different foci, in the context of the current debate on the nature and methodology of the research on comparative concepts – particularly, the relation between the categories needed to describe languages and those needed to compare languages. While the first six papers deal with general theoretical questions, the following five confront specific issues in the domain of language analysis arising from the application of categories. The volume will appeal to a very broad readership: advanced students and scholars in any field of linguistics, but also specialists in the philosophy of language, and scholars interested in the cognitive aspects of language from different subfields (neurolinguistics, cognitive sciences, psycholinguistics, anthropology). 132 7 9 2021 6 21 2021 9789027208651 9789027259943 John Benjamins Publishing Company Amsterdam 10.1075/tsl.132 http://www.jbe-platform.com/content/books/9789027259943 https://www.jbe-platform.com/deliver/fulltext/9789027259943.pdf https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1075/tsl.132/html Martin Haspelmath MPI-SHH Jena https://ror.org/05mjrzy91 Leipzig University https://ror.org/03s7gtk40 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2100-8493 This paper proposes that just like phonologists, linguists working on morphosyntax should have a core set of standard terms that are understood in exactly the same way across the discipline. Most of these terms are traditional terms that are given a standard retro-definition, because linguists already behave as if these terms had the same meaning for everyone. The definitions are definitions of general concepts (i.e. comparative concepts, applicable to all languages in exactly the same way), but they are expected to be highly similar to language-particular categories with the same labels. If linguists were close to finding out the true natural-kind categories of Human Language that all grammars consist of, there would be no need for definitions, but since this seems to be a remote goal, research on general linguistics must rely on uniformly defined general terms. 7 9 2021 6 21 2021 35 58 10.1075/tsl.132.02has https://benjamins.com/catalog/tsl.132.02has https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1075/tsl.132.02has/html The Atoms of Language Baker 2001 The Grammar of Words: An Introduction to Linguistic Morphology Booij 2005 10.1017/CBO9780511486777.003 Canonical Morphology and Syntax Brown 1 2013 What there might be and what there is: An introduction to Canonical Typology Lectures on Government and Binding Chomsky 1981 CV Phonology: A Generative Theory of the Syllable Clements 1985 Aspect: An Introduction to the Study of Verbal Aspect and Related Problems Comrie 1976 Syntactic Typology: Studies in the Phenomenology of Language Comrie 329 1978 Ergativity 10.1017/CBO9780511618437.004 10.1007/978-1-4020-8825-4_7 Finiteness: Theoretical and Empirical Foundations Cristofaro 91 2007 10.1093/oso/9780199213733.003.0004 Deconstructing categories: Finiteness in a functional-typological perspective 10.1515/lingty-2016-0012 10.1075/ill.16.02din 10.1007/978-1-4020-8825-4_10 10.1515/lingty-2016-0009 10.1017/S1360674318000345 10.1515/9783110859256 10.1349/PS1.1537-0852.A.280 10.1515/LINGTY.2007.011 10.1353/lan.2010.0021 10.1515/LITY.2011.035 10.1515/flin.2011.002 Theories of Everything: In Honor of Edward Keenan Haspelmath 109 2012 How to compare major word-classes across the world’s languages 10.1515/9783110331127.197 10.1515/9781614514510-009 Language and Linguistics Haspelmath 17 3 291 2016 The serial verb construction: Comparative concept and cross-linguistic generalizations 10.1515/9783110607963-004 10.1515/lingty-2018-0011 Toward a new conceptual framework for comparing gender systems and some so-called classifier systems Haspelmath 2018 Te Reo Haspelmath 62 1 93 2019 Indexing and flagging, and head and dependent marking 10.1007/s11525-020-09355-5 10.31857/0373-658X.2021.1.7-28 Reflexive constructions in the world’s languages (to appear) Haspelmath 2021 Comparing reflexive constructions in the world’s languages 10.1515/zgl-2012-0028 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199577743.003.0004 10.1002/9781444343069.ch11 10.7208/chicago/9780226471013.001.0001 10.1515/flin.2002.36.3-4.141 10.1515/flin.1983.17.1-4.339 The Oxford Handbook of Compounding Lieber 3 2009 Introduction: Status and definition of compounding Concepticon 2.0 List 2019 10.1093/acrefore/9780199384655.013.190 PHOIBLE 2.0 Moran 2019 Language Form and Language Function Newmeyer 1998 10.7551/mitpress/4115.001.0001 Objects Nichols 183 1984 Direct and oblique objects in Chechen-Ingush and Russian 10.1075/slcs.147.11nor 10.1146/annurev-linguistics-011817-045500 10.1017/CBO9781139033763 Linguistic Categorization: Prototypes in Linguistic Theory Taylor 1989