The economy of word classes in Hiw, Vanuatu: Grammatically flexible, lexically rigid
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[1] A.N.U., Canberra
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- Localización: Studies in language: International Journal Sponsored by The Foundation "Foundations of Language", ISSN 0378-4177, Vol. 41, Nº 2, 2017 (Ejemplar dedicado a: Frantisek (Frank) Lichtenberk), págs. 294-357
- Idioma: inglés
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Resumen
The issue of lexical flexibility is best tackled as the articulation of two separate mappings: one that assigns lexical items to word classes; another one that associates these word classes with the syntactic functions they can access. A language may endow its lexemes with more or less multicategoriality, and its word classes with more or less multifunctionality: these are two distinct facets of lexical flexibility, which should be assessed separately. Focusing on Hiw, an Oceanic language of northern Vanuatu, I show that lexical flexibility is there mostly due to the high multifunctionality of its word classes, each of which can regularly access a broad array of syntactic functions. Conversely, Hiw ranks relatively low on the scale of multicategoriality: most of its lexemes are assigned just one word class. This is how a language can be grammatically flexible, yet lexically rigid.
