The Essence of Linguistic Analysis

Download or read book The Essence of Linguistic Analysis written by R.M.W. Dixon and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2021-02-01 with total page 100 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Many works on linguistic typology deal in some detail with one or more particular grammatical topics without clearly demonstrating how these relate to other categories or construction types. The Essence of Linguistic Analysis by R. M. W. Dixon presents a framework which connects individual topics in a cogent and coherent way, showing their dependencies and locating each in its place within the overall tapestry of a language. A clear distinction is made between semantic roles and syntactic functions. And it is held that the basic constituents of a language are lexical elements. Grammatical items serve to link together lexical units. At every level of analysis, the central units are lexical with grammar providing ancillary indicators.