[Lexicog] On defining verbs, etc.

[Mike Maxwell]

rtroike at email.arizona.edu wrote:
> Chomsky has eliminated all grammatical labels from
> his toolkit (except as convenient notational devices for our visual benefit).
> All elements in the numeration, as he calls it, have features

Actually, I think John Roberts' statement--

 > Baker is simply following Chomsky's assertion that there
 > are four lexical categories, N, V, A, and P.

--is compatible with Chomsky's notion that POS labels are not atomic, 
but are actually composed of features.  IIRC, Chomsky introduced a 
feature set back in 1967 or so, based on the typology (he wouldn't call 
it that, of course) of four lexical categories, which could be construed 
as two binary features (+/- N and +/- V, where 'N' and 'V' are features, 
not atomic categories; sort of like quarks, they have to appear together 
with other features/quarks, never alone.  To push the analogy, a noun 
category is "really" composed of the features [+N -V], just like a 
neutron is "really" made up of two up quarks and a down quark.

But I confess my memory is vague--my excuse is that I was taking High 
School English back then.  (Or as Judy Collins put it, if you remember 
the 60s, you weren't there.)

Then again, maybe I misunderstand Chomsky.
-- 
	Mike Maxwell
	maxwell at ldc.upenn.edu


 
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