Relativism and Universalism in Linguistics - Fachbereich 10 ...

Friday, September 1, 2006
Section K: Theory - Methodology
Conference room: GW1 HS 1010
14:00–14:30 Beedham, Christopher (University of St. Andrews)
Using exceptions to rules as a means of empirical research in grammar
14:30–15:00 De Cuypere, Ludovic (University of Gent) / Willems, Klaas (University of
Gent) / van der Auwera, Johan (University of Antwerp)
Iconicity in language: an integrated approach
15:00–15:30 Huszár. Ágnes (Universität Pécs, Ungarn)
Versprecheranalyse im Dienste sprachtypologischer Überlegungen
15:30–16:00 Stroh-Wollin, Ulla (Uppsala University, Sweden)
The concept of definiteness
16:00–16:30 Seuren, Pieter A.M. (Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics,
Nijmegen)
Linguistic evidence for speech act operators
Using exceptions to rules as a means of empirical research
in grammar
Beedham, Christopher
University of St. Andrews
C.Beedham@st-andrews.ac.uk
Given that the number of sentences in a language is infinite, how do you go about tackling
infinity? In this paper it is suggested that unexplained lexical exceptions to rules present us
with the opportunity to empirically investigate those rules, to find out why a rule is wrong in
that it produces mysterious exceptions, and to revise the rule so that it does not lead to those
exceptions. Two examples are given, the rule of passive formation, and the rule of tense
formation, in English, German and Russian. The exceptions to the rule of passive formation
are non-passivizable transitive verbs, e.g. English to have, German mögen ‘to like’. An
empirical investigation of exhaustive lists of such verbs in those two languages led to the
discovery that most of them also do not form a resultative perfect, which in turn led to the
conclusion that the passive is an aspect of the type Auxiliary + Participle (like the perfect),
meaning ‘action + state’, whereby only telic verbs – verbs with an inherent end-point in their
semantics (capable of becoming the end-state of the meaning ‘action + state’) – can form a
passive. Thus the explanation for non-passivizable transitive verbs is that they are atelic, and
hence cannot form a passive. Although this analysis arose in theoretical linguistics it is readily
applicable in pedagogical grammars of English, German, and Russian.
The exceptions to the rule of tense formation are strong or irregular verbs in English and
German, and non-productive verbs in Russian. Most verbs form a regular preterit and 2 nd
participle with –ed –ed in English and with -t- -t in German, but approx. 150 verbs in each of