Chapter published in:
Substance-based Grammar – The (Ongoing) Work of John Anderson
Edited by Roger Böhm and Harry van der Hulst
[Studies in Language Companion Series 204] 2018
► pp. 9–112

Investigating substance-based grammar

The grammar of semantic and grammatical relations – An interview with John M. Anderson

| University of Pécs

The interview, guided by Andor’s questions, focuses on the development of Anderson’s work and its relation to contemporaneous developments in linguistics. The topics covered include the evolution of case grammar and its localist manifestation, and the generalization of the latter into a re-statement of “notional grammar”. Anderson has proposed a grammar, both syntax and phonology, based on mental substance, crucially perceptional substance and its metaphorical application in lexicon and syntax to “abstract” mental domains, as illustrated by localism. Concepts invoked here are dependency, structural analogy between syntactic and phonological representations, valency, ergativity, and (cognitive) salience; and central is concern with the expression of semantic and grammatical relations, whether by morphological case, adpositions or syntactic sequence.

Published online: 12 December 2018
https://doi.org/10.1075/slcs.204.02and
References
Akimoto, Minoji & Brinton, Laurel
1999 The origin of composite predicates in Old English. In Collocational and Idiomatic Aspects of Composite Predicates in the History of English [Studies in Language Companion Series 47], Laurel Brinton & Minoji Akimoto (eds), 21–58. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Anderson, John M.
1971 The Grammar of Case. Towards a Localistic Theory. Cambridge: CUP.Google Scholar
1977 On Case Grammar. Prolegomena to a Theory of Grammatical Relations. London: Croom Helm.Google Scholar
1992 Linguistic Representation. Structural Analogy and Stratification. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
1997 A Notional Theory of Syntactic Categories. Cambridge: CUP.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
1998 The domain of semantic roles. In The Diversity of Linguistic Description: Studies in Linguistics in Honour of Béla Korponay, József Andor, Béla Hollósy, Tibor Laczkó & Péter Pelyvás (eds), 1–38. Debrecen: Kossuth University, Angol-Amerikai Intézet.Google Scholar
2000 Markedness and the ontogenesis of language. Folia Linguistica 34: 147–183.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2005a The argument structure of morphological causatives. Poznań Studies in Contemporary Linguistics 40: 27–89.Google Scholar
2005b Structuralism and autonomy: From Saussure to Chomsky. Historiographia Linguistica 32: 117–148.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2006 Modern Grammars of Case. Oxford: OUP.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2007 The Grammar of Names. Oxford: OUP.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2011 The Substance of Language, Vol. I: The Domain of Syntax. Oxford: OUP.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2011 The Substance of Language, Vol. II: Morphology, Paradigms, and Periphrases. Oxford: OUP.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2011 The Substance of Language, Vol. III: Phonology-Syntax Analogies. Oxford: OUP.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2012a Types of lexical complexity in English: Syntactic categories and the lexicon. Studia Anglica Posnaniensia 47: 3–51.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2012b Parasitic passives of intransitives in English. Token: A Journal of English Linguistics 1: 5–22.Google Scholar
2013a What are ‘grammatical periphrases’? In Periphrasis, Replacement and Renewal: Studies in English Historical Linguistics, Irén Hegedűs & Dóra Pődör (eds), 14–33. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars.Google Scholar
2013b On so-called ‘conjunctions’ in English. Poznań Studies in Contemporary Linguistics 49: 41–77.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2014a The grammar of figurativeness, with illustrations drawn from English. English Studies 95: 971–989.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2014b Graphophonology and anachronic phonology: Notes on episodes in the history of pseudo-phonology. Folia Linguistica Historica 25: 1–53.Google Scholar
Anderson, John M. & Durand, Jacques
(eds) 1987 Explorations in Dependency Phonology. Dordrecht: Foris.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Anderson, John M. & Ewen, Colin J.
1987 Principles of Dependency Phonology. Cambridge: CUP.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Anderson, John M. & Jones, Charles
1974 Three theses concerning phonological representation. Journal of Linguistics 10: 1–26.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
1977 Phonological Structure and the History of English. Amsterdam: North-Holland.Google Scholar
Anderson, Stephen R.
1976 The notion of subject in ergative languages. In Subject and Topic, Charles Li (ed), 3–23. New York NY: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Andor, József.
2010 The distribution of light verbs in English: An empirical, corpus-based study. British and American Studies 16: 189–201.Google Scholar
Böhm, Roger.
1993 Predicate-argument Structure, Relational Typology and (Anti)passives: Towards an Integrated Localist Case Grammar Account [Series A, No. 336]. Duisburg: LAUD.Google Scholar
1998 Notional Grammar, Wortklassen und Dependenz [BLicK 7]. Bremen: Universität Bremen, IAAS.Google Scholar
Borg, Albert J. & Comrie, Bernard.
1984 Object diffuseness in Maltese. In Objects, Frans Plank (ed), 109–126. New York NY: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Bresnan, Joan & Kanerva, J.
1989 Locative inversion in Chicheva: A case study of factorization in grammar. Linguistic Inquiry 20: 1–50.Google Scholar
Butt, Miriam
2006 Theories of Case. Cambridge: CUP.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Carr, Philip, Durand, Jacques & Ewen, Colin
(eds) 2005 Headhood, Elements, Specification and Contrastivity. Phonological papers in Honour of John Anderson [Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 259] Amsterdam: John Benjamins.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Chomsky, Noam
1966 Cartesian Linguistics. Cambridge: CUP.Google Scholar
Colman, Fran
2014 The grammar of Names in Anglo-Saxon England: The Linguistics and Culture of the Old English Onomasticon. Oxford: OUP.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Colman, Fran & Anderson, John M.
2004 On metonymy as word-formation: with special reference to Old English. English Studies 85: 547–565.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Comrie, Bernard
1981 The Languages of the Soviet Union. Cambridge: CUP.Google Scholar
1982 Grammatical relations in Huichol. In Studies in Transitivity, Paul Hopper & Sandra Thompson (eds), 95–115. New York NY: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Cottingham, John
1992 Cartesian dualism: Theology, metaphysics, and science. In The Cambridge Companion to Descartes, John Cottingham (ed), 236–257. Cambridge: CUP.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Darrigol, l’abbé J. P.
1829 Dissertation critique et apologétique sur la langue basque. Bayonne: Duhart-Fauvet.Google Scholar
Dešeriev, Junus D.
1953 Bacbijskij jazyk. Moscow: Nauka.Google Scholar
Dixon, Robert M. W.
1991 A New Approach to English Grammar, on Semantic Principles. Oxford: OUP.Google Scholar
Dumézil, Georges
1967 Documents anatoliens sur les langues et les traditions du Caucase, V: Études abkhaz. Paris: Maisonneuve.Google Scholar
Egede, Paul
1760 Grammatica Grönlandica-Danico-Latina. Havniae: Gottman Frid. Kisel.Google Scholar
Fillmore, Charles J.
1966 A proposal concerning English prepositions. Georgetown University Monograph Series on Languages and Linguistics 19: 19–33.Google Scholar
1968 The case for case. In Universals in Linguistic Theory, Emmon Bach & Robert T. Harms (eds), 1–88. New York NY: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.Google Scholar
Fortescue, Michael.
1984 West Greenlandic. Beckenham: Croom Helm.Google Scholar
Fries, Charles C.
1952 The Structure of English: An Introduction to the Construction of English Sentences. London: Longmans, Green and Co.Google Scholar
Gibbs, Raymond W.
(ed) 2008 The Cambridge Handbook of Metaphor and Thought. Cambridge: CUP.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gildersleeve, Basil L. & Lodge, Gonzales B.
1895 Latin Grammar. London: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Halliday, Michael A. K.
1961 Categories of the theory of grammar. Word 17: 241–292.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Haspelmath, Martin
2000 Periphrasis. In Morphologie/Morphology, Vol. I, Geert E. Booij, Christian Lehmann & Joachim Mugdan (eds), 654–664. Berlin: De Gruyter.Google Scholar
Hester, Thomas R.
1978 Some arguments against equi as a test for subject-of in Basque. Fontes Linguae Vasconum 28: 23–34.Google Scholar
Hjelmslev, Louis T.
1935/7 La catégorie des cas. Acta Jutlandica 7: i–xii, 1–184; 9: i–vii, 1–78. Reprinted 1972 Munich: Fink.Google Scholar
Hopper, Paul J.
1972 Verbless stative sentences in Indonesian. In The Verb ‘be’ and its Synonyms: Philosophical and Grammatical Studies, Vol. 5, John M. W. Verhaar (ed), 115–152. Dordrecht: Reidel.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hurford, James R.
2007 The Origins of Meaning. Oxford: OUP.Google Scholar
2011 The Origins of Grammar. Oxford: OUP.Google Scholar
2014 The Origins of Language. Oxford: OUP.Google Scholar
Jackendoff, Ray
1972 Semantic Interpretation in Generative Grammar. Cambridge MA: The MIT Press.Google Scholar
Jespersen, Otto
1942 A Modern English Grammar on Historical Principles, Vol. VI. London: Allen & Unwin & Copenhagen: Munksgaard.Google Scholar
Jessen, Marilyn E.
1975 A Semantic Study of Spatial and Temporal Expressions in English. PhD thesis, University of Edinburgh.Google Scholar
Keenan, Edward L. & Dryer, Matthew S.
2007 Passive in the world’s languages. In Language, Typology, and Syntactic Description (2nd edn.), Timothy Shopen (ed), 326–261. Cambridge: CUP.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kiparsky, Paul
2005 Blocking and periphrasis in inflectional paradigms. In Yearbook in Phonology 2004, Geert Booij & Jaap van Marle (eds), 115–135. Dordrecht: Springer.Google Scholar
Kleinschmidt, Samuel P.
1851 Grammatik der grönländischen sprache mit teilweisem einschluss des Labradordialekts. Berlin: G. Reimer.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Korponay, Béla
1986 Outlines of a Hungarian-English Case Grammar. Budapest: Tankönyvkiadó.Google Scholar
2001 A Hungarian-English Case Grammar. Budapest: Eötvös University Press.Google Scholar
Lafitte, Pierre
1962 Grammaire basque (navarro-labourdin littéraire). Bayonne: Éditions des ‘Amis du Musée Basque’ et ‘Ikas’.Google Scholar
Lass, Roger
1997 Historical Linguistics and Language Change. Cambridge: CUP.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Law, Vivien
1995 Wisdom, Authority and Grammar in the Seventh Century: Decoding Virgilius Maro Grammaticus. Cambridge: CUP.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lazard, Gilbert
1995 Typological research on actancy: The Paris RIVALC group. In Approaches to Language Typology, Masayoshi Shibatani & Theodora Bynon (eds), 167–213. Oxford: OUP.Google Scholar
Lepschy, Giulio
(ed) 1998 History of Linguistics, III: Renaissance and Early Modern Linguistics. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Lyons, John
1967 A note on possessive, existential and locative sentences. Foundations of Language 3: 390–396.Google Scholar
1977 Semantics, Vol. II. Cambridge: CUP.Google Scholar
Marcus, Solomon
1967 Algebraic Linguistics: Analytical Models [Mathematics in Science and Engineering 29]. New York NY: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Matsumoto, Meiko
2008 From Simple Verbs to Periphrastic Expressions. Bern: Peter Lang.Google Scholar
Morpurgo Davies, Anna
2014 History of Linguistics, IV: Nineteenth-century Linguistics. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Nilsen, Don L. F.
1973 The Instrumental Case in English. The Hague: Mouton.Google Scholar
Palmer, Frank R.
1994 Grammatical Roles and Relations. Cambridge: CUP.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Pedersen, Holger
1931 The Discovery of Language: Linguistic Science in the Nineteenth Century. Bloomington IN: Indiana University Press.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Percival, Keith W.
1972 On the non-existence of Cartesian linguistics. In Cartesian Studies, Ronald J. Butler (ed), 137–145. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.Google Scholar
Persson, Gunnar
1990 Meaning, Models and Metaphors. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell.Google Scholar
Persson, Gunnar & Magnusson, Ulf
1986 Facets, Phases and Foci. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell.Google Scholar
Primus, Beatrice
1999 Cases and Thematic Roles [Linguistische Arbeiten 393]. Tübingen: Niemeyer.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Proceedings of the Philological Society
6 Vols, 1842–1853. London: George Bell.
Rosen, Sara T.
1989 Argument Structure and Complex Predicates. PhD thesis, Brandeis University.Google Scholar
Salmon, Vivian
1969 Review of Chomsky (1966). Journal of Linguistics 5: 165–187.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
de Saussure, Ferdinand
1922 Cours de linguistique générale, publié par Charles Bally et Albert Sechehaye, avec la collaboration de Albert Riedlinger, 2nd edn. Paris: Payot.Google Scholar
Schaub, Willi
1985 Babungo. London: Croom Helm.Google Scholar
Schmidt, Bodil K.
2003 West Greenlandic antipassive. Nordlyd 31(2): 385–399.Google Scholar
Starosta, Stanley
1988 The Case for Lexicase: An Outline of Lexicase Grammatical Theory. London: Pinter.Google Scholar
Stassen, Leon
1997 Intransitive Predication. Oxford: OUP.Google Scholar
van der Hulst, Harry
1994 Radical CV phonology: The locational gesture. UCL Working Papers in Linguistics 6: 439–477.Google Scholar
1995 Radical CV phonology: The categorial gesture. In Frontiers of Phonology: Atoms, Structures, Derivations, Jacques Durand & Francis Katanga (eds), 80–116. London: Longman.Google Scholar
2005 The molecular structure of phonological segments. In Headhood, Elements, Specification and Contrast. Phonological Papers in Honour of John Anderson [Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 259], Philip Carr, Jacques Durand & Colin J. Ewen (eds), 193–234. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Woodbury, Anthony C.
1977 Greenlandic Eskimo: Ergativity and relational grammar. In Grammatical Relations, Peter Cole & Jerry M. Sadock (eds), 307–336. New York NY: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Zimmer, Karl E.
1968 Review of Chomsky (1966). International Journal of American Linguistics 34: 290–303.DOI logoGoogle Scholar

Additional references

Arotçarena, l’abbé
1951 Grammaire basque (Dialectes Navarro-Labourdins). Tours: Maison Mame.Google Scholar
Arrieta, Kutz, Joseph, Brian, & Smirniotopoulos, Jane
1986 How ergative is Basque? In Proceedings of the Third Eastern States Conference on Linguistics (ESCOL 86), 25–36. Columbus OH: OSU Department of Linguistics.Google Scholar
Lhande, Pierre
1926 Dictionnaire basque-français. Paris: Gabriel Beauchesne.Google Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 5 other publications

Bassac, Christian
2018. The substance of the lexicon in a Generative Lexicon. In Substance-based Grammar – The (Ongoing) Work of John Anderson [Studies in Language Companion Series, 204], ► pp. 201 ff. DOI logo
Böhm, Roger
2018. Just for the record. In Substance-based Grammar – The (Ongoing) Work of John Anderson [Studies in Language Companion Series, 204], ► pp. 261 ff. DOI logo
Colman, Fran
2018. Entitatives and Indo-European n-stems. In Substance-based Grammar – The (Ongoing) Work of John Anderson [Studies in Language Companion Series, 204], ► pp. 225 ff. DOI logo
Fortis, Jean-Michel
2018. Anderson’s case grammar and the history of localism. In Substance-based Grammar – The (Ongoing) Work of John Anderson [Studies in Language Companion Series, 204], ► pp. 113 ff. DOI logo
Trousdale, Graeme
2018. Figurativeness in English grammar. In Substance-based Grammar – The (Ongoing) Work of John Anderson [Studies in Language Companion Series, 204], ► pp. 311 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 05 february 2023. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.