The Meaning of Word Classes

Linguists who believe that word classes bear meaning are numerous; the author of this book, however, argues that this belief is untenable. This book proposes a new account of the claim that parts of speech have meaning – a view which has been present in grammars and some philosophical treatises ever since language was studied. The author presents questions of grammatical analysis, critically discussing the relevant views held by typologists and generativists, traditional grammarians and prototype theoreticians.