The Universal Structure of Categories Towards a Formal Typology Cambridge Studies in Linguistics Series

Using data from a variety of languages such as Blackfoot, Halkomelem, and Upper Austrian German, this book explores a range of grammatical categories and constructions, including tense, aspect, subjunctive, case and demonstratives. It presents a new theory of grammatical categories - the Universal Spine Hypothesis - and reinforces generative notions of Universal Grammar while accommodating insights from linguistic typology. In essence, this new theory shows that language-specific categories are built from a small set of universal categories and language-specific units of language. Throughout the book the Universal Spine Hypothesis is compared to two alternative theories - the Universal Base Hypothesis and the No Base Hypothesis. This valuable addition to the field will be welcomed by graduate students and researchers in linguistics.

1. The universal structure of categories; 2. A history of ideas behind the spine; 3. The universal spine as a heuristic for the identification of grammatical categories; 4. Anchoring categories in independent clauses; 5. Anchoring categories in dependent clauses; 6. Nominal anchoring categories; 7. Categories that introduce a point of view; 8. Towards a formal typology.

Martina Wiltschko is an Associate Professor in the Department of Linguistics at the University of British Columbia.