Abstract for Moderator: Marcel den Dikken's talk

Topic... Comment! (On Categories)
Moderator: Marcel den Dikken (CUNY Graduate Center)
October 10, 2006 (Tuesday)
6:30 PM - ; Room 7102, The CUNY Graduate Center

The [+/-N, +/-V] categorial feature matrix of LGB yields four lexical categories (A, N, P, V). Are these lexical categories useful, necessary in syntax? Are there exactly four lexical categories? What is the extent of language variation with respect to lexical categories? What exactly are the benefits of not specifying category information in the root? If category membership is not determined lexically but in syntax, are there designated category-determining functional elements in the extended projections of roots (the "little v", "little n", etc. of recent work in minimalism and Distributed Morphology)? These are some of the questions that arise under the rubric of the topic "Categories". The first Topic... Comment! session will be dedicated to discussion of these questions, in an open forum. The moderator will be Marcel den Dikken. Contributions to the discussion from all participants are strongly encouraged.