Intransitive Predication

Intransitive Predication constitutes a major contribution to the study of typological linguistics and theoretical linguistics in general. Basing his analysis on a sample of 410 languages, Leon Stassen investigates cross-linguistic variation in one of the core domains of all natural languages.

The author views this domain as a `cognitive space', the topography of which is the same for all languages. It is assumed to consist of four subdomains, which correspond to a four-way distinction between the semantic classes of event predicates, property predicates, class predicates, and locational predicates. Leon Stassen offers a typology of the structural manifestations of this domain, in terms of the nature and number of the formal strategies used in its encoding. He discusses a number of abstract principles which can be employed in explaining the cross-linguistic variation embodied by the typology. In the final chapter, he brings together the research results in a universally applicable model, which can be read as a `flow chart' for the encoding of intransitive predications in different language types.