Investigating the Morpho-Syntactic Antecedents of the Auxiliary Category in Universal Grammar
##plugins.themes.bootstrap3.article.main##
Abstract
The theory of universal grammar presupposes that language is a universal property of the individual human mind, and that all humans have the capacity for language known as the ‘language faculty’. Hence, universal grammar deals with general properties of natural languages found everywhere in the world, not with the idiosyncrasies of a particular language. Given that the auxiliary verb is an unusually unique linguistic item of English, this study investigates its presence and morpho-syntactic antecedents in other languages of the world as a basis to test for its universal antecedents. The languages studied here are, like English, all head-initial languages. The data is small but the complexities and dynamism of the morpho-syntactic status of the auxiliary verb in these languages, in relation to English, makes for an interesting and an adventurous foray into the investigation of its universality. The result indicates that the auxiliary verb has universal morpho-syntactc antecedents, although with sporadic lexical and functional independence in other languages, and that unlike in English, the form of the modal subclass in these other languages is subject to inflection.
##plugins.themes.bootstrap3.displayStats.downloads##
##plugins.themes.bootstrap3.article.details##
This open-access article is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) 4.0 license.
You are free to:
Share — copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format.
Adapt — remix, transform, and build upon the material for any purpose, even commercially. The licensor cannot revoke these freedoms as long as you follow the license terms.
Under the following terms: Attribution — You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.
No additional restrictions: You may not apply legal terms or technological measures that legally restrict others from doing anything the license permits.