theory predicates theory predicates ackerman farrell university california san diego webelhuth gert university north carolina chapel hill theory predicates isbn 157586 087 2 cloth 157586 086 4 paper 402 pp csli publications 1998 http csliwww stanford edu publications email pubs roslin stanford edu work two linguists different theoretical paradigms develop new general theory natural language predicates theory capable addressing broad range issues concerning complex predicates many remain unresolved previous theoretical proposals grounded empirical evidence wide variety genetically geographically unrelated languages german hungarian fox nenets tzotzil malayalam among others new theory synthesizes conceptual representational assumptions several different theoretical traditions authors focus crosslinguistically recurring patterns predicate formation identical contentive notions e lexical semantic grammatical function morphosyntactic information expressed predicates consisting single morphological word combinations independent words need form single syntactic unit provide detailed implementation theory german tenseaspect passive causative verbparticle predicates addition authors discuss extensions representative analyses predicate constructions languages beyond providing formalism analysis languageparticular predicates demonstrate basic theoretical mechanisms develop employed explain universal tendencies predicate formation purpose ackerman webelhuth introduce construct grammatical archetype linguistic theory relating universal patterns predicate formation languageparticular patterns principled fashion book interest linguists grammarians generative cognitive functional traditional perspective addition accessible interested philosophers psycholinguists cognitive scientists computational linguists anthropological linguists philologists csli publications ventura hall stanford university stanford ca 943054115 telephone 650 7231839 fax 650 7252166 http csliwww stanford edu publications