Discourse principles in grammar: the thetic/categorical dichotomy

Abstract

[Extract] This paper deals with communication needs and grammar. For linguists discovering the grammatical systems of languages it is most exciting to find out in which respect the grammars of languages all over the world resemble each other and in which respect they differ, because this gives us further insights into the variety and basic principles of human communication and human language. Sometimes we find a common basis behind quite different grammatical disguises and the range of variation helps us to identify the shared core elements across the languages, as in the case I want to discuss here.