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<p>Dear Kasper,</p>
<p>things are getting interesting here. Just a few observations:</p>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">Am 08.03.2023 um 17:03 schrieb Kasper
Boye:<br>
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<div class="WordSection1"><o:p> </o:p>
<p class="MsoNormal">We claim in (Boye & Harder 2012) that
this understanding of the lexical-grammatical distinctions is
to a high extend co-extensive with traditional conceptions
(otherwise, it would be an understanding of something else).
As pointed out by Riccardo and Christian (in the 2013 review
of the latter), however, it is true that in some cases,
classifications based on our understanding are at odds with
pretheoretical classifications. As mentioned by Riccardo and
Christian, for instance, some pronouns come out as lexical. We
believe that this is not a serious problem for the
understanding we propose, because we believe our proposal
offers a functional rationale for the status of grammar as a
design feature of human languages. The fact that other
features characteristic of grammatical elements are not fully
co-extensive could also be regarded as a problem for the
pretheoretical classifications. We would also like to point to
the fact that the idea of distinguishing between lexical and
grammatical pronouns is not entirely new and strange (cf. e.g.
the distinction between weak and strong pronouns in Romance
languages).</p>
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</blockquote>
<p>Lehmann op.cit. actually says:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>While this may be an important observation, it requires us to
deny grammatical status to stressable<br>
formatives like interrogative, demonstrative and (tonic)
personal pronouns, modal verbs,<br>
negators and many others.<br>
</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Thus, you would have to assume that all these stressable items
have been regarded as grammatical erroneously by "pretheoretical
classifications". They do, however, meet my definition, if to
different extents.</p>
<p>It is also not seldom forgotten that grammatical affixes are not
necessarily stressless (or clitic). Many Romance conjugation
suffixes bear stress, and so do many Russian declension suffixes.
You probably will not want to deny grammatical status to these. If
so, you would have to sharpen the criterion of stressability.<br>
</p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">As for Christian’s own suggestion for an
understanding (‘Such aspects of linguistic expressions are
grammatical whose conformation obeys constraints of the
particular linguistic system’), we wouldn’t go as far as
claiming to refute it, but would like to point out that it
does not seem to distinguish lexical from grammatical
elements: also lexical elements are constrained by the
linguistic system – otherwise, we would not have
distributional classes. In our view, structural constraints
are what distinguishes both lexical and grammatical elements
from holophrases.</p>
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</blockquote>
<p>Given grammaticalization, being governed by structural
constraints is, again, a matter of degree. Constraints may add up
on an item or class of items, and they may be more or less strict.
If you have a distribution class for which there are rules of
grammar, then that is - to that extent - a grammatical class.
Nouns of a certain gender may be such a class; and gender
certainly is a grammatical category. If you have a distribution
class for which there are semantic rules, then that is a lexical
class. Human nouns or agentive verbs may be such a distribution
class. Moreover, this kind of class is generally not proper of a
particular linguistic system.<br>
</p>
<p>Best wishes,</p>
<p>Christian<br>
</p>
<div class="moz-signature">-- <br>
<p style="font-size:90%">Prof. em. Dr. Christian Lehmann<br>
Rudolfstr. 4<br>
99092 Erfurt<br>
<span style="font-variant:small-caps">Deutschland</span></p>
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<td>Tel.:</td>
<td>+49/361/2113417</td>
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<td>E-Post:</td>
<td><a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:christianw_lehmann@arcor.de">christianw_lehmann@arcor.de</a></td>
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<td>Web:</td>
<td><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.christianlehmann.eu">https://www.christianlehmann.eu</a></td>
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