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<p>In a database (or dictionary), I think one could at most code
elements that *must be memorized* (because they are idiosyncratic
in some way).</p>
<p>The term "listeme" (coined by Di Sciullo & Williams 1987)
refers to elements that *are memorized*, though perhaps these
authors (and others who adopted the term, e.g. Harley's 2006
morphology textbook) do not always make a clear distinction
between these two.</p>
<p>In recent work (mostly unpublished), I have made a distinction
between the two concepts, as follows:</p>
<p>* <i>inventorial items</i> are elements which are part of the <i>inventorium</i>,
the set of forms and constructions that MUST be stored (= that are
part of the language as a system of social conventions)</p>
<p>* <i>mental(ic) items</i> are elements which a language user has
stored (= that are memorized, as part of the language user's
mental lexicon, or <i>mentalicon</i>)</p>
<p>(For the term <i>inventorium</i>, see my 2023 paper on the term
<i>construction</i> and "constructicon":
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://constructions.journals.hhu.de/article/view/539/591">https://constructions.journals.hhu.de/article/view/539/591</a>; for <i>mentalicon</i>,
see this 2022 conference handout:
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://zenodo.org/record/6408756">https://zenodo.org/record/6408756</a>)</p>
<p>In practice, of course, it's not only impossible to know which
elements have been stored by particular speakers/signers (this may
differ from speaker to speaker), but it's also quite hard to know
which elements *must* be stored. Many English compounds look
regular and compositional, but they must still be stored because
they are not predictable (e.g. <i>*soil container </i>vs. <i>flower
pot</i>).</p>
<p>Best,</p>
<p>Martin<br>
</p>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 17.09.23 18:29, Adam James Ross
Tallman wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:CAK0T6OhdhJN1s83j2kDO85Y7a7WmYEY1etGw--c7TPDQdxCd5g@mail.gmail.com">
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<div class="gmail_default"
style="font-family:monospace,monospace;color:#4c1130">Hello
all,</div>
<div class="gmail_default"
style="font-family:monospace,monospace;color:#4c1130"><br>
</div>
<div class="gmail_default"
style="font-family:monospace,monospace;color:#4c1130">I was
wondering whether anyone had proposed, written about or even
just thought of a comparative concept of the "listeme" (the
term comes from Pinker's "Words and Rules", I think, but I
seemed to have just picked it up in grad school without
inquiring about where it came from).</div>
<div class="gmail_default"
style="font-family:monospace,monospace;color:#4c1130"><br>
</div>
<div class="gmail_default"
style="font-family:monospace,monospace;color:#4c1130">I'm
trying to mark up multimorphemic lexical entries in my
database with whether they are listemes. Sometimes I don't
know whether the form should be a listeme or not, because
"memorized chunk" does not translate into a single criterion
for identification. Does anyone else have experience coding
listemes in databases in a similar fashion? Has anyone
proposed a listeme comparative concept?<br>
</div>
<div class="gmail_default"
style="font-family:monospace,monospace;color:#4c1130"><br>
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<div class="gmail_default"
style="font-family:monospace,monospace;color:#4c1130">best,</div>
<div class="gmail_default"
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</div>
<div class="gmail_default"
style="font-family:monospace,monospace;color:#4c1130">Adam<br>
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clear="all">
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<br>
<span class="gmail_signature_prefix">-- </span><br>
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<div dir="ltr"><font face="times new roman, serif">Adam
J.R. Tallman</font></div>
<div dir="ltr"><font face="times new roman, serif">Post-doctoral
Researcher <br>
</font></div>
<div dir="ltr"><font face="times new roman, serif">Friedrich
Schiller Universität<br>
</font></div>
<div><font face="times new roman, serif">Department
of English Studies<br>
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<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
Martin Haspelmath
Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
Deutscher Platz 6
D-04103 Leipzig
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.eva.mpg.de/linguistic-and-cultural-evolution/staff/martin-haspelmath/">https://www.eva.mpg.de/linguistic-and-cultural-evolution/staff/martin-haspelmath/</a></pre>
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