[Lexicog] Re: lexical phrase

[David Frank]

Ron --

I've used the word "lexeme" loosely but I have never tried to pin it down with a precise definition. I understand that, generally speaking, "word" and "lexeme" are about the same, except that "run," "runs" and "ran" could all be considered the same lexeme. Also, an idiom could be considered a lexeme, because its meaning is not the sum of its parts. I'm not as clear on how "on the other hand" would be a lexeme. Is that clear to everyone except me?

Generally, prepositional phrases modify nouns, and the set of prepositional phrases that can modify a noun is open-ended. There is a more limited set of prepositional phrases that can modify a verb. These generally have a time word or a location word as the object of the preposition, as in "in the morning" or "in the garden." And there is an even more limited set of prepositional phrases that can serve as sentence connectives, including the following:
    on the other hand
    on the contrary
    by contrast
    by this time
    at the same time
    in addition
    by the way
    for this reason

Is there a reason why the prepositional phrases that link a sentence to the previous one would be considered lexemes when other prepositional phrases would not? Is it because conjunctions are functors, and so prepositional phrases that serve as sentence connectors have a function rather than a meaning?

How do you determine that "A sequence of words such as 'on the other hand' is a form with a single 'lexical' meaning." I don't think you can use the argument that prepositional phrases that link a sentence to the sentence one are analogous to -- and sometimes roughly equivalent to -- single words. The same thing could be said for adjectival or adverbial prepositional phrases. Or would you say that "out the door" in the sentence "We chased the bird out the door" is a lexeme because it could be paraphrased as "We chased the bird outside"? (You could also reason that "out the door" cannot be changed in any way, because if it were to be changed, it would have a different meaning.)

Another way of explaining what a lexeme is would be to say it is what constitutes a dictionary entry. But my own practice is not to list phrases as major entries. I list them as minor entries added to the end of a major entry. I don't think that everything I would include in a dictionary as a minor entry could be considered a lexeme. I have to admit that I have never been in a situation where I had to say whether a phrase like "on the other hand" is or is not truly a lexeme. I suppose we could say, to use your form of argument, that a phrase like that isn't a prototypical lexeme.

-- David

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Ron Moe 
  To: lexicographylist at yahoogroups.com 
  Sent: Monday, December 04, 2006 8:04 PM
  Subject: RE: [Lexicog] Re: lexical phrase


  David,

  .... How we define "lexeme" may be a matter of some debate. But most linguists would agree that a lexeme is a form with a single "lexical" meaning. A sequence of words such as 'on the other hand' is a form with a single "lexical" meaning. A sequence of words such as "the cat chased a mouse" would be considered to have a different sort of meaning (propositional) and wouldn't belong in a dictionary, nor would it be stored in the mental lexicon as (presumably) 'on the other hand' is.


  ....

  When I said that 'on the other hand' has a particular "function," I was unfortunately being imprecise. It has the internal structure of a prepostional phrase. But if we take it as a lexical unit and look at where it occurs in a sentence, we see that it occurs where conjunctions normally occur, but not where prepositional phrases normally occur. (We could talk about "filling slots" or "distribution", but I'm trying to avoid a theory specific viewpoint.) It also has a meaning that is normally associated with conjunctions. (It indicates a logical relation between sentences.) So it "functions" syntactically and semantically more like a prototypical conjunction than the prototypical prepositional phrase. So I would call it a conjunction phrase, since (in my opinion) the fact that it is internally a preposition phrase is immaterial to the way it behaves syntactically and semantically. (However the fact that it does have an internal structure enables us to play with that structure as I point out below.) ... So we see that internal structure of complex forms and their syntactic function are unrelated.

  ....

  So when I say that 'on the other hand' is 'invariant' or is a 'fixed phrase', I mean that if you vary it you have changed the meaning or are making a joke. If I vary the form of a compound, I do the same....

  Ron Moe
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