[Lexicog] Re: lexical phrase

Wed Nov 29 01:38:46 UTC 2006

David,

I, too, got your message two weeks ago. I was busy and didn’t respond to any
of the ‘on the other hand’ variants. Let me do so now.

I’ll accept that ‘on the other hand’ *appears* to have variants. But the
three mentioned all have different functions and therefore are different
lexemes. ‘On the one hand’ marks the first of two contrastive statements.
‘On the other hand’ is “used when introducing another opinion that is as
important to consider as the one you have just given” (Longman Language
Activator). It isn’t necessarily used in conjunction with ‘on the one hand’.
‘On the third hand’ is just plain silly (and I would question its status as
an established lexeme). ‘Facetious’ is a nicer label for it. It would be
used jokingly to introduce a third opinion. You could also say, “But back on
the first hand,” to add a confirming statement to the first opinion. So I
will maintain that the phrasal lexeme ‘on the other hand’ has a unitary
lexical meaning and has no variants.

We all play with language and can vary any set phrase. I gave ‘of course’ as
another example of a set phrase. I can imagine the following dialog:

A: Of course there is a Santa Claus. I got a gift from him last year.

B: Of course? Of what course?

A: Of absolute for sure course. A hundred million children can’t all be
wrong.

B: You need a course of tranquilizers.

But this does not represent variants of ‘of course’. It is just playing
around with language.

A while back we had a thread going about ‘kick the bucket’ and its so-called
variants “kick the proverbial bucket” and “King Midas kicked the golden
bucket”. I would put these in the “playing around” category. One feature of
lexical phrases is that their meaning is not the sum of the meaning of the
parts. Another feature is that there is a setness to their form. I’ve been
playing around with lexical phrases in my mind. For one thing I can’t think
of an example of overlapping lexical phrases. Although some phrases permit
words to be inserted in them, there seems to be serious limitations to what
can be inserted.

Some phrases have variants, but again the variation seems to be seriously
limited. Longman Language Activator gives the following example sentences
for ‘have a passion for’: “From a very early age he had a passion for fast
cars.” “Corinne shared her husband’s passion for classical music.” Upon
reflection it is clear that “have a passion for” and “-‘s passion for” are
really the same. There is variation, but it is very limited. LLA also has
two entries: ‘get/acquire a taste for’ and ‘be an acquired taste’. Notice
that the first entry has an option. The two entries taken together indicate
that the basic idiom has a range of surface forms, but there are still only
three. It’s not a case of free variation.

*I’ve obtained a taste for caviar.

*A taste for caviar was acquired by me.

My guess is that there is a range of setness from absolute to free. The more
set, the more we would characterize the phrase as an idiom. If the form is
relatively free, we would characterize it as collocation or something else,
but not as a lexical phrase. If there is nothing set about a phrase, we
would not recognize it as lexical at all. In fact I would propose the
following theorem. “If the meaning of a phrase is not the sum of its parts,
the form of the phrase must be fixed to a significant degree.” My guess is
that lexical phrases need to be somewhat set in order to be recognizable as
such.

Ron Moe

   _____  

From: lexicographylist at yahoogroups.com
[mailto:lexicographylist at yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of David Frank
Sent: Tuesday, November 28, 2006 12:44 PM
To: lexicographylist at yahoogroups.com
Subject: [Lexicog] Re: lexical phrase

For your information, I sent this message (below) on November 14 and had
assumed it had gone to the list, and in fact David Joffe read my message
back then and replied to it the same day. I just realized that I didn't get
my own contribution to the Lexicography List until today, which is exactly
two weeks later. Maybe everybody else hasn't seen David Joffe's addition to
this subject yet either. I'm not sure who got it two weeks ago and who got
it today. I know this is confusing, but something weird is going on.

-- David Frank

----- Original Message ----- 

From: HYPERLINK "mailto:david_frank at sil.org"David Frank 

To: HYPERLINK
"mailto:lexicographylist at yahoogroups.com"lexicographylist at -yahoogroups.-com 

Sent: Tuesday, November 14, 2006 9:44 AM

Subject: [Lexicog] Re: lexical phrase

from David Frank:

This may just seem like a quibble, but there is some variation in "On the
one hand..." and "On the other hand....." That's as far as it usually goes,
because most people only have two hands. But I have also heard "On the third
hand...." I suppose that one is mainly used facetiously.

In writing this, I decided to do a Google search, and I found a blog
entitled "On the third hand" at HYPERLINK
"http://site-essential.com/"http://site--essential.-com/. (There was also a
paid advertisement saying that if I wanted to buy a third hand, I should be
able to find it on Ebay.) Also, I found an acronym OTTH at HYPERLINK
"http://acronyms.thefreedictionary.com/On+the+Third+Hand"http://acronyms.-th
efreedictionar-y.com/On+-the+Third+-Hand.

I have to admit, whenever I hear someone say that there is no variation at
all in some aspect of language, that tends to prompt my curiosity to
consider if it is really true, since people can be so creative and versatile
in their use of language.

Sorry to take you off subject, Ron.

----- Original Message ----- 

From: HYPERLINK "mailto:ron_moe at sil.org"Ron Moe 

To: HYPERLINK
"mailto:lexicographylist at yahoogroups.com"lexicographylist at -yahoogroups.-com 

Sent: Tuesday, November 14, 2006 12:19 AM

Subject: [Lexicog] lexical phrase

....

The phrase ‘on the other hand’ has the internal structure of a preposition
phrase but functions as a conjunction syntactically and semantically. It is
a fixed phrase in that it cannot be varied in any way. None of the
constituent words can be replaced or inflected and no other words can be
inserted in it....

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