[Lingtyp] Universal constraints on lexicalisation

[Maria Koptjevskaja Tamm]

Dear all,

I am involved in a handbook chapter in which I would like to give a few examples of suggested universal constraints on lexicalisation, e.g., those primarily concerning meanings that should not be expressible in a word (a stem, root or whatever), preferably not from the domain of colour terms. To give an example, Rappaport Hovav and Levin (2010) argue that no verb encodes both manner and result simultaneously, which has been contested by Beavers and Koontz-Garbodens.

Or,  a definition of a term covering both ‘father’ and ‘mother’s brother’ would be cognitively very complex since it will require disjunction (‘father’ or ‘mother’s brother’, cf. ‘male relative of one’s patriline’ for ‘father’ and ‘father’s brother’) (Evans 2001) – I don’t know if this constraint still holds.

Many thanks and all the best,
Masha

Prof. Maria Koptjevskaja Tamm
Dept. of linguistics, Stockholm university, 106 91, Stockholm, Sweden
Editor-in-chief of “Linguistic Typology”
President-Elect of Societas Linguistic Europaea
www.ling.su.se/tamm<http://www.ling.su.se/tamm>
tamm at ling.su.se


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