In
lexicography
Lexicography is the study of lexicons, and is divided into two separate academic disciplines. It is the art of compiling dictionaries.
* Practical lexicography is the art or craft of compiling, writing and editing dictionaries.
* Theoretica ...
, a lexical item is a single word, a part of a word, or a chain of words (
catena
Catena (Latin for chain) or catenae (plural) may refer to:
Science
* ''Catena'' (fly), a genus in the family Tachinidae
*Catena (linguistics) is a unit of syntax and morphology, closely associated with dependency grammars
* Catena (computing), nu ...
) that forms the basic elements of a language's
lexicon
A lexicon is the vocabulary of a language or branch of knowledge (such as nautical or medical). In linguistics, a lexicon is a language's inventory of lexemes. The word ''lexicon'' derives from Koine Greek language, Greek word (), neuter of () ...
(≈ vocabulary). Examples are ''cat'', ''traffic light'', ''take care of'', ''by the way'', and ''it's raining cats and dogs''. Lexical items can be generally understood to convey a single meaning, much as a
lexeme
A lexeme () is a unit of lexical meaning that underlies a set of words that are related through inflection. It is a basic abstract unit of meaning, a unit of morphological analysis in linguistics that roughly corresponds to a set of forms taken ...
, but are not limited to single words. Lexical items are like
semes in that they are "natural units" translating between languages, or in learning a new language. In this last sense, it is sometimes said that language consists of grammaticalized lexis, and not lexicalized grammar. The entire store of lexical items in a language is called its
lexis
Lexis may refer to:
* Lexis (linguistics), the total bank of words and phrases of a particular language, the artifact of which is known as a lexicon
*Lexis (Aristotle), a complete group of words in a language
*LexisNexis, part of the LexisNexis onl ...
.
Lexical items composed of more than one word are also sometimes called ''lexical chunks'', ''gambits'', ''lexical phrases'', ''lexicalized stems'', or ''speech formulae''. The term ''polyword listemes'' is also sometimes used.
Types
Common types of lexical items/chunks include:
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Word
A word is a basic element of language that carries an semantics, objective or pragmatics, practical semantics, meaning, can be used on its own, and is uninterruptible. Despite the fact that language speakers often have an intuitive grasp of w ...
s, e.g. ''cat'', ''tree''
#Parts of words, e.g. ''-s'' in ''trees'', ''-er'' in ''worker'', ''non-'' in ''nondescript'', ''-est'' in ''loudest''
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Phrasal verb
In the traditional grammar of Modern English, a phrasal verb typically constitutes a single semantic unit composed of a verb followed by a particle (examples: ''turn down'', ''run into'' or ''sit up''), sometimes combined with a preposition (ex ...
s, e.g. ''put off'' or ''get out''
#
Multiword expression A multiword expression (MWE), also called phraseme, is a lexeme-like unit made up of a sequence of two or more lexemes that has properties that are not predictable from the properties of the individual lexemes or their normal mode of combination. ...
s, e.g. ''by the way'', ''inside out''
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Collocation
In corpus linguistics, a collocation is a series of words or terms that co-occur more often than would be expected by chance. In phraseology, a collocation is a type of compositional phraseme, meaning that it can be understood from the words th ...
s, e.g. ''motor vehicle'', ''absolutely convinced''.
#Institutionalized utterances, e.g. ''I'll get it'', ''We'll see'', ''That'll do'', ''If I were you'', ''Would you like a cup of coffee?''
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Idiom
An idiom is a phrase or expression that typically presents a figurative, non-literal meaning attached to the phrase; but some phrases become figurative idioms while retaining the literal meaning of the phrase. Categorized as formulaic language, ...
s, e.g. ''break a leg'', ''was one whale of a'', ''a bitter pill to swallow''
#Sayings, e.g. ''The early bird gets the worm'', ''The devil is in the details''
#Sentence frames and heads, e.g. ''That is not as...as you think'', ''The problem was''
#Text frames, e.g., ''In this paper we explore...; First...; Second...; Lastly...''.
An associated concept is that of
noun-modifier semantic relation
Contemporary Ontology (information science), ontologies share many structural similarities, regardless of the ontology language in which they are expressed. Most ontologies describe individuals (instances), classes (concepts), attributes, and rel ...
s, wherein certain word pairings have a standard interpretation. For example, the phrase ''cold virus'' is generally understood to refer to the virus that causes a cold, rather than to a virus that is cold.
Form-meaning correspondence
Many lexical items are either a whole word or part of a word, whereas many other lexical items consist of parts of one or more words or of multiple words in their entirety. A basic question in this area concerns the form-meaning correspondence. Many multi-word lexical items cannot be construed as
constituent
Constituent or constituency may refer to:
Politics
* An individual voter within an electoral district, state, community, or organization
* Advocacy group or constituency
* Constituent assembly
* Constituencies of Namibia
Other meanings
* Const ...
s in syntax in any sense. But if they are not constituents, then how does one classify them? A relatively recent development in the field of syntax envisages lexical items stored in the lexicon as
catenae, whereby a given catena may or may not be a constituent.
[
William O'Grady (1998) introduced the catena unit to linguistics; others have developed the concept further. See for instance Osborne and Groß (2012).
] In syntax, a catena is any element or combination of elements (words or parts of words) that are continuous in the vertical dimension, that is, in the hierarchy of words. The elements form a catena insofar as they are linked together by dependencies. Some dependency grammar trees containing multiple-word lexical items that are catenae but not constituents are now produced. The following trees illustrate phrasal verbs:
::
![Lexical item trees 1](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cc/Lexical_item_trees_1.png)
The verb and particle (in red) in each case constitute a particle verb construction, which is a single lexical item. The two words remain a catena even as shifting changes their order of appearance. The following trees illustrate polywords:
::
![Lexical item trees 2](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/70/Lexical_item_trees_2.png)
The component words of the polywords (in red) are continuous in the vertical dimension and are therefore catenae. They cannot, however, be construed as constituents since they do not form complete subtrees. The following trees illustrate idioms:
::
![Lexical item trees 3](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/dd/Lexical_item_trees_3.png)
The fixed words constituting the idiom (in red) build a catena each time. Note that ''your'' is not part of the idiom in the first tree (tree a) because the possessor is variable, e.g. ''He is pulling my/her/his/someone's/etc. leg''. An important caveat concerning idiom catenae is that they can be broken up in the syntax, e.g. ''Your leg is being pulled''. The claim, however, is that these lexical items are stored as catenae in the lexicon; they do not always appear as catenae in the actual syntax.
See also
*
Dependency grammar
Dependency grammar (DG) is a class of modern grammatical theories that are all based on the dependency relation (as opposed to the ''constituency relation'' of phrase structure) and that can be traced back primarily to the work of Lucien Tesnià ...
*
Lexical chain The sequence between semantic related ordered words is classified as a lexical chain. A lexical chain is a sequence of related words in writing, spanning short (adjacent words or sentences) or long distances (entire text). A chain is independent of ...
*
Outline of linguistics
The following outline is provided as an overview and topical guide to linguistics:
Linguistics is the scientific study of natural language. Someone who engages in this study is called a linguist. Linguistics can be theoretical or applied.
Br ...
*
Set phrase
Set, The Set, SET or SETS may refer to:
Science, technology, and mathematics Mathematics
*Set (mathematics), a collection of elements
*Category of sets, the category whose objects and morphisms are sets and total functions, respectively
Electro ...
Notes
References
*Lewis, M. 1997. Implementing the Lexical Approach. Language Teaching Publications. Hove, England.
*O’Grady, W. 1998. The syntax of idioms. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 16, 79-312.
*Osborne, T. and T. Groß 2012. Constructions are catenae: Construction Grammar meets Dependency Grammar. Cognitive Linguistics 23, 1, 163-214.
External links
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{{Lexicology
Lexical semantics
Linguistics terminology