Have a personal or library account? Click to login
Types of Lexical Complexity in English: Syntactic Categories and the Lexicon Cover

Types of Lexical Complexity in English: Syntactic Categories and the Lexicon

By: John Anderson  
Open Access
|Mar 2013

Abstract

This study focuses on minimal (non-compound, non-phrasal) signs that are nevertheless internally complex in their syntactic categorization. Sometimes this is signalled by morphology - affixation or internal modification. But there are also conversions. In terms of categorial structure, we can distinguish between absorptions, where the source of the base is associated with a distinct category, and incorporation, where the base is categorially constant. Incorporation is thus typically reflected in inflectional morphology. Absorption may be associated with morphological change or conversion - with retention of the base in a different categorization. But categorial complexity may be nonderived, covert: the categorial complexity of an item is evident only in its syntax and semantics.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/v10121-012-0010-z | Journal eISSN: 2082-5102 | Journal ISSN: 0081-6272
Language: English
Page range: 3 - 51
Published on: Mar 27, 2013
Published by: Adam Mickiewicz University
In partnership with: Paradigm Publishing Services
Publication frequency: 4 issues per year

© 2013 John Anderson, published by Adam Mickiewicz University
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons License.