Binominal Lexemes in Cross-Linguistic Perspective: Towards a Typology of Complex Lexemes (Empirical Approaches to Language Typology [Ealt])

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Overview

This volume presents an innovative line of typological research into a poorly investigated function of language, that of lexeme (or naming strategy). One of the most widespread means of expanding the nominal lexicon is by combining two nouns to create a new denotation. The most familiar strategy is noun-noun compounding, which is pervasive in Germanic and many other language families. But compounding is far from the only strategy found in the world's languages: Romance languages tend to employ prepositional constructions, Slavic languages are more apt to use relational adjectives, while other languages have izafet constructions, construct forms, genitives and more. While there has been some work on compounding, these alternative strategies have been largely ignored in typological and descriptive work. The concept of 'binominal lexeme', covering all of the above-mentioned constructions (and more besides), is used in this collection of papers for cross-linguistic comparison. This approach to complex denotation cuts across traditional boundaries between morphology and syntax, and between compounding and derivation: it 'divides the cake' in a new way that has the potential to reveal new insights into language and conceptualization.