Chapter 18 Lexical Functions: Description of Lexical Relations in a ...

6.1.5 LFs as Deep Lexical Units
—Chapter 18. Lexical Functions— 85
Summing up what has just been said, simple standard LFs are, in an important respect,
similar to grammatical signifieds—inflectional (= grammemes), such as nominal number or
verbal tense, or derivational (= derivatemes), such as Agent or Location nouns. Namely, very
much like grammatical signifieds, LFs are not genuine, bona fide meanings. For instance, the
grammeme (PLURAL) is a label for a set of correspondences between a few meanings—(more than
one) (trees), or (different sorts of) (French wines), or else (great quantity/extent)(the sands of the
desert)—and a few morphological markers—-s, -en (oxen), -i (foci), -a (phenomena), etc. In just
the same way, the LF f is a label for a cluster of correspondences between several related mean-
ings (= having a common core) and several lexical expressions. Therefore, a complete description
of an LF must include all its alternative semantic representations (which is not done in the list in
Subsection 2.2). In order to give an idea of what this could look like, let me give three examples.
NB : The underscoring in a SemS indicates the semantically dominant node: a node in the assertional
part of it which resumes, in a sense, the whole SemS; the rest of the SemS hinges, so to speak, on the
dominant node, so that a SemS is reducible to its dominant node. 24 ]
1. The LF S 1:
LF-Sem-Rule 1
2. The LF Magn:
LF-Sem-Rule 2
2
(P) # (magnitude )
(P)
1
(person)
(very)
1
(!)
!
"
S (L(P))
1
L(P)
ATTR
Magn
The meaning (person who P-es) can be
expressed by a derived noun S 1, some-
thing of the type P-er (smoker, skier,
student, blacksmith, etc.).
The meaning (value a of magnitude P
is elevated) can be expressed by a
Magn, modifying the noun L(P) that
lexicalizes the meaning (P).