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

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—Chapter 18. Lexical Functions— 92 12. Chinese Magn(yu‹ (rainN)) = dà (big) Oper 1(lü]tú (tripN)) = tàshàng [~] (walk on) Magn(lùnjù (argumentN)) = yo‹ulì-de (having strength) Oper 1(xiéyí (dealN)) = dáchéng [~] (reach) Magn(zha‹ngshēng (applause)) = léidòng (thunderous) Oper 1(qiàn (apology)) = dào [yīge ~] (say) [an apology]) Magn(di#kàng (resistance)) = wánqiáng-de (firm, solid) Oper 1(di#kàng (resistance)) = jìnxíng [~] (proceed to) For LFs in Korean, see Hong 1995 and Lee, Park & Kim 2001. 13. Malagasy Magn(orana (rainN)) = be (abundant), mivatravatra (violent) Oper 1(dia (tripN)) = manao [~] (do) Magn(hevitra (argumentN)) = mitombina (convincing) Oper 1(fifanaraha (dealN)) = manao [~] (do) Magn(tehaka (applause)) = mirefodrefotra (frenzied) Oper 1(azafady (apology)) = manao [~] (do) Magn(fanoherana (resistance)) = lehibe (grande) Oper 1(fanaherana (resistance)) = manao [~] (do) Collocations described by LFs are not only wide-spread in modern languages—they were present already at the earliest stages of language development. Thus, Gamkrelidze & Ivanov 1984: 833-834 show the existence of LF-collocations in Proto-Indo-European, for instance: (18) a.*nom(e/o)n *d h eH- lit. (put [a] name) = (establish/give a name) [*d h eH = CausFunc 1(*nom(e/o)n)] b. *k h leu̯o- *d h eH- lit. (put glory) = (acquire glory) [*d h eH = Caus 1Func 1(*nom(e/o)n)] After the demonstration of the importance and the power of LFs, a few words of caution are in order. What I said in this subsection should by no means be construed as implying that the same set of simple standard LFs is valid for any language: this is simply not the case, and this is so for two reasons. • First, a simple standard LF can be inapplicable in some languages. Thus, Bambara does not have readily available nominalizations (S 0), so that collocations of the type put up resistance, offer apologies or get a refusal are mostly impossible in this language; finite verbal forms are used instead. Therefore, support verb LFs (Oper i, Func i, Labor ij) would be practically useless in Bambara: they cannot have enough keywords. • Second, a simple standard LFs that is applicable in the language can have mostly standard, non phraseologized expressions and, as a result, it is of only limited relevance. Suppose that in language L the LF Oper 1 is expressed by three support verbs: (make), (have) and (say), distributed
—Chapter 18. Lexical Functions— 93 as follows: (make) combines with the names of actions, (have)—with the names of states, and (say) —with the names of sounds. In L then this LF, although formally valid, is practically useless: the elements of its value are not bound phraseologically. Similarly, again in Bambara, the LF Magn is more often than not expressed by the augmentative suffix -bá: (heavy rain) is sánjí+bá, (thunderous applause)—tégéré+bá, etc. Under these circumstances, the importance of Magn is much lower in Bambara than it is, say, in English or French. The universality of LFs boils down to their following three aspects: 1) Generality and versatility of the concept itself of LF: LFs can be used to describe both semantic derivations and restricted lexical cooccurrence in any human language, and they allow the linguist to do this in a homogeneous and systematic way. Crucially, as I have already said, LFs correspond to meanings that receive special treatment in natural language: namely, to what are called grammatical meanings, i.e., inflectional and/or derivational meanings (grammemes + derivatemes). To put it differently, what is an LF in language L can well be a grammeme or a derivateme in L itself or in a different language L´ and then will be expressed by morphological means. Thus, the LFs provide lexical expressions for meanings out of a ‘privileged’ set, which under different circumstances are expressed morphologically. (For more on the role of LFs for the description of collocations, see Chapter 20, especially 3, p. 00ff.) 2) The necessity of the LF list proposed: In most languages and in most cases of restricted lexical cooccurrence within a given language, the simple standard LFs listed in this chapter will prove applicable and useful. 3) The sufficiency of the LF list proposed: It is unlikely that in any L there can be found some regular series of collocations for the description of which a simple standard LF absent from our inventory will be needed. In other words, I believe—until proven wrong—that the list of simple standard LFs is exhaustive. This is of course an empirical question: the study of new languages under the angle of restricted lexical cooccurrence may bring in new LFs, while some of those that have now the status of non-standard can be promoted to standard. Such an event is by no means excluded, but I find it highly improbable that many new standard LFs will turn up. However, it is worth a bit more discussion. 7 New Simple Standard LFs The question is asked over and over again: How can one know that the list of simple standard LFs is complete? Is there a way to prove or disprove it? Unfortunately, the answer is a clear No.
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Chapter 18 Lexical Functions: Descr
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—Chapter 18. Lexical Functions—
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Means noun ((δ) = (means [for L]))
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Here are some examples of LFs. —C
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2.3 Definition of Standard Lexical
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Chapter 18 Lexical Functions: Description of Lexical Relations in a ...

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