Routledge Dictionary of Language and Linguistics.pdf

Dictionary of language and linguistics 1166synsemantic field of language [Grk‘sign’]Term coined by K.Bühler, inspired by Gestalt psychology, to designate the determinationof the meaning of individual signs of speech through the verbal context as well asthrough the associated non-verbal signs (illustrations, mimicry, gesture, music). ( alsoaxiomatics of linguistics, symbol field of language)axiomatics of linguisticsReferencessynsemantic word (also closed-class word,function word, structure word,syncategorematic word)Words which, in isolation, have allegedly no independent lexical meaning (cf. the literaltranslation of synsemantic, i.e. ‘co-signing’). Candidates for these so-called empty orfunction words are prepositions, conjunctions, derivational elements, and other words orword classes that form more or less closed classes. Synsemantic words, in the widersense, are polysemic linguistic expressions like the adjective good, whose meaning varieswith the context, e.g. His character/the answer/the weather/the food is good. ( alsoautosemantic word)syntactic affixationSeveral recent studies on word formation presuppose that certain affixes demonstrateselectional characteristics that go beyond the usual word configurations. For example, inthe gerund construction Philip’s spraying paint on the wall the verb assigns itscomplements their thematic relation. For this reason, Toman (1986) and Abney (1987)postulate that affixes such as -ing are more closely associated with a syntactic category(VP or S) than with a lexical stem (such as V).