Papers by Chris Souillé-Rigaut
Peter Matthews (1974) defines the lexeme as being a member of the major lexical categories of nou... more Peter Matthews (1974) defines the lexeme as being a member of the major lexical categories of noun, verb, or adjective with a constant and entirely specified meaning. Quasi-lexemes, commonly referred to as 'combining forms' are similar in that respect. According to Valerie Adams (2001), they derive from Latin and Greek adjectives, verbs, or nouns, as opposed to prefixes, which usually derive from prepositions or adverbs. The hypothesis according to which quasi-lexemes are strictly affixes would have no other criterion than their boundness. However, their semantic content proves otherwise. As for Lionel Guierre (1979), he asserts that although they share common features with complete lexemes, quasi-lexemes are different because of formal, distributional, and segmental properties. This leaves us with two significant approaches in determining to what morphemic category quasi-lexemes belong. The first approach is that they are either affixes or lexemes depending on their meaning. This is a perspective adopted by Danielle Corbin (2001) among others. The second approach is that they are neither affixes nor lexemes. Beatrice Warren (1990) maintains that they are irreducible to the already established categories of word formation. These two approaches have the merit of considering quasi-lexemes as being elements that are outside of the norm. When differentiating affixes from lexemes, Amiot and Dal assert that affixes, to which they refer in a broad sense as exponents of LCRs (exponents of 'Lexeme Construction Rules'), are 'the result of the application of a rule to lexemes', as opposed to lexemes being 'the concatenation of morphemes' (p.328). Bernard Fradin and Françoise Kerleroux (2009) define the lexeme in relation to the affix as follows: 'We call lexeme […] a linguistic entity onto which exponents of LCRs are attached' (p.84) 5. If we look at quasi-lexemes, we observe that they preferably concatenate with each other (e.g.-hom-+-cid-> homicide), but not necessarily (e.g. phonic, cranial). Yet they are bound elements, which entails two principles: they have a semantic content similar to complete lexemes belonging to the categories of noun, verb, or adjective, and they need at least one affix to form a complete lexeme. We will subsequently address the cases of linguistic 'morph' and mathematical 'graph', which seem to contradict the law of affix requirement but actually do not, since these lexemes should be analyzed diachronically as examples of apocope. B. Contrasting quasi-lexemes with other bound lexical elements Although various contemporary morphologists have extended the category of quasi-lexemes to fracto-lexemes, truncated elements, elements of blends, paleo-lexemes, or whatever fragment of a word that is used in combination with another, I will restrict my analysis to the category of bound classical or neoclassical elements and provide evidence for their contrast with other fragmented elements and also with unbound lexemes.
Peter Matthews (1974) defines the lexeme as being a member of the major lexical categories of nou... more Peter Matthews (1974) defines the lexeme as being a member of the major lexical categories of noun, verb, or adjective with a constant and entirely specified meaning. Quasi-lexemes, commonly referred to as 'combining forms' are similar in that respect. According to Valerie Adams (2001), they derive from Latin and Greek adjectives, verbs, or nouns, as opposed to prefixes, which usually derive from prepositions or adverbs. The hypothesis according to which quasi-lexemes are strictly affixes would have no other criterion than their boundness. However, their semantic content proves otherwise. As for Lionel Guierre (1979), he asserts that although they share common features with complete lexemes, quasi-lexemes are different because of formal, distributional, and segmental properties. This leaves us with two significant approaches in determining to what morphemic category quasi-lexemes belong. The first approach is that they are either affixes or lexemes depending on their meaning. This is a perspective adopted by Danielle Corbin (2001) among others. The second approach is that they are neither affixes nor lexemes. Beatrice Warren (1990) maintains that they are irreducible to the already established categories of word formation. These two approaches have the merit of considering quasi-lexemes as being elements that are outside of the norm. When differentiating affixes from lexemes, Amiot and Dal assert that affixes, to which they refer in a broad sense as exponents of LCRs (exponents of 'Lexeme Construction Rules'), are 'the result of the application of a rule to lexemes', as opposed to lexemes being 'the concatenation of morphemes' (p.328). Bernard Fradin and Françoise Kerleroux (2009) define the lexeme in relation to the affix as follows: 'We call lexeme […] a linguistic entity onto which exponents of LCRs are attached' (p.84) 5. If we look at quasi-lexemes, we observe that they preferably concatenate with each other (e.g.-hom-+-cid-> homicide), but not necessarily (e.g. phonic, cranial). Yet they are bound elements, which entails two principles: they have a semantic content similar to complete lexemes belonging to the categories of noun, verb, or adjective, and they need at least one affix to form a complete lexeme. We will subsequently address the cases of linguistic 'morph' and mathematical 'graph', which seem to contradict the law of affix requirement but actually do not, since these lexemes should be analyzed diachronically as examples of apocope. B. Contrasting quasi-lexemes with other bound lexical elements Although various contemporary morphologists have extended the category of quasi-lexemes to fracto-lexemes, truncated elements, elements of blends, paleo-lexemes, or whatever fragment of a word that is used in combination with another, I will restrict my analysis to the category of bound classical or neoclassical elements and provide evidence for their contrast with other fragmented elements and also with unbound lexemes.
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Papers by Chris Souillé-Rigaut