Almela-Sánchez, Moisés (2006). From Words to Lexical Units. A Corpus-Driven Account of Collocation and Idiomatic Patterning in English and English-Spanish . Frankfurt a. M., Berlin, Bern, Brussels, New York, Oxford, Wien: Peter Lang.
 
Number of pages: 421
 
Abstract:
 
This book tackles the problem of ascertaining what is a lexical item. Based on extensive corpus evidence, the author queries the role of words as fundamental units of semantic analysis. Notions such as "word sense", "polysemy" and "disambiguation" are called into question. It is argued that mainstream phraseology has provided an insufficient account of the realm of multi-word choices. Accordingly, the ideas of "idiom" and "collocation" undergo revision in this work. The author comes up with an alternative proposal about what constitutes a unit of meaning and how the vocabulary is organized.
 
Contents:
 
1. Introduction
2. On the Centrality of the Idiom Principle
3. "Pure" and "Impure" Idioms
4. Meaning by Collocation... What Does "by" Mean?
5. Structure of the Complex Lexicon
6. Structure of Meaningful Patterning
7. Lexis and the Communicative Order
8. Conclusion Back to Publications-Linguistics