On the borderline between lexicon and grammar: confixes in Modern Greek and Italian
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Giannoula Giannoulopoulou
Abstract
This article examines confixes, a type of word-forming elements between lexical stems and affixes. While confixes carry lexical meaning, confixing changes the constituent order in the word so that the internal word structure resembles the constituent order typical of derivation. It is argued that grammaticalization theory is an appropriate theoretical framework for the study of confixes because of its ability to describe the emergence of grammar under historical and contextual pressures. It is shown that confixes represent incipient grammaticalization and that their study from this point of view challenges the langue-parole and synchrony-diachrony dichotomies.
© Akademie Verlag
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Introduction
- Gender assignment and the structure of the lexicon
- “Affixoidhungrig? Skitbra!” Comparing affixoids in German and Swedish
- ”Some like it hot”: On the semantics of temperature adjectives in Russian and Swedish
- On the borderline between lexicon and grammar: confixes in Modern Greek and Italian
- Source-Goal (in)difference and the typology of motion events in the clause
- Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald, Classifiers. A typology of noun categorization devices, (Oxford Studies in Typology and Linguistic Theory), Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000
- Geert Booij, The grammar of words. An introduction to linguistic morphology (Oxford Textbooks in Linguistics), Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005
- Reinhold Kontzi, Sprachkontakt im Mittelmeer. Gesammelte Aufsätze zum Maltesischen, Tübingen: Gunter Narr Verlag, 2005
- Silvia Kouwenberg (ed.), Twice as meaningful. Reduplication in Pidgins, Creoles and other contact languages (Westminster Creolistics Series 8), London: Battlebridge, 2003
- Roderick Bovingdon, The Maltese language of Australia: Maltraljan. A lexical compilation with linguistic notations and a social, political and historical background (Languages of the World 16), München/Newcastle: LINCOM Europa, 2001
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Introduction
- Gender assignment and the structure of the lexicon
- “Affixoidhungrig? Skitbra!” Comparing affixoids in German and Swedish
- ”Some like it hot”: On the semantics of temperature adjectives in Russian and Swedish
- On the borderline between lexicon and grammar: confixes in Modern Greek and Italian
- Source-Goal (in)difference and the typology of motion events in the clause
- Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald, Classifiers. A typology of noun categorization devices, (Oxford Studies in Typology and Linguistic Theory), Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000
- Geert Booij, The grammar of words. An introduction to linguistic morphology (Oxford Textbooks in Linguistics), Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005
- Reinhold Kontzi, Sprachkontakt im Mittelmeer. Gesammelte Aufsätze zum Maltesischen, Tübingen: Gunter Narr Verlag, 2005
- Silvia Kouwenberg (ed.), Twice as meaningful. Reduplication in Pidgins, Creoles and other contact languages (Westminster Creolistics Series 8), London: Battlebridge, 2003
- Roderick Bovingdon, The Maltese language of Australia: Maltraljan. A lexical compilation with linguistic notations and a social, political and historical background (Languages of the World 16), München/Newcastle: LINCOM Europa, 2001