A flexible lexicon for Functional Discourse Grammar

Abstract

This article discusses the organization of the lexicon component in Functional Discourse Grammar with special attention to the representation of lexical meaning. After a brief introduction, Section 2 reviews the role of the lexicon in current FDG and explains the reasons why it receives a rather marginal position. It is argued that this is very much related to the theory's top-down organization and its emphasis on the analysis of linguistic structure. In Section 3 it is claimed that a functional lexicon should be understood as a flexible entity, rather than a static repository of lexical information, and that the organization and structure of a lexicon constructed on functional principles should be compatible with demands of a different nature (cognitive, acquisitional-evolutionary, typological and communicative). Accordingly, Section 4 proposes a flexible model of the lexicon for FDG, which is compatible with those methodological demands. The key insight is that meaning definitions are not fixed entities but lists of potentially revisable specifications that speakers agree upon or negotiate in language use. The stability of lexical meaning is explained on the basis of speakers' recurrent experiences in the use of lexical items, which determine the meaning that the linguistic community is likely to consider normal lexical competence. This section further illustrates the benefits of this proposal for the study of syntactic alternations and lexical innovations. Finally, I show how lexemes can be linked to frames on the basis of both the type of conceptual entity denoted by the lexeme and its correspondence with FDG semantic categories.