Lexeme (in neurocognitive linguistics)

In neurocognitive linguistics, a lexeme is ... [definition missing].

Comments

We should recognize many more units as lexemes than are usually considered. The cognitive orientation forces us to accept that people learn as units any combination that has occurred with sufficient frequency or to which sufficient attention has been given. It's a consequence of the brain's natural tendency to "absorb" repeatedly occurring phenomena. So, a lexeme can consist of multiple words -- a phrasal lexeme, a clausal lexeme -- or just part of a word.

Hence, there are simple lexemes and complex lexemes. The latter shouldn't be conflated with idioms, which are complex lexemes whose meaning is not clear from the meanings of their constituents -- so a lexeme can be transparent or opaque or anywhere in between. Transparent lexemes can be interpreted via the constituents or via the whole. This is no problem for a network approach, in which lexemes and their constituents are all activated in parallel.

Another dimension of lexemes is entrenchment. A lexeme becomes more entrenched with more use: the neurocognitive pathways which support it become stronger the more they are traveled.

It is surprising how much ordinary English text is made up of complex lexemes. Stored in memory as units, complex lexemes don't have to be constructed for their production or understanding.

When one or more elements of a complex lexeme is variable, the lexeme is said to be mutable.

Sources

• Language and Reality: Selected Writings of Sydney Lamb, Continuum, 2004.