391:, whereby a given catena may or may not be a constituent. In syntax, a catena is any element or combination of elements (words or parts of words) that are continuous in the vertical dimension, that is, in the hierarchy of words. The elements form a catena insofar as they are linked together by dependencies. Some dependency grammar trees containing multiple-word lexical items that are catenae but not constituents are now produced. The following trees illustrate phrasal verbs:
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Many lexical items are either a whole word or part of a word, whereas many other lexical items consist of parts of one or more words or of multiple words in their entirety. A basic question in this area concerns the form-meaning correspondence. Many multi-word lexical items cannot be construed as
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in that they are "natural units" translating between languages, or in learning a new language. In this last sense, it is sometimes said that language consists of grammaticalized lexis, and not lexicalized grammar. The entire store of lexical items in a language is called its
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The component words of the polywords (in red) are continuous in the vertical dimension and are therefore catenae. They cannot, however, be construed as constituents since they do not form complete subtrees. The following trees illustrate idioms:
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The verb and particle (in red) in each case constitute a particle verb construction, which is a single lexical item. The two words remain a catena even as shifting changes their order of appearance. The following trees illustrate polywords:
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in syntax in any sense. But if they are not constituents, then how does one classify them? A relatively recent development in the field of syntax envisages lexical items stored in the lexicon as
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William O'Grady (1998) introduced the catena unit to linguistics; others have developed the concept further. See for instance
Osborne and Groß (2012).
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Osborne, T. and T. Groß 2012. "Constructions are catenae: Construction
Grammar meets Dependency Grammar".
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is generally understood to refer to the virus that causes a cold, rather than to a virus that is cold.
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is not part of the idiom in the first tree (tree a) because the possessor is variable, e.g.
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The fixed words constituting the idiom (in red) build a catena each time. Note that
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Lexical items composed of more than one word are also sometimes called
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In this paper we explore...; First...; Second...; Lastly...
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is a single word, a part of a word, or a chain of words (
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Concerning types of lexical chunks, see M. Lewis (1997).
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133:) that forms the basic elements of a language's
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447:He is pulling my/her/his/someone's/etc. leg
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109:Learn how and when to remove this message
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525:Natural Language and Linguistic Theory
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47:adding citations to reliable sources
774:International scientific vocabulary
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137:(≈ vocabulary). Examples are
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518:Implementing the Lexical Approach
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345:Sentence frames and heads, e.g.
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314:Would you like a cup of coffee?
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347:That is not as...as you think
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337:The early bird gets the worm
378:Form-meaning correspondence
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451:Your leg is being pulled
331:a bitter pill to swallow
197:is also sometimes used.
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789:Linguistic prescription
697:Hypernymy and hyponymy
473:Outline of linguistics
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702:Meronymy and holonymy
532:Cognitive Linguistics
270:Multiword expressions
222:Parts of words, e.g.
553:at Wikimedia Commons
291:absolutely convinced
43:improve this article
779:Lexicographic error
355:Text frames, e.g.,
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463:Dependency grammar
368:semantic relations
327:was one whale of a
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99:January 2024
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41:Please help
36:verification
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595:Major terms
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323:break a leg
298:I'll get it
244:nondescript
193:. The term
828:Categories
794:Morphology
588:Lexicology
511:References
478:Set phrase
372:cold virus
306:That'll do
278:inside out
274:by the way
151:by the way
69:newspapers
736:Functions
727:Troponymy
685:relations
302:We'll see
748:Headword
692:Antonymy
683:Semantic
658:Morpheme
643:Grapheme
626:Elements
457:See also
722:Synonym
663:Phoneme
633:Chereme
607:Lexicon
389:catenae
321:, e.g.
285:, e.g.
272:, e.g.
265:get out
261:put off
259:, e.g.
252:loudest
212:, e.g.
179:gambits
135:lexicon
83:scholar
757:Fields
673:Sememe
653:Lexeme
638:Glyphs
319:Idioms
236:worker
159:lexeme
153:, and
131:catena
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707:Idiom
648:Lemma
612:Lexis
484:Notes
228:trees
210:Words
201:Types
189:, or
168:lexis
163:semes
90:JSTOR
76:books
668:Seme
617:Word
443:your
248:-est
240:non-
218:tree
125:, a
62:news
263:or
250:in
242:in
234:in
232:-er
226:in
214:cat
139:cat
121:In
45:by
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