Lexical Structures

Books in the series address the core sub-disciplines of linguistics - phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics and pragmatics - and their interfaces, with a particular focus on novel data from various sources and their challenges to linguistic theorizing. Bringing together the subjects of English compounding and Chomsky's theory of 'Lexicalism', Heinz Giegerich demonstrates in this new study the impossibility of drawing a line between compounds and phrases, and therefore between the lexicon and the syntax, the two grammatical modules of Lexicalism. Proposing a new model of grammatical modularity, where the lexicon and the syntax overlap 'like slates on a roof', Giegerich examines long-standing and unresolved questions about the difference between English compounds and phrases. With its detailed study of compound words in English and its comprehensive analysis of Lexicalism's theoretical framework, Lexical structures: Compounding and the modules of grammar will be of profound relevance to all researchers and students with an interest in English linguistics, and in morphological, syntactic or phonological theory. Heinz Giegerich is Professor of English Linguistics at the University of Edinburgh and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. His previous publications include Metrical phonology and phonological structure (1985), English phonology (1992) and Lexical strata in English (1999). At Edinburgh University Press he is the editor of the Edinburgh Textbooks on the English Language and a co-founder and co-editor (with Laurie Bauer and Greg Stump) of the journal Word Structure. Cover design: Stuart Dalziel