Chapter 11. Revisiting Poser’s (1992) “Blocking of phrasal constructions by lexical items” from the perspective of the economy of language use principle

Abstract

Poser (1992) is an important paper that points out that blocking applies not only to synonyms but also to synonymous phrases, using Japanese examples. This chapter aims to update his discussion and proposal using Ueno’s (2014) “economy of language use” principle requiring to choose a structurally simpler expression when there are two semantically rivaling expressions. Considering the significance of two semantically similar but formally non-identical representations co-existing redundantly, this chapter also puts forth Sadock’s (2012) multi-modular grammar as a model that embodies the idea that grammar is competition.