Lexical Analysis A New Approach

Abstract

In this chapter we would like to argue from a more general point of view for Lexical Analysis (LA). Under the term Lexical Analysis we would like to comprise two strands of the treatment of lexical expressions — lexicography and lexicology. In other words Lexical Analysis should comprise the more practical ways and the more theoretical ways of treating lexical material likewise. Traditionally the practically oriented lexicography and the theoretically conceived lexicology have been largely separated. Either lexical research was concentrated on establishing extensive collections of words or idiomatic phrases [2.1–4] or lexical research was directed towards theoretical questions such as investigating the structure of limited lexical domains [2.5–8] and considering which form a lexical entry should have [2.9–10]. An intermediate position is rarely taken. There are few research conceptions which attempted to conjoin the practical and theoretical work of lexicography and lexicology. One of them is the production of valency lexica and of the theoretical analyses accompanying this enterprise [2.11–13]. The advantages in conjoining lexicological and lexicographical approaches are manifold. It is therefore astonishing that a fusion on a systematic basis was not tried earlier. In the first place, the shortcomings of a restriction to either one of the approaches are obvious.KeywordsSemantic ContentExpressive PowerLexical EntryGrammatical CategoryLinguistic ExpressionThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.