Ebook: On the Categorialness of Lexemes between Lexicon and Grammar

Ljubljana: Slavistična revija (Slavistično društvo Slovenije). No. 54. 2006. [377]—399 p.The present article builds on the fi ndings concerning the connectedness between lexical
and grammatical linguistic issues – the paradigmatic and syntagmatic aspects of lexico-semantic
analysis. The categorial semantic features as defi nitional properties of individual sentence
elements divide lexemes into those which concretize these categorial semantic features when
performing syntactic functions and those which do not. A change in the syntactic function of the
lexeme results in the change of categorial semantic features and, consequently, in the change of
the lexical meaning. – It is characteristic of lexemes with syntactic functions that their denotata
are part of the propositional structure of the (underlying) sentence meaning if these are verbs or
nouns or adverbs of exterior circumstances. Outside the proposition remain the semantic »modifi
cators« of propositional lexemes, the adjective next to the noun, and the adverb of interior
circumstances next to the verb. The meaning of lexemes with such denotata can be represented
structurally as a hierarchically organized string of semantic features which refl ect the logical
relationship between what is conceptually wider and conceptually narrower.