The lexical and structural components of meaning in word-groups are
interdependent and inseparable. The inseparability of these two semantic components
in word-groups can be illustrated by the semantic analysis of individual word-groups
in which the norms of conventional collocability of words seem to be deliberately
overstepped. For instance, in the word-group
all the sun long we observe a departure
from the norm of lexical valency represented by such word-groups as
all the day long,
all the night long, all the week long, and a few others. The structural pattern of these
word-groups in ordinary usage and the word-group
all the sun long is identical. The
generalised meaning of the pattern may be described as "a unit of time". Replacing
day, night, week by another noun the
sun we do not find any change in the structural
meaning of the pattern. The group
all the sun long functions semantically as a unit of
time. The noun
sun, however, included in the group continues to carry its own lexical
meaning (not "a unit of time") which violates the norms of collocability in this word-
group. It follows that the meaning of the word-group is derived from the combined
lexical meanings of its constituents and is inseparable from the meaning of the pattern
of their arrangement. Two basic linguistic factors which unite words into word-groups
and which largely account for their combinability are lexical valency or collocability
and grammatical valency.
Words are known to be used in lexical context, i.e. in combination with other
words. The aptness of a word to appear in various combinations, with other words is
qualified as its lexical collocability or valency.
The range of a potential lexical collocability of words is restricted by the inner
structure of the language wordstock. This can be easily observed in the examples as
follows: though the words
bend, curl are registered by the dictionaries as synonyms
their collocability is different, for they tend to combine with different words: e.g.
to
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