A Linear Grammar of Speech 95
For instance, Moon (1992) distinguishes between anomalous collocations,
e.g. by and large, which cannot be analysed by the normal lexical rules of
English; formulae, e.g. shut your mouth; and fossilized metaphors, e.g. spill
the beans. Moon (1994: 117; 1998: 35) argues that all three types of lexical
elements represent single meaningful speaker selections. On the other
hand Melcˇuk (1995) distinguishes between free and non-free phrases. A phrase
is free if its semantic and syntactic properties are determined by the
semantic properties of the ‘words’ which make up the phrase. For example,
the meaning of the free phrase tell a joke is determined by the semantic
properties of its constituent ‘words’ tell and joke. On the other hand, the
meaning of crack a joke is not determined by the semantic properties of
the constituent ‘words’. Non-free phrases alone, according to Melcˇuk,
are stored in the lexicon as single elements. Yet as Hunston and Francis
(2000: 9) point out both tell and crack collocate with joke (as does make);
therefore it appears inconsistent to describe crack a joke as a fi xed phrase
and tell a joke as a free phrase. To illustrate:
(16) I tell a joke
N V d N(17) I crack a joke
N PHR-VTreating (16) and (17) differently is both intuitively unsatisfying as well as
being counter-productive to a fully transparent description of speech. The
difference in the coding obscures the fact that (16) and (17) could easily
operate as communicative synonyms.
Nattinger and DeCarrico (1992: 1) hold the view that even lexical phrases
longer than clauses which allow for limited lexical substitution, such as if I X
then you Y have the potential to be stored in the lexicon as single elements.
As a result it seems that Carter (1987: 58–65) is correct to maintain that the
lexical system is best viewed as a cline which runs from less fi xed elements
to more fi xed elements rather than as a dichotomy of words and phrases.
Stefanowitsch and Gries (2003: 212) agree, and argue that the linguistic sys-
tem is best viewed as a continuum of successively more abstract meaningful
units, which themselves cannot be compositionally decomposed, from single
morphemes such as mis to more abstract constructions such as the English
distransitive subcategorization frame S V Oi Od, e.g. John gave Mary a ball.
Sinclair (1991: 109) acknowledges that the usual way of viewing language
is that it is the accumulation of a very large number of complex choices.