CHAPTER 6 Lexical Storage versus Online

Construction

6.1 Lexical items versus words

This chapter focuses on an issue which to my knowledge has played no significant role in generative theories, but
whichI have begun to think is absolutely central in working out the instantiation of language in the mind. Atfirst this
issue may seem irrelevant to the issues of the previous chapter, but as we go on it will become clearer how intimately
they are related.

What aspects of an utterancemustbe stored in long-term memory, and what aspectscanbe constructed
online in working memory?

The modalities in the two parts of this question (“must”versus“can”) are important. Consider two simple examples.
The worddogmust be stored in longterm memory: there is no way to construct it online from smaller parts. By
contrast, the reader probably understands the utteranceMy dog just vomited on your carpetby constructing it online from
its constituent words, invoking the combinatorial rules of English grammar. However: since I have memorized this
sentence, havingused itas an exampleinmanytalks, itispresent inmylong-ter m me mory. Infactanyutterancecanbe
memorized, all the way from littleclichés to the words ofTake Me Out to the Ballgameto the entire text ofHamlet. Thus
wecannotpredictinadvancethatany particular part ofan utterancemustbeconstructed online bya given speaker. We
can predict only that speakerscanconstruct some part online on demand if it hasn't already been memorized.

One might wonder why the possibility of memorizingHamletshould bear on linguistic issues at all. It might be that
words are one thing for the brain and f-mind, and long passages of text are something else (e.g. they use a different
kind of memory). But notice that memorized textsaremade up of linguistic units—they are linked phonological,
syntactic, and semantic structures that (at least