Competing principles in the lexicon

Abstract

From a typological point of view it is challenging to ask which factors account for the differences in the encoding of complex event concepts. Strategies of lexicalizing complex event concepts will be investigated in this paper, leading us to two competing principles which turn out to be variational dimensions in the lexicon.Let me briefly outline the plan of this paper: We will look at codingalternatives of complex event concepts that can be found in thelexicons of languages, thereby opening up a discussion about differentstrategies of lexicalization and lexical organization. A comparisonof these strategies will reveal – as mentioned above – two competingprinciples in the lexicon which will be discussed more thoroughly.Moreover, the question arises why such principles exist,leading us to the search for an explanation of the principles themselves.I hope to be able to show that a functionalistic approach suppliesadequate reasons, where terms like user optimality andefficiency play important roles. Due to the complexity of the factorsinteracting to achieve efficiency in communication, we will restrainourselves to the more "static" or "offline" part of language productionand understanding. That is to say we will concentrate on aspectsof learning, remembering and accessing lexical items and not considerthe "online" aspect of producing and processing utterances.