| Hi,
The use of the lexical item "phrase" is confusing me a little here.
In the terms of many linguistic theories, the term "phrase" describes
a functional unit which may (in the case of a Noun Phrase) perform
the function of a grammatical object/subject in a clause/sentence.
In this case, the Noun Phrase may contain adjectivals, or adverbials
and these do not inherit "nounness" beacuse of their inclusion.
However, if an adjectival phrase (ie "The Old were.....") is used
as the sub/obeject of a clause/sentence, then it can be said that
the adjective "old" is being used in a "nominalized" form.
However hard a lexicographer may try, s/he cannot simply restrict
the scope of a dictionary to single lexical items, for then this
would simply become a word-list. By introducing "phrases" and idioms
into their dictionaries, the lexicographers are recognizing that
it is not always the "word" which is the semantic unit they are
there to list. It may be that these people choose to define the
term "word" differently; to them, it may "mean" a semantic unit
which may exist on its own. If this is the case, and if all
lexicographers hold to this, then there is no problem, and the term
"word" becomes another piece of lexicographer jargon.
Well there's my two-penneth worth....
Cheers,
Richard...
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| Revisiting this subject long after it died peacefully in its
sleep:
First of all, entire phrases and even clauses can and do function
as nouns in a sentence. The most familiar examples are the gerund
phrase (Owning a house is an expensive proposition) and the
inifinitive phrase (To know oneself is to achieve peace). In each
of these sentences, the phrase, though composed of separate words,
functions as a single noun in the context of a sentence.
The other point that comes to mind is that the concept of "word"
predates the printing convention of separating lexical units by a
space. Many languages, including Hebrew and old English, were
routinely written down without spaces when they were transcribed
by hand; you can find examples of such spaceless writing in most
any language that was written down.
Albert Lord, in his research on oral poetry, found that
nonliterate poets conceive of "word" differntly: poets would swear
they repeated a story "word for word" when the story appeared to
us as only a paraphrase or a retelling of the same theme.
Isn't it amazing what a person will think of while she's waiting
for DOCUMENT to give her file back?
--bonnie
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