Lexicalization and language change (review)

Lexicalization has been customarily defined as “a gradual historical process, involving graphemic, phonological and semantic changes and the loss of motivation” (Lipka 2005:40), and can affect a word in its phonology, morphology, semantics, or syntax. Because it can affect the makeup of virtually any item, it stands as a central phenomenon in language change, and as such it has gathered the attention of scholars for decades. The aim of Brinton and Traugott’s work is to provide a wide coverage for what has been traditionally considered under lexicalization, as well as to discuss related concepts necessary for its understanding.

Lexicalization and language change develops along six chapters and progressively introduces the various conceptualizations given to the processes of language modification. Chapter 1 (pp. 1–31) sets the theoretical context of the book and introduces some basic notions, and Chapter 2 (pp. 32–61) provides a background in terms of definitions and viewpoints for lexicalization. The authors discuss next the relationship between lexicalization and grammaticalization, first in a general fashion in Chapter 3 (pp. 62–88) and then in further detail in Chapter 4 (pp. 89–110). The most relevant contents of the work are exemplified in Chapter 5 (pp. 111–140), and some conclusions and research questions are offered in Chapter 6 (pp. 141–160).

Among the concepts introduced in Chapter 1, the notion of lexicon bears a special significance, as there exist various senses to it which must be clarified before attempting a definition of lexicalization (see Aronoff 1989, not mentioned by the authors). To this end, Brinton and Traugott devote several pages to outline holistic vs. componential approaches to the lexicon, to the categories of the lexicon, and to the lexicon viewed as a continuum of productivity, thus laying the conceptual background required for a proper comprehension of the book. This overview is a suitable introduction to the subject also because it is contrasted with concepts like grammar, language change, or productivity, all of which have a bearing on lexicalization and are seen by the authors as a matter of gradation. Brinton and Traugott also offer a summary of the remainder of contents, and set a number of assumptions for a study of language change “from a historical, functionalist perspective” (p. 31).

Chapter 2 immerses into lexicalization proper. After a brief introduction, a central section is “Ordinary processes of word formation” (pp. 33–45), a summary of the major devices of contemporary English: compounding, derivation, conversion, back-formation, initialism, etc. Here, Brinton and Traugott rightly note that lexicalization is to be distinguished from word-formation as far as only the latter has the capacity to produce new items in a regular and predictable manner, a discussion picked up later in Chapter 4. Their review proves valuable because it offers the reader the general features of present-day word-formation in a concise and satisfactory manner, even if one can hardly agree with the inclusion of loan translation, root creation, or coinage under word-formation (see Štekauer 2005:214).

A subsequent logical step is the indispensable though brief explanation of institutionalization, that is, “the spread of a usage to a community and its establishment as the norm” (p. 45), usually taken as a stage following word-formation and preceding lexicalization (see Bauer 1983:45–48; Hohenhaus 2005). A number of opinions are explained and illustrated here before turning to the core of the chapter: lexicalization as fusion (pp. 47–57) and as increase in autonomy (pp. 57–60).

The authors complain of the very little attention that lexicalization as fusion has received from a historical point of view, and define it as “the development of a form from a more complex to a simpler sequence” (p. 47). The present chapter truly represents a deep and up-to-date review of the typology of the phenomenon, given that it covers lexicalization as affecting phrasal and syntactic constructions (p. 48–50), word-formation (p. 50–52), phonological...