Construction Morphology

In construction morphology, complex words are seen as constructions on the word level. The notion 'construction', a pairing of form and meaning, as developed in the theory of Construction Grammar, is essential for an insightful account of the properties of complex words. Morphological patterns can be represented as constructional schemas that express generalizations about sets of existing complex words and word forms, and provide the recipes for coining new (forms of) words. Such schemas form part of a hierarchical lexicon with generalizations on different levels of abstraction, they account for holistic properties of complex words that are not derivable from their constituents, and they can be unified into complex schemas that express the co-occurrence of certain types of word formation. The format of constructional schemas is also appropriate for phrasal lexical units with word-like functions such as phrasal names, particle verbs, and periphrastic expressions.