Are chunks the basic units of language？

[xujiajin]

Are we going too far by saying "chunks are the basic unit (cited from Barlow's ppt)"?

Can we build the entire edifice of language solely on lexical chunks?

 

[xiaoz]

The answer is no in my view. Lexical bundles are important but less "basic" building blocks than words in language.

 

[xujiajin]

Yes.
There are not only "Syntactic Freezes", but "morpho-syntactic spontaneities (my coinage)"

Collocations and Idioms: Syntactic Freezes
http://www.corpus4u.com/forum_view.asp?forum_id=56&view_id=980

In spoken discourse research, intonation units (IUs) are seen as the least disposable units.

自然话语的切分：韵律单位：intonation unit
http://www.corpus4u.com/forum_view.asp?view_id=536&forum_id=34

 

[seanxpq]

Too difficult for me! Anyhow, thanks all the same for sharing your views.

 

[seanxpq]

有没有人见过《学习者动词行为：类联接、搭配及词块》这本书，解放军外国语学院濮建忠博士的专著。非常棒啊！河南大学出版社,2003年12月出版,首印2000册。
Learner Behavior of Verbs: Colligation,Collocation and Chunk.

 

[xujiajin]

黑皮的，应该是他的博士论文吧。
程工老师主编的，洛外的很多博士论文（在本校做的和在别的学校做的好像都有吧）都编在这个博士论文系列里了。

 

[刘语料]

是濮建忠的博士后论文，洛外每一年都要出博士论文集，濮建忠的是第一批，目前已经出了两批，共计十余本左右了。全由河南大学出版社出版。

 

[xujiajin]

哦，这样子啊。