Lexiconcentricity

Lexiconcentricity refers to an approach in linguistics that prioritizes the lexicon, or the vocabulary of a language, as the central organizing principle of language study. Proponents of lexiconcentricity argue that the lexicon is not merely a list of words but a fundamental component that drives grammatical structure, semantic meaning, and language acquisition. This perspective contrasts with approaches that might emphasize syntax, phonology, or morphology as the primary drivers of linguistic phenomena.

In a lexiconcentric view, words are seen as having rich internal structures that include not only their form and meaning but also their grammatical properties and combinatorial possibilities. This means that many grammatical rules and constraints can be understood as arising from the inherent properties of individual words and how they interact. For example, the placement of a verb in a sentence might be determined by its specific subcategorization frame, which is a feature of the verb itself rather than a purely abstract syntactic rule.

This perspective has implications for various fields within linguistics. In theoretical linguistics, it can lead to more parsimonious explanations by reducing the reliance on independent syntactic mechanisms. In psycholinguistics and language acquisition, it suggests that learners might acquire language by building up a lexicon of increasingly complex word-based constructions. In lexicography and computational linguistics, a lexiconcentric approach emphasizes the importance of detailed and accurate lexical entries that capture the full range of a word's behavior.