English Lexical Fixedness Hierarchy

An English Lexical Fixedness Hierarchy is a lexical fixedness hierarchy that categorizes english multiword expressions by their degree of english syntactic rigidity and english lexical substitutability.

• AKA: English Syntactic Fixedness Scale, English Phrasal Rigidity Hierarchy, English Lexical Flexibility Continuum.
• Context:
  • It can typically distinguish English Free Combinations from english frozen expressions.
  • It can often predict English Syntactic Transformation possibilities for english phrasal units.
  • It can frequently correlate with English Lexicalization Degree in english historical development.
  • It can usually inform English Natural Language Processing about english parsing strategys.
  • It can commonly affect English Language Teaching of english phrasal patterns.
  • It can sometimes vary across English Dialects in english acceptability judgments.
  • It can range from being an English Completely Free Combination to being an English Completely Frozen Expression, depending on its english flexibility level.
  • It can range from being an English Syntactically Flexible Expression to being an English Syntactically Rigid Expression, depending on its english transformational possibility.
  • It can range from being an English Lexically Variable Expression to being an English Lexically Fixed Expression, depending on its english substitution tolerance.
  • It can range from being an English Morphologically Adaptable Expression to being an English Morphologically Invariant Expression, depending on its english inflection capability.
  • ...
• Example(s):
  • English Free Combinations (Level 1), such as:
    • "Read a book" allowing english full substitution.
    • "Walk quickly" with english unrestricted modification.
  • English Restricted Collocations (Level 2), such as:
    • "Strong coffee" preferring english specific intensifier.
    • "Heavy rain" with english conventional modifier.
  • English Semi-Fixed Expressions (Level 3), such as:
    • "Take advantage (of)" allowing english limited variation.
    • "Keep tabs (on)" with english partial flexibility.
  • English Fixed Expressions (Level 4), such as:
    • "By and large" permitting english no substitution.
    • "Spick and span" with english frozen order.
  • English Fully Frozen Expressions (Level 5), such as:
    • KICKTHEBUCKET rejecting english any modification.
    • "Kingdom come" with english absolute fixedness.
  • ...
• Counter-Example(s):
  • English Semantic Transparency Scale, which measures english meaning predictability.
  • English Frequency Hierarchy, which ranks english usage rate.
  • English Formality Scale, which classifies english register level.
  • Syntactic Tree Structure, which represents hierarchical relationship.
• See: Lexical Fixedness, English Fixed Expression, English Collocation, English Idiomatic Expression, English Free Combination, Syntactic Flexibility, English Multiword Expression, Phraseology, Construction Grammar.

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