Lexical function

A lexical function (LF) is a tool developed within Meaning-Text Theory for the description and systematization of semantic relationships, specifically collocations and lexical derivation, between particular lexical units (LUs) of a language. LFs are also used in the construction of technical lexica (Explanatory Combinatorial Dictionaries) and as abstract nodes in certain types of syntactic representation. Basically, an LF is a function ƒ( ) representing a correspondence ƒ that associates a set ƒ(L) of lexical expressions with an LU L; in f(L), L is the keyword of ƒ, and ƒ(L) = {L´_i} is ƒ’s value. Detailed discussions of Lexical Functions are found in Žolkovskij & Mel’čuk 1967, Mel’čuk 1974, 1996, 1998, 2003, 2007, and Wanner (ed.) 1996; analysis of the most frequent type of lexical functions—verb-noun collocations—can be found in Gelbukh & Kolesnikova 2013.