A quantitative method for syntactic gradience: words, phrases, and the constructions in between

Abstract Syntactic gradience has been studied mainly from a qualitative perspective. In this paper, I propose a new method, based on the process of multi-criteria decision-making, that can quantify the word-phrase gradience against the standardized morphosyntactic continuum. This method may be applied to both synchronic and diachronic research, with the discrepancies between compounds and idioms and the lexicalization of compound pronouns in English examined as illustrations.