A constructional approach to the lexicalisation of synsets in African Wordnet: The case of possessive constructions

Constructional grammar provides a platform for a unified justification of the grammaticalisation and lexicalisation of words in a language. This includes accounting for linguistic changes which have commonalities and features that keep those changes dissimilar. Lexicalisation, in this article, must be understood in the context of the diachronic process of language change. This article unpacks the problems inherent in those theories of language structure that assert a sharp dichotomy between the lexicon and the syntax, as observed in the possessive constructions in African Wordnet. This argument is raised against the backdrop of the linguistic theories that have progressed towards demonstrating human language ability and that of the lexicon that has become fundamental to those theories. While this article takes an unusual turn by focusing on examples of usage in which possessives have been used to amplify the created synonym sets (synsets) in African Wordnet, a major part of it is devoted to discussion of the evolution of the possessive compounds in the history of Siswati as one of the languages covered by the African Wordnet project. This approach is based on the premise that the lexicon must interface with the conceptual system.