IRREVERSIBLE BINOMIAL CONSTRUCTIONS IN ROMANIAN. LEXICOLOGICAL ASPECTS

Abstract

This study analyses irreversible binomial constructions in Romanian, which consist of two nominal constituents whose order becomes fixed. It investigates the factors that influence the ordering of these constituents, in addition to already known linguistic and extralinguistic rules, such as the number of syllables, word frequency and extralinguistic hierarchy. It has been observed that some binomial constructions, such as duce și ducesă [‘duch and duchess’] sau împărat și împărăteasă [‘emperor and empress’], follow a derivational pattern: the second constituent is formed by derivation from the first and semantically includes reference to the first constituent. Likewise, in constructions such as soț și soție [‘husband and wife’], a semantic relationship is established between the constituents, whereby both terms mutually define each other, which contributes to the cohesion and irreversibility of the construction. The conclusion of this study is that, in addition to linguistic and extralinguistic constraints, word-formation processes and semantic relations between constituents play an essential role in determining the fixed order of binominal constructions, a phenomenon also observed in other languages, such as French.