Lexique-Grammaire et extensions lexicales

One can find in French expressions which are equivalent to adverbs ending in -ment, e.g. écouter d'une oreille attentive /distraite as compared to écouter attentivement /distraitement, or dessiner d'une main habile /dessiner d'un crayon habile as compared to dessiner habilement. These expressions, which are considered to be relatively fixed, or semi-compositional, are being studied with ever-increasing precision by linguists and lexicographers. This paper sets out the criteria which define these expressions in Lexicon-Grammar Theory.