Joe Becker's 1975 article 'The Phrasal Lexicon' argued that the mental lexicon is far richer than a set of words; it contains phrases, idioms, and other linguistic chunks that are stored and retrieved as holistic units, not constructed compositionally.

factualpending

Speaker

Douglas Hofstadter

Evidence Quote

“I was deeply influenced by an article...by Joe Becker...called the phrasal lexicon...what we have in our head is far, far richer than a set of words...very very inspiring article. [50:43]”

Source

Analogy as the Core of Cognition— Stanford
Created: 8/12/2026, 6:12:22 PM

My Notes

Loading notes...