[jargon] The lexicalist hypothesis is a response to generative semanticians who use transformations in the derivation of complex words.
In the 1950s, Noam Chomsky introduced generative grammar into the world of linguistics and his theory quickly became widely accepted and popular.
The morphological transformations made to the verb ignore are largely idiosyncratic, and do not inherently contribute to the meaning.
Advocates of the lexicalist hypothesis posit certain properties of syntactic words as evidence for a pre-syntactic word-formation module.
Michael Barrie (2012)[8] of Sogang University discusses these properties and argues that none of them presents a solid case for positing a word-building module distinct from syntax.
He points out three ways in which he believes that the lexicalist hypothesis is mistaken in its view of grammar.
However, if the first member of the compound violates rules and constraints of the phrasal syntax, the result is ill-formed, as in (2).
[2] Bruening (2018)[2] also argues that the lexicalist hypothesis is incorrect in its assertion that the phrasal syntax has no access to subword units.
However, (4c) does not function because the morphemes bi-, ma- (which sounds identical to a-), and son are not distinct in these terms.
This means that ellipsis can't only work with phonological or prosodic strings; it also requires access to morphological structure.