[beeforpork]

> But roughly 15% are plausible: “wooden chair,” “morning coffee.” That’s still 30 billion sensible pairs.

(1) Who counted those? Whence those numbers?

(2) The examples are normal two-word phrases with one word modifying the other, often categorised as an adjective. The examples are counter-examples to the very claim made in that article.

(3) Using Clause to brainstorm s.t. is a weird thing to say...

(4) I would say the use of 'lexicalized' is wrong or at least uncommon. It usually refers to specialised semantics of something that could be interpreted generically, too. Like 'sleeping bag'. Or indeed 'cold feet'. Lexicalisation may involve deleting spaces, like 'hotdog'. And I am pretty sure lexicalised phrasal words are usually intensionally listed in dictionaries. And so 'ice' is not lexicalised 'frozen water', but it is not overtly a phrase but is a separate atomic word.

=> I don't get the point.

[michaeld123]

My bad. there's a little sidebar about it, but I put it lower after the chart because there wasn't room. You might still not find my logic on the 15% satisfying, but it's there.