Variable constituent

The term variable constituent is involved in explaining the mutable lexeme and the construction.

To understand variable constituents by example, take the Saddam Hussein-coined mutable lexeme "the mother of all battles". When "battle" is segmented, the remainder of whatever meaning is connected to "the mother of all battles" is assigned to the remainder of the expression, that is, "the mother of all ...-s". The conditions for the occurrence of this process, for example, for a substitution of "meteor" for "battle", are presumably that the situation involving the meteor was sufficiently similar to that involving battle to call up that (heretofore) fixed lexeme. This makes it easy to substitute "meteor" and other nouns for "battle" to describe situations in which something is spectacularly large or important.

Sources

• Language and Reality: Selected Writings of Sydney Lamb, Continuum, 2004.