The one–new–idea constraint, functor–argument metaphors, and holistic speech processing

Abstract The one-new-idea constraint (ONICON) is a hypothesis about how much information we can package in one intonation unit ( Chafe 1982 , 1992 , 1994 ). Chafe (1994) suggests that constructions containing multiple new content words do not necessarily violate the ONICON. Examples include prefabs as well as constructions consisting mostly of low-content elements, and no more than one high-content word (as in, e.g. light verb constructions). We argue in this paper that there is another construction type — functor–argument metaphors ( Reinöhl & Ellison 2024 ) — which does not violate the ONICON, even while they can also consist of more than one new content word. In metaphorical functor–argument constructions, such as to arrive at a conclusion , the functor arrive loses semantic features — in this case, movement in space — through the clash of its literal sense with a non-spatial ‘goal’. The resultant lowered content of the functor renders functor–argument constructions like ones containing maximally one high-content lexeme to start with. We will show that functor–argument metaphors also share certain properties with prefabs. We conclude that functor–argument metaphors need to be added as a third pseudo-exception type, leading us to an enriched understanding of the ONICON, ideahood, and holistic processing of multi-word construction types in speech.