K problému kompozicionality jazykového významu

The first part of this article documents the fact that all four possible combinations of the Czech adjectives železniční (rail) and silniční (road) and nouns podjezd (underpass) and nadjezd (overpass) can refer to both of the two possible kinds of grade-separated road/railway crossings. The second part of the article discusses this particular fact in connection with the notion of compositionality and interprets it using the procedural model of language constructed by the Polish linguist Dorota Zielińska. It is argued that compositionality cannot be viewed as a phenomenon defined in a binary manner, but rather, that being (non-)compositional is a matter of degree.