summary : i . mel ' cuk content - length : 2450 a few people answered my question about i . mel ' cuk 1976 reference , so i thought a summary of the references i gathered might interest the linguistlist as a whole . first , i wish to thank the people that answered me : ( in order of appearance ) lars borin david beck ariadna solovyova claude coulombe lonz ( only reference i got on that person , from the electronic address . sorry ) miquel aguado keith goeringer claude boisson some directed me to pr mel ' cuk , who is teaching at montreal university . moreover , here is a list of melc ' uk 's works , including the one i was looking for , and subsequent works which update his views on the sign / word : 1976 . das wort . zwischen inhalt und ausdruck . munchen , wilhelm fink verlag , 461 p . ( parts of the book are writen in english ) 1979 . " syntactic , or lexical , zero in natural language " , proceedings of the berkeley linguistics society 5 , 224-60 . 1984-92 . dictionnaire explicatif et combinatoire du francais contemporain : recherches lexico-semantiques , 3 vols , montreal , presses de l ' universite de montreal . 1988 . " semantic description of lexical units in an explanatory combinatorial dictionary " , international journal of lexicography 1 / 3 , 165-88 . 1988 . dependency syntax : theory and practice , albany , state university of new york press . 1993 . cours de morphologie generale , vol . 1 : le mot , montreal , presses de l ' universite de montreal . _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ jerome serme laboratoire ' dynamique du langage ' ( umr 9961 ) maison rhone - alpes des sciences de l ' homme 14 , avenue berthelot 69363 lyon cedex - france phone : + 33 72 72 64 12 fax : + 33 72 80 00 08 e - mail : jerome . serme @ mrash . fr _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _