1 Pleonastic Complex Words as Functional Amalgams Nikos Koutsoukos F.R.S.-FNRS & UCLouvain Laura A. Michaelis University of Colorado Boulder Abstract Syntactic amalgams are innovative phrasal constructions that combine otherwise incompatible subparts of other constructions (Lambrecht 1988, Brenier & Michaelis 2005). We describe pleonastic formations like flavorize in English and ψηλαφ-ίζ(ω) [psilafízo] ‘palpate’ in Modern Greek as functional amalgams at the word level. We examine these formations through the lens of (function-oriented) Sign-Based Construction Grammar (Sag 2012), arguing that once we see derivational morphemes as signs, and sign combination as construction-driven rather than head- driven, we can describe such words as coercive combinations that serve a variety of semiotic functions. 1. Introduction Multiple exponence (ME) is a pervasive linguistic phenomenon in different domains of grammar and at different levels of style (Lehmann 2005, 119). ME in morphology has recently attracted considerable attention (see, among others, Harris 2017, Caballero & Inkelas 2018). Harris (2017, 9) defines multiple (or extended) morphological exponence as “the occurrence of multiple realizations of a single morphosemantic feature, bundle of features, or derivational category within a word”. Based on the locus of realization of ME, we distinguish between explicit multiple exponence (EME), in which pleonastic information is encoded by two distinct affixes (e.g., geographical, as against geographic), and implicit multiple exponence (IME), in which pleonastic