Is a lexeme one word

Asked by: Mazie Turner

Score: 4.9/5
(22 votes)

A lexeme has a morphological form, semantic content (or meaning) and a syntactic category. … This is because the word player is a derived (and not inflected) form of play that has a different syntactic category (in this case, it is Noun). Lexeme is not equivalent to a word or morpheme in a language.

Is lexeme the same as word?

In linguistics the term is lexeme represents the basic or dictionary form of the word. … Each inflected form of a lexeme is called a word-form. E.g. ‘sing, sang, sung, singing, sings’ are each a word-form and each one belongs to the lexeme SING.

What is a lexeme in English?

A lexeme is a theoretical construct that stands for the unitary meaning and shared syntactic properties of a group of word forms. A lexeme is stripped of any inflectional endings. Thus play, plays, played, and playing are all inflected forms of the lexeme play.

What is the difference between lexeme and morpheme?

A morpheme is the smallest unit of a word that provides a specific meaning to a string of letters (which is called a phoneme). … A lexeme is the set of all the inflected forms of a single word.

What is the difference between lexeme and root?

is that root is (computing) the highest directory of a directory structure which may contain both files and subdirectories while lexeme is (computing) an individual instance of a continuous character sequence without spaces, used in lexical analysis (see token).

24 related questions found

This word park is a lexeme that might be confused with another lexeme; its homonym park.

We intuitively know what a WORD is. In written language words are separated by spaces. In spoken language you can sometimes hear a pause between them, although in most cases there’s nothing noticeable that separates words in spoken language.

We can distinguish the orthographic word, the grammatical word and the lexeme.

An ORTHOGRAPHIC WORD is a word form separated by spaces from other orthographic words in written texts and the corresponding form in spoken language.

In the example:

She wanted to win the game.

there are six orthographic words: she, wanted, to, win, the and game.

A GRAMMATICAL WORD is a word form used for a specific grammatical purpose.

For example in the sentence:

That man over there said that he would like to talk to you.

we have the word THAT used twice. This is one orthographic word, but we’re dealing with two grammatical words here: the first THAT is a demonstrative adjective and the other THAT is a conjunction.

A LEXEME is a group of word forms with the same basic meaning that belong to the same word class.

For example the words AM, WAS, IS belong to one lexeme, as they have the same basic meaning and are all verbs. Also the words COME and CAME belong to the same lexeme.

How do they relate to one another?

In many cases orthographic and grammatical words overlap. For example in the sentence:

They bought the house.

there are four orthographic words and four grammatical words, so there is one-to-one correspondence in this case.

But if we slightly modify the sentence like so:

They didn’t buy the house.

there are now five orthographic words and six grammatical words. This is because the orthographic word DIDN’T represents a sequence of two grammatical words: DID + NOT.

It may also be the other way around. In the sentence:

I kind of like it.

there are five orthographic words, but only four grammatical words, because the two orthographic words KIND OF actually represent a single grammatical word.

You can also watch the video version here:

In linguistics, a lexeme is the fundamental unit of the lexicon (or word stock) of a language. Also known as a lexical unit, lexical item, or lexical word. In corpus linguistics, lexemes are commonly referred to as lemmas.

A lexeme is often—but not always—an individual word (a simple lexeme or dictionary word, as it’s sometimes called). A single dictionary word (for example, talk) may have a number of inflectional forms or grammatical variants (in this example, talks, talked, talking).

A multiword (or composite) lexeme is a lexeme made up of more than one orthographic word, such as a phrasal verb (e.g., speak up; pull through), an open compound (fire engine; couch potato), or an idiom (throw in the towel; give up the ghost).

The way in which a lexeme can be used in a sentence is determined by its word class or grammatical category.

Etymology

From the Greek, «word, speech»

Examples and Observations

• «A lexeme is a unit of lexical meaning, which exists regardless of any inflectional endings it may have or the number of words it may contain. Thus, fibrillate, rain cats and dogs, and come in are all lexemes, as are elephant, jog, cholesterol, happiness, put up with, face the music, and hundreds of thousands of other meaningful items in English. The headwords in a dictionary are all lexemes.»
  (David Crystal, The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language, 2nd ed. Cambridge University Press, 2003)

Specifications of Lexemes

«[A] lexeme is a linguistic item defined by the following specifications, which make up what is called the lexical entry for this item:

• its sound form and its spelling (for languages with a written standard);
• the grammatical category of the lexeme (noun, intransitive verb, adjective, etc.);
• its inherent grammatical properties (for some languages, e.g. gender);
• the set of grammatical forms it may take, in particular, irregular forms;
• its lexical meaning.
• «These specifications apply to both simple and composite lexemes.»
  (Sebastian Löbner, Understanding Semantics. Routledge, 2013)

The Meanings of Lexemes

«Definitions are an attempt to characterize the ‘meaning’ or sense of a lexeme and to distinguish the meaning of the lexeme concerned from the meanings of other lexemes in the same semantic field, for example, the ‘elephant’ from other large mammals. There is a sense in which a definition characterizes the ‘potential’ meaning of a lexeme; the meaning only becomes precise as it is actualized in a context. Since the division of the meaning of a lexeme into senses is based on the variation of meaning perceived in different contexts, a tension exists in lexicography between the recognition of separate senses and the potentiality of meaning found in definitions. This may well account in large part for the divergence between similar-sized dictionaries in the number of senses recorded and in consequent differences of definition.»
(Howard Jackson and ‎Etienne Zé Amvela, Words, Meaning and Vocabulary: An Introduction to Modern English Lexicology, 2nd ed. Continuum, 2005)

Invariable and Variable Lexemes

«In many cases, it makes no difference whether we take a syntactic or a lexical perspective. Lexemes such as the and and are invariable, i.e., there is only one word corresponding to each. Also invariable are lexemes like efficiently: although more efficiently is in some respects like harder, it is not a single word, but a sequence of two, and hence efficiently and more efficiently are not forms of a single lexeme. Variable lexemes, by contrast, are those which have two or more forms. Where we need to make clear that we are considering an item as a lexeme, not a word, we will represent it in bold italics. Hard, for example, represents the lexeme which has hard and harder—and also hardest—as its forms. Similarly are and is, along with be, been, being, etc., are forms of the lexeme be. . . . A variable lexeme is thus a word-sized lexical item considered in abstraction from grammatical properties that vary depending on the syntactic construction in which it appears.»
(Rodney Huddleston and Geoffroy Pullum, The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language. Cambridge University Press, 2002)

Pronunciation: LECK-seem

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A lexeme () is a unit of lexical meaning that underlies a set of words that are related through inflection. It is a basic abstract unit of meaning,^[1] a unit of morphological analysis in linguistics that roughly corresponds to a set of forms taken by a single root word. For example, in English, run, runs, ran and running are forms of the same lexeme, which can be represented as RUN.^{[note 1]}

One form, the lemma (or citation form), is chosen by convention as the canonical form of a lexeme. The lemma is the form used in dictionaries as an entry’s headword. Other forms of a lexeme are often listed later in the entry if they are uncommon or irregularly inflected.

Description[edit]

The notion of the lexeme is central to morphology,^[2] the basis for defining other concepts in that field. For example, the difference between inflection and derivation can be stated in terms of lexemes:

• Inflectional rules relate a lexeme to its forms.
• Derivational rules relate a lexeme to another lexeme.

A lexeme belongs to a particular syntactic category, has a certain meaning (semantic value) and, in inflecting languages, has a corresponding inflectional paradigm. That is, a lexeme in many languages will have many different forms. For example, the lexeme RUN has a present third person singular form runs, a present non-third-person singular form run (which also functions as the past participle and non-finite form), a past form ran, and a present participle running. (It does not include runner, runners, runnable etc.) The use of the forms of a lexeme is governed by rules of grammar. In the case of English verbs such as RUN, they include subject–verb agreement and compound tense rules, which determine the form of a verb that can be used in a given sentence.

In many formal theories of language, lexemes have subcategorization frames to account for the number and types of complements. They occur within sentences and other syntactic structures.

Decomposition[edit]

A language’s lexemes are often composed of smaller units with individual meaning called morphemes, according to root morpheme + derivational morphemes + suffix (not necessarily in that order), where:

• The root morpheme is the primary lexical unit of a word, which carries the most significant aspects of semantic content and cannot be reduced to smaller constituents.^[3]
• The derivational morphemes carry only derivational information.^[4]
• The suffix is composed of all inflectional morphemes, and carries only inflectional information.^[5]

The compound root morpheme + derivational morphemes is often called the stem.^[6] The decomposition stem + desinence can then be used to study inflection.

See also[edit]

• Ending (linguistics)
• Inflection
• Lemma
• Lexical word vs. grammatical word
• Marker (linguistics)
• Multiword expression
• Null morpheme
• Root (linguistics)
• Stem
• Syntagma (linguistics)
• Word family

Notes[edit]

References[edit]

External links[edit]

• The dictionary definition of lexeme at Wiktionary

Besides
the term ‘word’ there exists a scientific term lexeme.
This term emerged from the necessity to differentiate a word-form and
the word as a structural element of the language. Thus in the
sentence My
friend has got a lot of books and I borrowed an interesting book
from him the
words
books and
book
are perceived as two words but actually these are the grammatical
variants of one lexeme. The term lexeme was introduced to avoid such
kind of ambiguity. Besides it is in line with the terms of units of
other levels: phoneme, morpheme, phraseme.

Lexeme
is a structural element of the language, word in all its meanings and
forms (variants). Lexeme is an
invariant
(from Lat. invarians
‘unchangeable’),
i.e. “the common property inherent in classes of relatively
homogeneous classes of objects and phenomena” (Сoлнцев, p.
214). This common property is realized in all the variants of a
lexeme’s use in actual speech.

When
used in actual speech the word undergoes certain modifications and
functions in one of its grammatical forms, e.g.
singer, singer’s, singers, singers’ (He is a good singer. I like
the singer’s voice,
etc.) or
to take, takes, took, took, taking.
Grammatical forms of words are called word-forms, or grammatical
variants of
words. In the above example these are variants of the lexemes
singer and
take.
The system showing a word in all its word-forms is called its
paradigm.
The lexical meaning of the word remains unchanged throughout its
paradigm. All the word-forms are lexically identical but they differ
in their grammatical meanings. Actually in each particular context we
deal with particular grammatical variants of lexemes.

Besides
paradigms of particular words, such as boy,
boy’s, boys, boys’
there is an abstract notion of paradigms of parts of speech. For
instance, the paradigm of the noun is ( ), (-’s), (-s), (-s’),
the paradigm of the verb is ( ), -s, -ed, -ed, -ing. The sign ( )
stands for a zero morpheme, i.e. its meaningful absence.

Besides
the grammatical forms (variants) of words, lexical varieties of the
word are distinguished, which are called lexico-semantic
variants (LSVs).
The overwhelming majority of English words are polysemantic, i.e.
they have more than one meaning but in actual speech a word is used
in one of its meanings. Such a word used in oral or written speech in
one of its meanings is called a lexico-semantic variant.

E.g.
to
call —
1) say in a loud voice: She
called for help,
2) pay a short visit: I
called on Mr. Green,
3) name: We
call him Dick,
4) consider, regard as: I
call that shame,
5) summon, send a message to: Please
call a doctor.
The verb
to call is
presented here by five LSVs.

Many
lexemes have more than one variants of pronunciation. They are
phonetic variants of lexemes. Phonetic
variants are
different ways of pronouncing certain lexemes, e.g. again
[ə`gein,
ə`gen], interesting
[`intristiŋ,
intə`restiŋ], often
[`o:fn,
`ofn, `ofən, `oftən], etc. There are also graphical
variants,
i.e. different ways of spelling one and the same lexeme:
inquire/enquire.

To
morphological
variants belong
the cases of certain differences in the morphological composition of
words not accompanied by differences in meaning. These are the cases
of the two variants of the Past Indefinite tense: to
learn – learnt, learned, to leap – leapt, leaped; to spoil –
spoilt, spoiled; to dream – dreamt, dreamed, to broadcast
– broadcast,
broadcasted,
etc. Also to morphological variants belong parallel formations like:
phonetic
– phonetical, geologic – geological,
etc. Phonetic and morphological variants are modifications of the
same lexeme as the change in the composition of a word is not
followed by a change in meaning. In case of different meanings we
deal with different lexemes. Compare for instance economic
‘экономический‘
and
economical
‘экономный’
which
are different lexemes.

Thus,
within the language system the word or lexeme exists as a system and
unity of all its forms and variants. It is an invariant
–
the structural unit of the language.

Соседние файлы в предмете [НЕСОРТИРОВАННОЕ]

• #
• #
• #
• #
• #
• #
• #
• #
• #
• #
• #

Content

• Lexeme and morpheme
• Lexema
• Examples
• Morpheme
• Examples
• Types of lexemes
• Independent or free Lexemas
• Examples
• Dependent or locked Lexemas
• Example
• Other lexemes
• Examples
• Examples of lexemes
• Examples of independent lexemes
• Examples of dependent lexemes
• Lexema Libr-
• Lexema foc-
• Lexema sports
• Lexema screw-
• Lexema cam-
• Lexema camp-
• Lexema cook-
• Lexema histor-
• Lexema biblio-
• Lexema psycho-
• Lexema gine-
• Lexema demo-
• Lexema tele-
• Lexema acei-
• Lexema aero
• Lexema circ-
• Lexema consum-
• Lexema cost-
• Lexema differs
• Lexema lav-
• Lexema lag-
• Lexema sex-
• Lexema Zapat-
• Lexema jug-
• Lexema Lubric-
• Lexema modern-
• Lexema child
• Lexema terr-
• Lexema voc-
• Lexema auto-
• References

The lexeme it is the essential part of a word, the fragment that gives it its meaning and makes it understandable to the speakers of a language. It is also known as a root, as it expresses the key meaning of a word.

To complete the lexeme and generate various meanings from it, a morpheme must be added to it. The latter is the minimum unit of meaning that we can find in a language. This particle adds gender, number and other essential qualities to the root.

For example, the lexeme «gat» is added the morpheme «o» to obtain the masculine «cat». Many of the lexemes in Spanish have origins in ancient languages ​​such as Greek and Latin. Also of Romance languages ​​like French or Italian, to name a few. Next, the types of lexemes that we can find will be explained.

Lexeme and morpheme

It is the invariable part of a word and that gives it a meaning. In turn, it makes it belong to a family of words that have the same root. For example, the words: gator, gatone, gatto, gatBut they are all related to the root “gat”, therefore, they are family.

An interesting quality of the lexemes of a language is that the meaning of these and their provenance can be found in dictionaries. They are a conscious part of a language. When listening to them, the speakers of a language associate them with other similar words. In short, a lexeme is the basis from which a certain set of words come.

Lexemes are the root of some grammatical categories. Such as adjectives, verbs, nouns, and adverbs. Lexemes are not the same as morphemes, but many words can be formed if we join them both.

As mentioned above, a lexeme gives rise to the so-called word families. These are a series of words derived from the same root. For example, we can mention the lexeme «salt», and this can derive words such as: salty, salt shaker, salary, saline, salad. 

Examples

— Carr— or.

— Carr— eta.

— Carr— was.

Morpheme

It is the smallest segment of a word, which can have its own individual meaning or as a supplement to a lexeme. They are commonly presented to complement a root, functioning as suffixes or prefixes. Unlike lexemes, morphemes are varied and give multiple meanings to the same root.

Examples

— Dog —or.

— Child —ace.

— Sub- director.

— Gat —ico.

Types of lexemes

Independent or free Lexemas

They are those that by themselves are words with meaning. It is not necessary to add any morpheme to them. But these lexemes also function as a root to form other groups of words.

Examples

— Tree: tree— ito, tree— it is, tree— age.

— Wall: wall— it is, wall— on.

— Clock: clock— ero, clock— it is, clock— eria.

— Blue: blue— it is, blue— ado.

— Bread: bread— adería, bread— it is, bread— garnish, bread— I quote.

Dependent or locked Lexemas

These types of lexemes need a morpheme to have meaning and meaning. Likewise, these endings that are added give information that indicates aspects such as time, number, gender, person …

Example

— Gender: you -o (masculine), you —a (feminine).

— Quantity: pelot —a (singular), ball -as (plural).

— Weather: dance —or (present) dance —aré (future).

— Person: worked —or (first person) worked —in (third person).

Other lexemes

It is also possible to generate words by joining two lexemes. This is how compound words are formed. Each one has a particular meaning and gives meaning to the new word.

Examples

— Cardio — vascular.

— Chainsaw.

— Short — circuit.

— Electro — cardiogram.

— Center — period.

— Grass — good.

Examples of lexemes

Examples of independent lexemes

— Lifetime.

— Eight.

— Five.

— Light.

— Milk.

— Two.

— For.

— How.

— With.

— What.

— Flower: flower— it is, flower— eria, flower— ero, flower— isteria.

— Paper: paper— eria, paper— it is, paper— illo.

— Bread: bread— adería, bread— garnish, bread— it is.

— Mr: Mr— ía, Mr— as, Mr— it is, Mr— orita.

— Alcohol: alcohol— ico, alcohol— hoist, alcohol— meter, alcohol— ice.

— Jail: jail— it is, jail— Aryan.

— Cancer: Cancer— igneous.

— Block: block— or, block— ar, block— ador, block— Aron.

— Corpse: corpse— it is, corpse— ico.

— Coffee: coffee— Therapy, coffee— teras, coffee— uterus, coffee— ína.

— Coal: Coal— or, Coal— hoist, Coal— ado, Coal— cillo.

— Phobia: hydro —phobia, acro —phobia, xeno —phobia, zoo —phobia.

— Month: month— ero, month— to, month— onero, month— ita.

— Nation: nation— to, nation— ales, inter —nation— ales, inter —nation— alismo.

Examples of dependent lexemes

Lexema Libr-

— Libr- or.

— Libr- you.

— Libr- it was.

— Libr- erias.

— Libr- ero.

— Libr- Eros.

— Libr- ito.

Lexema foc-

— Foc— or.

— Foc- to the.

— Foc- alizar.

— Foc- ales.

— Foc- alization.

— In —focus ó.

— In —focus ado.

Lexema sports

— Sports- and.

— Sports- it is.

— Sports- ivo.

— Sports- ist.

Lexema screw-

— Screw- or.

— Screw- you.

— Des —screw ador.

— Des —screw adores.

— Des —screw an.

Lexema cam-

— Cam- to.

— Cam- ita.

— Cam- ace.

Lexema camp-

— Camp- or

— Camp- esino.

— Camp- Est.

— TO —camp- ar.

— Camp- esina.

Lexema cook-

— Cooking- to.

— Cooking- ace.

— Cooking- ero.

— Cooking- ar.

— Cooking- we will.

Lexema histor-

— Histor- ia.

— Histor- iador.

— Histor- ias.

Lexema biblio-

— Biblio— teak.

— Biblio- spelling.

— Biblio- graphic.

— Biblio- graph.

Lexema psycho-

— Psycho- logo.

— Psycho- logical.

— Psycho- lodge.

Lexema gine-

— Gyne- cology.

— Gyne- cologist.

— Gyne- colological.

Lexema demo-

— Demo- cracia.

— Demo- crata.

— Demo- graphic.

— Demo- spelling.

Lexema tele-

— Tele- phone.

— Tele- feric.

— Tele- view.

— Tele- grama.

Lexema acei-

— Oil- tea.

— Oil- tuna.

— Oil- we will tare.

— Oil- itó.

— Oil- they will.

— Acei— tar.

Lexema aero

— Aero- flat.

— Aero— wench.

— Aero- ship.

— Aero- dynamic.

— Aero- Sun.

— Aero- buses.

Lexema circ-

— Circle- or.

— Circul- ar.

— Circul- before.

— Circul- action.

Lexema consum-

— Consum— or.

— Consum— They went.

— Consum— idor.

— Consume- Iran.

Lexema cost-

— Cost- umbre.

— Cost- illa.

— Cost- ura.

Lexema differs

— Differ- gum.

— Differ- go.

— Differ- starter.

Lexema lav-

— Lav- ar.

— Lav- adore.

— Lav- masters.

— Lav- Aron.

Lexema lag-

— Lag- unita.

— Lag- nail.

— Lag- you.

Lexema sex-

— Sex- or.

— Sex- uality.

— Sex- ology.

— Sex- ist.

Lexema Zapat-

— Zapat- you.

— Zapat- Eros.

— Zapat— illa.

— Zapat- ear.

Lexema jug-

— Jug- ar.

— Jug- aria.

— Jug- we will

— Jug- Aron.

Lexema Lubric-

— Lubric- ar.

— Lubric- Aron.

— Lubric- before.

Lexema modern-

— Modern- to.

— Modern- you.

— Modern- imos.

Lexema child

— Child- you.

— Child- ear.

— Child- ito.

— Child- was.

— TO —child— ado.

— Child- it was.

Lexema terr-

— Terr- ene.

— Terr- enal.

— Terr- aza.

— In —terr- ar.

— Des —terr- ar.

— Desen —terr- ar.

Lexema voc-

— Voc- it is.

— Voc- abular.

— Voc- erio.

— Voc- to the.

— Voc- I speak.

— Voc- action.

— Voc- ero.

Lexema auto-

— Car- mobile.

— Car- matic.

— Car- service.

— Car- market.

— Car- psia.

— Car- enough.

— Car- sustainable.

— Car- esteem.

— Car- evaluation.

References

1. Structure of the word. (S. f.). (N / A): Google Sites: Study of Language: Morphology. Recovered from: sites.google.com.
2. (2020). Spain: Wikipedia. Recovered: es.wikipedia.org.
3. What is a lexeme: definition and examples. (2018). (N / A): A teacher. Recovered from: unprofesor.com.
4. Lexemas and morphemes in traditional grammar. (2019). (N / A): Easy language and literature. Recovered from: i1.wp.com.
5. (S. f.). Cuba: Ecured. Recovered from: ecured.cu.

The lexeme is the essential part of a word, the fragment that gives it its meaning and makes it understandable to the speakers of a language. It is also known as a root, as it expresses the key meaning of a word. Lexeme examples

To complete the lexeme and generate various meanings from it, a morpheme must be added to it. The latter is the minimum unit of meaning that we can find in a language. This particle adds gender, number and other essential qualities to the root .

For example, the lexeme “gat” is added the morpheme “o” to obtain the masculine “cat . Many of the lexemes in Spanish have origins in ancient languages ​​such as Greek and Latin. Also of Romance languages ​​like French or Italian, to name a few. Next, the types of lexemes that we can find will be explained.

The origin of the lexemes

The lexemes that we have in the Castilian language, come as a general rule, from ancient languages ​​such as Latin and Greek. As the years have passed, and as Spanish has evolved, the lexemes have become Castilianized and therefore, we have added suffixes and prefixes that allow us to have several options when creating words that may be related, or not, with the meaning of its root. Lexeme examples

The lexemes also have the greatest weight in the meaning of the word it forms so that it will always be quite easy to know how to identify them. Sometimes we are even going to find lexemes that can be considered words, since they have all the meaning in themselves.

Examples of lexemes

1. Bread- (baker, bakery)

2. Flower- (florist, vase, florist, flowery, flourish)

3. Camp- (peasant, country, field)

4. Libr- (book, bookstore, bookseller,

5.Cook- (kitchen, cook, cook)

6. Tree (free lexeme)

7.Histori – (history, historian)

8.Biblio- (library, bibliography, bibliographic, bibliographer)

9. Sea (free lexeme)

10 Sun (free lexeme)

Of Greek or Latin origin we also have the following lexemes:

11.Uni- (unilateral, unidirectional)

12.Psico- (psychologist, psychological, psychology)

13.Agr- (agriculture, wild, agricultural)

14. Arque- (archetype, archeology, archaeologist)

15. Auto- (automobile, autonomous, authority)

16. Demo- (democracy, democrat, demographic, demographic)

17. Equi- (equidistant, equitable) Lexeme definition types examples

18. Geo- (geology, geography, geographer)

19. Gynecology- (gynecology, gynecologist, gynecologist)

20. Paleo- (paleontology, paleontological, paleolithic)

Types of lexemes

1-Independent or free Lexemes

They are those that by themselves are words with meaning. It is not necessary to add any morpheme to them. But these lexemes also function as a root to form other groups of words.

Examples

– Tree: tree – ito, tree – es, tree – eda.

– Wall: wall – is, wall – on.

– Clock: clock – ero, clock – es, clock – ería.

– Blue: blue – is, blue – ado.

– Bread: bread – adería, bread – es, bread – dressing, bread – quote.

2-Dependent or locked Lexemes

These types of lexemes need a morpheme to have meaning and meaning. Likewise, these endings that are added give information that indicates aspects such as time, number, gender, person …

Example

– Gender: os -o (masculine), os – a (feminine).

– Quantity: pelot – a (singular), pelot -as (plural).

– Time: bail – or (present) bail – aré (future).

– Person: worked (first person) worked – in (third person).

3-Other lexemes

It is also possible to generate words by joining two lexemes. This is how compound words are formed. Each one has a particular meaning and gives meaning to the new word. Lexeme examples

Examples

– Cardio – vascular.

– Chainsaw.

– Short – circuit.

– Electro – cardiogram.

– Center – period.

– Grass – good.

Differences between morphemes and lexemes

But we also want to capture what people have in mind when they use ‘word’ in the second sense. That is, we want to be able to express the relationship between runs and ran (and run and running). We do this be means of a new type lexeme. A lexeme It can be thought of as an abstract proto-word, which, by means to be discussed in this chapter, gives rise to genuine words (that is, instances of the type word).

We incorporate the notion of lexeme in to our theory by first revising a high-level distinction in our type hierarchy — the types that distinguish among the syntactic-semantic complexes we have been referring to as expressions, words and phrases. We will refer to the most general such type of feature structure simply as synsem (indication that it is a complex of syntactic and semantic information). The type expression with then be an immediate subtype of synsem, as will the new type lexeme.

The lexical entries, taken together with the constraints inherited via the lexeme hierarchy characterize the set of basic lexical elements of the language …. Thus, lexical entries serve as the basis for constructing words and words serve as the building blocks for syntactic structures.

Among lexemes, we draw a further distinction between those that give rise to a set of inflected forms and those that do not show any morphological inflection. That is, we posit inflecting-lexeme (infl-lxm) and constant-lexeme (const-lxm) as two subtypes of lexeme. The type hierarchy we will assume for nominal and verbal lexemes in English is sketched …

lexeme: The term ‘word’ is used ambiguously to mean either a particular form, such as sees, or a set of related forms such as see, sees, saw, seen, and seeing. To avoid this ambiguity, linguists sometimes posit an abstract entity called a ‘lexeme’ that gives rise to a family of related words. See also word.

lexical entry: Information about individual words [q.v.] that must be stipulate is put int the lexicon [q.v.] in the form of descriptions that we call lexical entries. They are ordered pairs, consisting of a phonological form (description) and partial feature structure description. Fully resolved lexical sequences [q.v.] consistent with lexical entries can serve as the INPUT values to lexical rules [q.v.].

lexical rule: Lexical rules are one of the mechanisms (along with the type type hierarchy [q.v.]) used to capture generalizations within the lexicon. Families of related words — such as the different inflectional forms of a verb — can be derived from a single lexical entry [q.v.] by means of lexical rules. We formalize lexical rules as a type of feature structure with features INPUT and OUTPUT. There are three sybtypes of lexical rules: derivational (relating lexemes [q.v.] to lexemes), inflectional (relation lexemes to words [q.v.]), and post-inflectional (relating words to words).

lexical rule instantiation: Our lexical rules [q.v.] are descriptions, specifying the value of some features and leaving others unspecified. A lexical rule instantiation is a fully resolved feature structure that is consistent with the specification of some lexical rule.

lexical sequence: Ordered pairs that can serve as the INPUT and OUTPUT values of lexical rules [q.v.] are called lexical sequences. They consist of a phonological form and a fully resolved feature structure.

lexicon: The list of all words [q.v.] (or lexemes [q.v.]) of a language is called its ‘lexicon’. The lexicon is the repository of all idiosyncratic information about particular words including syntactic, semantic, and phonological information. In some theories of grammar, the lexicon can also contain a great deal more systematic information organized by a type hierarchy [q.v.] and/or lexical rules.