Legal definition of word any

Although
the borderline between various linguistic units is not always sharp
and clear, we shall try to define every new term on its first
appearance at once simply and unambiguously, if not always very
rigorously. The approximate definition of the term word
has already been given in the opening page of the book.

The
important point to remember about
definitions
is that they should indicate the most essential characteristic
features of the notion expressed by the term under discussion, the
features by which this notion is distinguished from other similar
notions. For instance, in defining the word one must distinguish it
from other linguistic units, such as the phoneme, the morpheme, or
the word-group. In contrast with a definition, a description
aims at enumerating all the essential features of a notion.

To
make things easier we shall begin by a preliminary description,
illustrating it with some examples.

The
word
may be described as the basic unit of language. Uniting meaning and
form, it is composed of one or more morphemes, each consisting of one
or more spoken sounds or their written representation. Morphemes as
we have already said are also meaningful units but they cannot be
used independently, they are always parts of words whereas words can
be used as a complete utterance (e. g. Listen!).
The
combinations of morphemes within words are subject to certain linking
conditions. When a derivational affix is added a new word is formed,
thus, listen
and
listener
are
different words. In fulfilling different grammatical functions words
may take functional affixes: listen
and
listened
are
different forms of the same word. Different forms of the same word
can be also built analytically with the help of auxiliaries. E.g.:
The
world should listen then as I am listening now (Shelley).

When
used in sentences together with other words they are syntactically
organised. Their freedom of entering into syntactic constructions is
limited by many factors, rules and constraints (e. g.: They
told me this story but
not *They
spoke me this story).

The
definition of every basic notion is a very hard task: the definition
of a word is one of the most difficult in linguistics because the

27

simplest
word has many different aspects. It has a sound form because it is a
certain arrangement of phonemes; it has its morphological structure,
being also a certain arrangement of morphemes; when used in actual
speech, it may occur in different word forms, different syntactic
functions and signal various meanings. Being the central element of
any language system, the word is a sort of focus for the problems of
phonology, lexicology, syntax, morphology and also for some other
sciences that have to deal with language and speech, such as
philosophy and psychology, and probably quite a few other branches of
knowledge. All attempts to characterise the word are necessarily
specific for each domain of science and are therefore considered
one-sided by the representatives of all the other domains and
criticised for incompleteness. The variants of definitions were so
numerous that some authors (A. Rossetti, D.N. Shmelev) collecting
them produced works of impressive scope and bulk.

A
few examples will suffice to show that any definition is conditioned
by the aims and interests of its author.

Thomas
Hobbes (1588-1679),
one
of the great English philosophers, revealed a materialistic approach
to the problem of nomination when he wrote that words are not mere
sounds but names of matter. Three centuries later the great Russian
physiologist I.P. Pavlov (1849-1936)
examined
the word in connection with his studies of the second signal system,
and defined it as a universal signal that can substitute any other
signal from the environment in evoking a response in a human
organism. One of the latest developments of science and engineering
is machine translation. It also deals with words and requires a
rigorous definition for them. It runs as follows: a word is a
sequence of graphemes which can occur between spaces, or the
representation of such a sequence on morphemic level.

Within
the scope of linguistics the word has been defined syntactically,
semantically, phonologically and by combining various approaches.

It
has been syntactically defined for instance as “the minimum
sentence” by H. Sweet and much later by L. Bloomfield as “a
minimum free form”. This last definition, although structural in
orientation, may be said to be, to a certain degree, equivalent to
Sweet’s, as practically it amounts to the same thing: free forms
are later defined as “forms which occur as sentences”.

E.
Sapir takes into consideration the syntactic and semantic aspects
when he calls the word “one of the smallest completely satisfying
bits of isolated ‘meaning’, into which the sentence resolves
itself”. Sapir also points out one more, very important
characteristic of the word, its indivisibility:
“It cannot be cut into without a disturbance of meaning, one or two
other or both of the several parts remaining as a helpless waif on
our hands”. The essence of indivisibility will be clear from a
comparison of the article a
and
the prefix a-
in
a
lion and
alive.
A lion is
a word-group because we can separate its elements and insert other
words between them: a
living lion, a dead lion. Alive is
a word: it is indivisible, i.e. structurally impermeable: nothing can
be inserted between its elements. The morpheme a-
is
not free, is not a word. The

28

situation
becomes more complicated if we cannot be guided by solid spelling.’
“The Oxford English Dictionary», for instance, does not
include the
reciprocal pronouns each
other and
one
another under
separate headings, although
they should certainly be analysed as word-units, not as word-groups
since they have become indivisible: we now say with
each other and
with
one another instead
of the older forms one
with another or
each
with the other.¹

Altogether
is
one word according to its spelling, but how is one to treat all
right, which
is rather a similar combination?

When
discussing the internal cohesion of the word the English linguist
John Lyons points out that it should be discussed in terms of two
criteria “positional
mobility”
and
“un­interrupt­abili­ty”.
To illustrate the first he segments into morphemes the following
sentence:

the
—
boy
—
s
—
walk
—
ed
—
slow
—
ly
—
up
—
the
—
hill

The
sentence may be regarded as a sequence of ten morphemes, which occur
in a particular order relative to one another. There are several
possible changes in this order which yield an acceptable English
sentence:

slow
—
ly
—
the
—
boy
—
s
—
walk
—
ed
—
up
—
the
—
hill
up —
the
—
hill
—
slow
—
ly
—
walk
—
ed
—
the
—
boy
—
s

Yet
under all the permutations certain groups of morphemes behave as
‘blocks’ —
they
occur always together, and in the same order relative to one another.
There is no possibility of the sequence s
—
the
—
boy,
ly —
slow,
ed —
walk.
“One
of the characteristics of the word is that it tends to be internally
stable (in terms of the order of the component morphemes), but
positionally mobile (permutable with other words in the same
sentence)”.²

A
purely semantic treatment will be found in Stephen Ullmann’s
explanation: with him connected discourse, if analysed from the
semantic point of view, “will fall into a certain number of
meaningful segments which are ultimately composed of meaningful
units. These meaningful units are called words.»³

The
semantic-phonological approach may be illustrated by A.H.Gardiner’s
definition: “A word is an articulate sound-symbol in its aspect of
denoting something which is spoken about.»⁴

The
eminent French linguist A. Meillet (1866-1936)
combines
the semantic, phonological and grammatical criteria and advances a
formula which underlies many subsequent definitions, both abroad and
in our country, including the one given in the beginning of this
book: “A word is defined by the association of a particular meaning
with a

¹Sapir
E. Language.
An Introduction to the Study of Speech. London, 1921,
P.
35.

² Lyons,
John. Introduction
to Theoretical Linguistics. Cambridge: Univ. Press, 1969.
P. 203.

³ Ullmann
St. The
Principles of Semantics. Glasgow, 1957.
P.
30.

⁴ Gardiner
A.H. The
Definition of the Word and the Sentence //
The
British Journal of Psychology. 1922.
XII.
P. 355
(quoted
from: Ullmann
St.,
Op.
cit., P. 51).

29

particular
group of sounds capable of a particular grammatical employment.»¹

This
definition does not permit us to distinguish words from phrases
because not only child,
but
a
pretty child as
well are combinations of a particular group of sounds with a
particular meaning capable of a particular grammatical employment.

We
can, nevertheless, accept this formula with some modifications,
adding that a word is the smallest significant unit of a given
language capable of functioning alone and characterised by positional
mobility
within
a sentence, morphological
uninterruptability
and semantic
integrity.²
All these criteria are necessary because they permit us to create a
basis for the oppositions between the word and the phrase, the word
and the phoneme, and the word and the morpheme: their common feature
is that they are all units of the language, their difference lies in
the fact that the phoneme is not significant, and a morpheme cannot
be used as a complete utterance.

Another
reason for this supplement is the widespread scepticism concerning
the subject. It has even become a debatable point whether a word is a
linguistic unit and not an arbitrary segment of speech. This opinion
is put forth by S. Potter, who writes that “unlike a phoneme or a
syllable, a word is not a linguistic unit at all.»³
He calls it a conventional and arbitrary segment of utterance, and
finally adopts the already mentioned
definition of L. Bloomfield. This position is, however, as
we have already mentioned, untenable, and in fact S. Potter himself
makes ample use of the word as a unit in his linguistic analysis.

The
weak point of all the above definitions is that they do not establish
the relationship between language and thought, which is formulated if
we treat the word as a dialectical unity of form and content, in
which the form is the spoken or written expression which calls up a
specific meaning, whereas the content is the meaning rendering the
emotion or the concept in the mind of the speaker which he intends to
convey to his listener.

Summing
up our review of different definitions, we come to the conclusion
that they are bound to be strongly dependent upon the line of
approach, the aim the scholar has in view. For a comprehensive word
theory, therefore, a description seems more appropriate than a
definition.

The
problem of creating a word theory based upon the materialistic
understanding of the relationship between word and thought on the one
hand, and language and society, on the other, has been one of the
most discussed for many years. The efforts of many eminent scholars
such as V.V. Vinogradov, A. I. Smirnitsky, O.S. Akhmanova, M.D.
Stepanova, A.A. Ufimtseva —
to
name but a few, resulted in throwing light

¹Meillet
A. Linguistique
historique et linguistique generate. Paris,
1926.
Vol.
I. P. 30.

² It
might be objected that such words as articles, conjunctions and a few
other words
never occur as sentences, but they are not numerous and could be
collected into a
list of exceptions.

³ See:
Potter
S. Modern
Linguistics. London, 1957.
P.
78.

30

on this problem and achieved a
clear presentation of the word as a basic unit of the language. The
main points may now be summarised.

The
word
is the
fundamental
unit
of language.
It is a dialectical
unity
of form
and
content.
Its content or meaning is not identical to notion, but it may reflect
human notions, and in this sense may be considered as the form of
their existence. Concepts fixed in the meaning of words are formed as
generalised and approximately correct reflections of reality,
therefore in signifying them words reflect reality in their content.

The
acoustic aspect of the word serves to name objects of reality, not to
reflect them. In this sense the word may be regarded as a sign. This
sign, however, is not arbitrary but motivated by the whole process of
its development. That is to say, when a word first comes into
existence it is built out of the elements already available in the
language and according to the existing patterns.

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The rules on defined terms, particularly whether a term should be defined and whether further uses of that word should start with a capital letter can seem arcane and complicated. In fact, they are quite simple and we explain them here.

What are defined terms?

The defined terms can usually be found at the beginning of a legal document, or at the beginning of a stand-alone section such as a schedule or section.

The first letter of each word in a defined term is capitalised so that the reader can identify that the meaning of the term is ‘different’ and that they should interpret what they are reading in accordance with the definition given.

Why use defined terms?

Giving a different or specific meaning

Defining a term gives that word or phrase a particular, special meaning within the context of the legal document, and not the meaning that would be used in everyday language.

This happens mostly to general words when we want to narrow the range of its meaning. A simple example is:

‘Patents’ means every patent owned by Net Lawman Limited.

So it becomes clear that when I refer to ‘Patents’, for example in the phrase ‘the license is for the Patents’, I refer to every single one owned by Net Lawman Limited — not to some of those, or all owned by another person.

Shortening a long description

Defining a word or phrase can also simplify the context in which it appears in the document. We can give a single word an exact meaning once, so that we don’t have to repeat that exact meaning throughout the document.

It is easiest to explain using an example. Say I want to write:

“Every fierce brown dog in Wiltshire must carry a label attached to its left leg by a red ribbon”.

The document would be tedious and ridiculous to read if I used that expression many times in near succession. The document might also be harder to understand.

So I might define the following two terms:

«Dog» means every fierce brown dog in Wiltshire.

and

«Label» means a label attached to its left leg by a red ribbon.

Now I can express myself very simply by writing: «Every Dog must carry a Label.»

You might not think that is very helpful. However, if I had to refer to dogs and labels many times, the fact is that you would find it far easier to understand my document if I kept the language simple in this way. Documents that are easy to understand are more likely not to be disputed.

Ensuring everyone is clear as to what is meant

Often the correct meaning would be clear without defining it. But sometimes it is not. Defining a term ensures that everyone attaches the same meaning.

Now I will apply this to a real document example.

At Net Lawman, the longest definition of a term we use regularly is ‘Confidential Information’ (mostly in our confidentiality and non-disclosure documents). No court has ever defined confidential information, so in everyday language it can mean whatever you want it to mean.

What I think should be confidential will not be exactly the same as what you think is confidential. Let us suppose that you have promised me not to tell anyone else my confidential information. What then would you be happy to tell others about me? The difficulty for you is that you have to guess every time that you want to mention something about me to someone else, whether that information is confidential in the context of our agreement. Over time, we are likely to disagree on whether something you disclosed was in fact confidential.

The solution is for me to write down very carefully a list and description of every category of information that I want to keep confidential. Then, there can be no dispute. If you tell any secret I have listed, you are in breach of our deal and I will take you to court for compensation.

My list and descriptions may take hundreds of words, but for ever after, when I have referred to Confidential Information, you and I know exactly what we mean. Those two words now have a special meaning.

Incidentally, now that my special meaning is identified only by its initial capital letters, I have to make sure I remember to use them in the right places. If I fail to do so and just refer to ‘confidential information’, my term just has its ordinary meaning. That could be a disaster for me.

Defined terms in defined terms

There is an interesting extra twist to this point. Occasionally, we have to use a defined term just once, in order to clarify another defined term.

To do this unnecessarily is very bad drafting. Whenever we possibly can, we avoid it.

The Net Lawman example is ‘Know-How’. We include this word sometimes in the definitions of our intellectual property agreements. We state that intellectual property includes (among a long list) Know-How. But what do we mean by Know-How? Again you and I may interpret it differently. So we also define know-how, even though we refer to it only in the definition of intellectual property. That keeps the definition of intellectual property short and easy to read, yet also precise.

Of course, within the definition of intellectual property ‘Know-How’ is capitalised!

When a defined term is not capitalised

Document users sometimes think that every instance of words that are given a defined term should be capitalised.

That is not the case. Capitals should only be used if the term is used in context of the definition. Sometimes we want to use the same words with the everyday meaning, and not the defined meaning.

Here is a simple example reverting to the dog and its label:

‘If you find a Dog with a Label, you will contact the Wiltshire Police who are responsible for all dogs in the area.’

The point being that in this example, Wiltshire Police are responsible for all dogs, whether they are fierce and brown or not.

Examples of poor drafting

Poor use of grammar

Many misunderstandings arise because poor legal draftsmen often randomly capitalise words without having defined them. As a result, many people have come to assume that lawyers use capitals for no apparent reason.

A good example is the word ‘Agreement’. Often, you will see references to ‘this Agreement’ or ‘the Contract’. Conveyancers are particularly guilty of this too. Words like ‘Property’ and ‘Lease’ are often capitalised unnecessarily.

Perhaps this is done through ignorance of our language, or perhaps the draftsman wanted the document to look more formal without understanding what they were doing.

You rarely find these errors in government documents, and never in acts drawn by parliamentary draftsmen.

Unnecessarily defining terms

The use of defined terms is often essential. However, a draftsman should always avoid using them if possible. They may make the meanings precise in law but can also tend to make a document more complicated to read and understand because a reader needs to refer back to the definition.

At Net Lawman our draftsmen always complete their drafting work by trying to remove any surplus defined terms — if necessary by re-drawing a complicated point.

In a well drawn document you will never find ordinary words defined for no particular reason. Here are examples for you to look out for in other firms’ documents:

‘Agreement’ means this agreement.

‘Parties’ means the parties to this agreement

Really! What else could they mean?

A last piece of advice

When you have finished editing any document, remember to go back to your defined terms and make quite sure the exact definitions still apply.

Further reading

We have produced a guide to editing legal documents that covers both how to edit Net Lawman documents and more generally how to edit any agreement, contract or notice. You’ll find more information such as that in this article in that guide.

определение, четкость, описание, резкость, точность, ясность

существительное ↓

Словосочетания

a monitor with good definition and vibrant colors — монитор с хорошим разрешением и яркими цветами  
the definition of God as infinite — определение бога как Бесконечности  
complete definition — полное определение  
a formulaic definition — стандартное определение  
a referential definition — определение-ссылка  
a synonym definition — определение через синоним  
a persuasive definition — стимулирующее, побуждающее определение  
to formulate / give / provide / write a definition — дать определение  
definition by analysis — определение путём анализа  
dual definition — двойственное определение  
heuristic definition — эвристическое определение  
negative definition — отрицательное определение  

Примеры с переводом

Примеры, ожидающие перевода

Возможные однокоренные слова

Формы слова

noun
ед. ч.(singular): definition
мн. ч.(plural): definitions