Editing Lexical semantics (section)

{{Linguistics}}
{{Short description|Subfield of linguistic semantics}}
'''Lexical semantics''' (also known as '''lexicosemantics'''), as a subfield of [[linguistics|linguistic]] [[semantics]], is the study of word meanings.<ref name="Pustejovsky2005">Pustejovsky, J. (2005) ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=cxYGQfiD_1oC&pg=PT11380 Lexical Semantics: Overview]'' in Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, second edition, Volumes 1-14</ref><ref name="Taylor2017">Taylor, J. (2017) ''[https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/cambridge-handbook-of-cognitive-linguistics/lexical-semantics/798AB6901B9AD5B0AC42C94A52EC8ECF/core-reader Lexical Semantics]''. In B. Dancygier (Ed.), The Cambridge Handbook of Cognitive Linguistics (Cambridge Handbooks in Language and Linguistics, pp. 246-261). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. {{doi|10.1017/9781316339732.017}}</ref> It includes the study of how words structure their meaning, how they act in [[grammar]] and [[Principle of compositionality|compositionality]],<ref name="Pustejovsky2005"/> and the relationships between the distinct senses and uses of a word.<ref name="Taylor2017"/>

The units of analysis in lexical semantics are lexical units which include not only words but also sub-words or sub-units such as [[affix]]es and even [[compound word]]s and [[phrase]]s. Lexical units include the catalogue of words in a language, the [[lexicon]]. Lexical semantics looks at how the meaning of the lexical units correlates with the structure of the language or [[syntax]]. This is referred to as [[syntax-semantics interface]].<ref>{{cite book|last1=Pustejovsky|first1=James|title=The Generative Lexicon|date=1995|publisher=MIT Press|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=p2GJBNpBVg4C&q=%22lexical+semantics%22|isbn=9780262661409}}</ref>

The study of lexical semantics concerns:
* the classification and decomposition of lexical items
* the differences and similarities in lexical semantic structure cross-linguistically
* the relationship of lexical meaning to [[Sentence (linguistics)|sentence]] meaning and [[syntax]].

Lexical units, also referred to as syntactic atoms, can be independent such as in the case of root words or parts of compound words or they require association with other units, as prefixes and suffixes do. The former are termed [[free morpheme]]s and the latter [[bound morpheme]]s.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Di Sciullo|first1=Anne-Marie|last2=Williams|first2=Edwin|title=On the definition of word|url=https://archive.org/details/ondefinitionofwo00disc|url-access=registration|date=1987|publisher=MIT press|location=Cambridge, MA}}</ref> They fall into a narrow range of meanings ([[semantic field]]s) and can combine with each other to generate new denotations.

[[Cognitive semantics]] is the linguistic paradigm/framework that since the 1980s has generated the most studies in lexical semantics, introducing innovations like [[prototype theory]], [[conceptual metaphor]]s, and [[Frame semantics (linguistics)|frame semantics]].<ref>Geeraerts, Dirk (2010) ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=JC8TDAAAQBAJ Introduction]'', p. xiv, in Theories of Lexical Semantics</ref>