Editing Word (section)

==Definitions==
Since the beginning of the study of linguistics, numerous attempts at defining what a word is have been made, with many different criteria.<ref name=Haspelmath2011/> However, no satisfying definition has yet been found to apply to all languages and at all levels of linguistic analysis. It is, however, possible to find consistent definitions of "word" at different levels of description.{{r|WACLT|p=6}} These include definitions on the [[phonetics|phonetic]] and [[phonology|phonological]] level, that it is the smallest segment of sound that can be theoretically isolated by word accent and boundary markers; on the [[orthography|orthographic]] level as a segment indicated by blank spaces in [[writing]] or [[Printing|print]]; on the basis of [[Morphology (linguistics)|morphology]] as the basic element of [[grammar|grammatical]] paradigms like [[inflection]], different from word-forms; within [[semantics]] as the smallest and relatively independent carrier of meaning in a lexicon; and [[syntax|syntactically]], as the smallest permutable and substitutable unit of a sentence.{{r|RDLL|p=1285}}

In some languages, these different types of words coincide and one can analyze, for example, a "phonological word" as essentially the same as "grammatical word". However, in other languages they may correspond to elements of different size.{{r|WACLT|p=1}} Much of the difficulty stems from the [[eurocentrism|eurocentric]] bias, as languages from outside of Europe may not follow the intuitions of European scholars. Some of the criteria developed for "word" can only be applicable to languages of broadly European [[synthetic languages|synthetic structure]].{{r|WACLT|p=1-3}} Because of this unclear status, some linguists propose avoiding the term "word" altogether, instead focusing on better defined terms such as [[morpheme]]s.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Harris |first=Zellig S. |date=1946 |title=From morpheme to utterance |journal=Language |volume=22 |issue=3 |pages=161–183|doi=10.2307/410205 |jstor=410205 }}</ref>

[[Dictionaries]] categorize a language's lexicon into individually listed forms called [[Lemma (morphology)|lemmas]]. These can be taken as an indication of what constitutes a "word" in the opinion of the writers of that language. This written form of a word constitutes a [[lexeme]].{{r|RDLL|p=670-671}} The most appropriate means of measuring the length of a word is by counting its [[syllable]]s or morphemes.<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/945582776 |title=The Oxford handbook of the word |date=2015 |editor=John R. Taylor |isbn=978-0-19-175669-6 |edition=1st |location=Oxford, United Kingdom |oclc=945582776 |publisher=Oxford University Press}}</ref> When a word has multiple definitions or multiple senses, it may result in confusion in a debate or discussion.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Chodorow |first1=Martin S. |last2=Byrd |first2=Roy J. |last3=Heidorn |first3=George E. |date=1985 |title=Extracting semantic hierarchies from a large on-line dictionary |url=http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?doid=981210.981247 |journal=Proceedings of the 23rd Annual Meeting on Association for Computational Linguistics |language=en |location=Chicago, Illinois |publisher=Association for Computational Linguistics |pages=299–304 |doi=10.3115/981210.981247|s2cid=657749 |doi-access=free }}</ref>

===Phonology===
One distinguishable meaning of the term "word" can be defined on phonological grounds. It is a unit larger or equal to a syllable, which can be distinguished based on segmental or [[Prosody (linguistics)|prosodic]] features, or through its interactions with phonological rules. In [[Walmajarri language|Walmatjari]], an Australian language, roots or suffixes may have only one syllable but a phonologic word must have at least two syllables. A disyllabic verb root may take a zero suffix, e.g. {{lang|wmt|luwa-ø}} 'hit!', but a monosyllabic root must take a suffix, e.g. {{lang|wmt|ya-nta}} 'go!', thus conforming to a segmental pattern of Walmatjari words. In the [[Pitjantjatjara dialect]] of the [[Wati language]], another language form Australia, a word-medial syllable can end with a consonant but a word-final syllable must end with a vowel.{{r|WACLT|p=14}}

In most languages, [[Stress (linguistics)|stress]] may serve a criterion for a phonological word. In languages with a fixed stress, it is possible to ascertain word boundaries from its location. Although it is impossible to predict word boundaries from stress alone in languages with phonemic stress, there will be just one syllable with primary stress per word, which allows for determining the total number of words in an utterance.{{r|WACLT|p=16}}

Many phonological rules operate only within a phonological word or specifically across word boundaries. In [[Hungarian language|Hungarian]], dental consonants /d/, /t/, /l/ or /n/ assimilate to a following semi-vowel /j/, yielding the corresponding palatal sound, but only within one word. Conversely, external [[sandhi]] rules act across word boundaries. The prototypical example of this rule comes from [[Sanskrit]]; however, initial [[consonant mutation]] in contemporary [[Celtic languages]] or the [[linking r]] phenomenon in some [[Rhoticity in English|non-rhotic]] English dialects can also be used to illustrate word boundaries.{{r|WACLT|p=17}}

It is often the case that a phonological word does not correspond to our intuitive conception of a word. The [[Finnish language|Finnish]] compound word {{lang|fi|pääkaupunki}} 'capital' is phonologically two words ({{lang|fi|pää}} 'head' and {{lang|fi|kaupunki}} 'city') because it does not conform to Finnish patterns of [[vowel harmony]] within words. Conversely, a single phonological word may be made up of more than one syntactical elements, such as in the English phrase ''I'll come'', where ''I'll'' forms one phonological word.{{r|Brown2005|p=13:618}}

===Lexemes===
A word can be thought of as an item in a speaker's internal lexicon; this is called a [[lexeme]]. However, this may be different from the meaning in everyday speech of "word", since one lexeme includes all inflected forms. The lexeme {{Smallcaps|teapot}} refers to the singular ''teapot'' as well as the plural ''teapots''. There is also the question to what extent should inflected or compounded words be included in a lexeme, especially in agglutinative languages. For example, there is little doubt that in [[Turkish language|Turkish]] the lexeme for {{Smallcaps|house}} should include nominative singular ''ev'' and plural ''evler''. However, it is not clear if it should also encompass the word ''evlerinizden'' 'from your houses', formed through regular suffixation. There are also lexemes such as "black and white" or "do-it-yourself", which, although consisting of multiple words, still form a single collocation with a set meaning.{{r|Brown2005|p=13:618}}

===Grammar===
Grammatical words are proposed to consist of a number of grammatical elements which occur together (not in separate places within a clause) in a fixed order and have a set meaning. However, there are exceptions to all of these criteria.{{r|WACLT|p=19}}

Single grammatical words have a fixed internal structure; when the structure is changed, the meaning of the word also changes. In [[Dyirbal language|Dyirbal]], which can use many derivational affixes with its nouns, there are the dual suffix ''-jarran'' and the suffix ''-gabun'' meaning "another". With the noun ''yibi'' they can be arranged into ''yibi-jarran-gabun'' ("another two women") or ''yibi-gabun-jarran'' ("two other women") but changing the suffix order also changes their meaning. Speakers of a language also usually associate a specific meaning with a word and not a single morpheme. For example, when asked to talk about ''untruthfulness'' they rarely focus on the meaning of morphemes such as ''-th'' or ''-ness''.{{r|WACLT|p=19–20}}

===Semantics===
[[Leonard Bloomfield]] introduced the concept of "Minimal Free Forms" in 1928. Words are thought of as the smallest meaningful unit of [[speech]] that can stand by themselves.<ref name=Katamba2005>{{Cite book |last=Katamba |first=Francis |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/54001244 |title=English words: structure, history, usage |date=2005 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=0-415-29892-X |edition=2nd |location=London |oclc=54001244}}</ref>{{rp|11}} This correlates phonemes (units of sound) to [[lexeme]]s (units of meaning). However, some written words are not minimal free forms as they make no sense by themselves (for example, ''the'' and ''of'').<ref name=Fleming2003>{{Cite book |last1=Fleming |first1=Michael |url=https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/9781134568512 |title=Meeting the Standards in Secondary English |last2=Hardman |first2=Frank |last3=Stevens |first3=David |last4=Williamson |first4=John |date=2003-09-02 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-134-56851-2 |edition=1st |language=en |doi=10.4324/9780203165553}}</ref>{{rp|77}} Some semanticists have put forward a theory of so-called semantic primitives or [[semantic primes]], indefinable words representing fundamental concepts that are intuitively meaningful. According to this theory, semantic primes serve as the basis for describing the meaning, without circularity, of other words and their associated conceptual denotations.<ref name=Wierzbicka1996>{{Cite book |last=Wierzbicka |first=Anna |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/33012927 |title=Semantics : primes and universals |date=1996 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=0-19-870002-4 |location=Oxford [England] |oclc=33012927}}</ref><ref name=Goddard2002>{{Cite book |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/752499720 |title=Meaning and universal grammar. Volume II: theory and empirical findings |chapter=The search for the shared semantic core of all languages. |date=2002 |publisher=John Benjamins Pub. Co |others=Cliff Goddard, Anna Wierzbicka |isbn=1-58811-264-0 |location=Amsterdam |oclc=752499720}}</ref>

===Features===
In the [[Minimalist program|Minimalist]] school of [[theoretical syntax]], words (also called ''lexical items'' in the literature) are construed as "bundles" of [[feature (linguistics)|linguistic features]] that are united into a structure with form and meaning.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Adger |first=David |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/50768042 |title=Core syntax: a minimalist approach |date=2003 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=0-19-924370-0 |location=Oxford |oclc=50768042}}</ref>{{rp|36-37}} For example, the word "koalas" has semantic features (it denotes real-world objects, [[koala]]s), [[Lexical category|category]] features (it is a noun), [[Grammatical number|number]] features (it is plural and must agree with verbs, pronouns, and demonstratives in its domain), [[phonology|phonological]] features (it is pronounced a certain way), etc.

===Orthography===
[[File:Happy Valentines Day.jpg|thumbnail|Words made out of letters, divided by spaces]]
In languages with a [[writing|literary tradition]], the question of what is considered a single word is influenced by [[orthography]]. [[Word separator]]s, typically [[space (punctuation)|spaces]] and [[punctuation mark]]s are common in modern orthography of languages using [[alphabetic script]]s, but these are a relatively modern development in the [[history of writing]]. In [[character encoding]], [[text segmentation#Word segmentation|word segmentation]] depends on which [[character (computing)|characters]] are defined as word dividers. In [[English orthography]], [[compound (linguistics)|compound expressions]] may contain spaces. For example, ''ice cream'', ''air raid shelter'' and ''get up'' each are generally considered to consist of more than one word (as each of the components are free forms, with the possible exception of ''get''), and so is ''no one'', but the similarly compounded ''someone'' and ''nobody'' are considered single words.

Sometimes, languages which are close grammatically will consider the same order of words in different ways. For example, [[reflexive verb]]s in the [[French language|French]] infinitive are separate from their respective particle, e.g. ''se laver'' ("to wash oneself"), whereas in [[Portuguese language|Portuguese]] they are hyphenated, e.g. ''lavar-se'', and in [[Spanish language|Spanish]] they are joined, e.g. ''lavarse''.{{efn|The convention also depends on the tense or mood—the examples given here are in the infinitive, whereas French imperatives, for example, are hyphenated, e.g. ''lavez-vous'', whereas the Spanish present tense is completely separate, e.g. ''me lavo''.}}

Not all languages delimit words expressly. [[Mandarin Chinese]] is a highly [[analytic language]] with few inflectional affixes, making it unnecessary to delimit words orthographically. However, there are many multiple-morpheme compounds in Mandarin, as well as a variety of bound morphemes that make it difficult to clearly determine what constitutes a word.<ref name=Fasold2006>{{Cite book |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/62532880 |title=An introduction to language and linguistics |date=2006 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |others=Ralph W. Fasold, Jeff Connor-Linton |isbn=978-0-521-84768-1 |location=Cambridge, UK |oclc=62532880}}</ref>{{rp|56}} [[Japanese language|Japanese]] uses orthographic cues to delimit words, such as switching between [[kanji]] (characters borrowed from Chinese writing) and the two [[kana]] syllabaries. This is a fairly soft rule, because [[content word]]s can also be written in [[hiragana]] for effect, though if done extensively spaces are typically added to maintain legibility. [[Vietnamese language|Vietnamese]] orthography, although using the [[Latin alphabet]], delimits monosyllabic morphemes rather than words.