ГОС_1 / Lexicology / Lecture1 / The word as a basic unit of language

The word as a basic unit of language

The word is the subject matter of Lexicology. The word may be described as a basic unit of language. The definition of the word is one of the most difficult problems in Linguistics because any word has many different aspects. It is simultaneously a semantic, grammatical and phonological unit. Accordingly the word may be defined as the basic unit of a given language resulting from the association of a particular meaning with a particular group of sounds capable of a particular grammatical employment. This definition based on the definition of a word given by the eminent French linguist Arthur Meillet does not permit us to distinguish words from phrases. We can accept the given definition adding that a word is the smallest significant unit of a given language capable of functioning alone and characterized by positional mobility within a sentence, morphological uninterruptability and semantic integrity. In Russian Linguistics it is the word but not the morpheme as in American descriptive linguistics that is the basic unit of language and the basic unit of lexical articulation of the flow of the speech. Thus, the word is a structural and semantic entity within the language system. The word is the basic unit of the language system, the largest on the morphological level and the smallest on the syntactic level of linguistic analysis. As any language unit the word is a two facet unit possessing both its outer form (sound form) and content (meaning) which is not created in speech but used ready-maid. As the basic unit of language the word is characterized by independence or separateness (отдельность), as a free standing item, and identity (тождество).

The word as an independent free standing language unit is distinguished in speech due to its ability to take on grammatical inflections (грамматическая оформленнасть) which makes it different from the morpheme.

The structural integrity (цельная оформленнасть) of the word combined with the semantic integrity and morphological uninterruptability (морфологическая непрерывность) makes the word different from word combinations.

The identity of the word manifests itself in the ability of a word to exist as a system and unity of all its forms (grammatical forms creating its paradigm) and variants: lexical-semantic, morphological, phonetic and graphic.

The system showing a word in all its word forms is called its paradigm. The lexical meaning of a word is the same throughout the paradigm, i.e. all the word forms of one and the same word are lexical identical while the grammatical meaning varies from one form to another (give-gave-given-giving-gives; worker-workers-worker’s-workers’).

Besides the grammatical forms of the words (or word forms), words possess lexical varieties called variants of words (a word – a polisemantic word in one of its meanings in which it is used in speech is described as a lexical-semantic variants. The term was introduced by A.I. Smernitskiy; e.g. “to learn at school” – “to learn about smth”; man – мужчина/человек). Words may have phonetic, graphic and morphological variants:

often – [Þfən]/[ Þftən] – phonetic variants

birdy/birdie – graphic variants

phonetic/phonetical – morphological variants

Thus, within the language system the word exists as a system and unity of all its forms and variants. The term lexeme may serve to express the idea of the word as a system of its forms and variants.

Every word names a given referent and another one and this relationship creates the basis for establishing understanding in verbal intercourse (общение). But because words mirror concepts through our perception of the world there’s no singleness in word-thing correlations.

As reality becomes more complicated, it calls for more sophisticated means of nomination. In recent times Lexicology has developed a more psycho-linguistic and ethno-cultural orientation aimed at looking into the actual reality of how lexical items work.