Summary of Chapter 2 Second Book

What is a word?
There are various ways to define a word, but no definition is entirely satisfactory. Scholars have
acknowledged this fact over and over again. And what seems like a relatively simple task proves to be so
problematic.
• Defining words syntactically
One way that people have attempted to define words is to call them the smallest unit of language that
can stand alone. However, it doesn’t take into consideration units that are incapable of standing alone,
such as affixes, and certain forms that native speakers would identify as words are not capable of
standing alone and therefore do not meet this definition.
- Whose book is this? *My

• Defining words phonologically
Words tend to be important units phonologically as well as syntactically, here we will address stress how
stress assignment varies across languages.
French: Stress consistently falls on the last syllable of a word. Cairene Arabic: Stress placement depends
on syllable weight, falling on one of the three final syllables.
However, this generalization encounters exceptions when dealing with clitics, which are grammatical
words that rely on an adjacent word for phonological support. Using the example of Modern Greek,
stress is typically on the last three syllables of a word. When a genitive clitic is added to a word stressed
on the third-to-last syllable, a secondary stress is introduced on its final syllable. presents an example (o
ánθropòs mas) to illustrate stress readjustment. Without the secondary stress, the sequence would
violate Greek stress rules. The addition of secondary stress on -pòs aligns with Greek requirements,
creating a well-formed phonological word.
- word-plus-clitic sequence functions as a single word for stress assignment in Modern Greek.
• Defining words grammatically
Grammatical word" or "morphosyntactic word" is presented as virtually synonymous with the term
"word” However, it is clarified that these terms are often used when referring to different forms of a
single word, depending on the syntactic context. “rabbit" (singular) vs. "rabbits “(plural). they might be
perceived as tokens of the same word; they are deemed different grammatical words due to their
distinct syntactic roles.
Empirical Tests for Wordhood

Fixed order of elements: When we change the order of words in a sentence, we generally also change
the meaning. When we change the order of morphemes in a word, we generally end up with something
ungrammatical.
Non-separability and integrity: Non-separability refers to a word cannot be broken up by inserting

additional elements (segmental or phrasal). Integrity refers to the idea that syntactic processes cannot
apply to pieces of words; they apply to whole words.
Stress: stress can also be used as a diagnostic for whether or not a sequence of words is a compound.
compounds are normally stressed on their first component in English, while phrases are normally
stressed on their last element.
Types of Words
1)Content words, such as nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs, carry meaningful information about
objects, events, and concepts. And they form an open class because they can be newly coined. function
words, like determiners, pronouns, conjunctions, and certain verbs (e.g., be, should, must), have
meaning but serve a different purpose. And they form a closed class, resistant to easy invention or
change.
2) Lexemes: A lexeme is an abstract unit representing a word with a specific sound and meaning.
• Tokens are instances of a lexeme with different meanings. Tokens can be phonologically similar but
have distinct meanings. In this context, each meaning is considered a separate lexeme.
Item and arrangement: considers language as a collection of elements. The word ‘books’ consists of a
lexeme and an inflectional morpheme. On the other hand, Item and process do not assign independent
status to items. The same word ‘books’ is said to have one lexeme and a process called ‘make plural’.
The main difference between item and arrangement and item and process is that item and arrangement
considers affixes as lexical items, but item and process considers affixes as rules.
Agent nouns like ‘thinker’ will be analyzed by the item-and-arrangement model as (verb+er) in the form
of a tree. On the other hand, it will be analyzed by item-and-process as (verb+process. According to
item-and-process, the lexeme formation has 3 components: phonological(er is added), syntactic(a noun
produced from a verb), and semantics(an agent noun produced from a verb). What is more, derivational
functions are additive; that is, old information is preserved.
Lexicon: the mental dictionary.
3 definitions were proposed within linguistics.

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Summary of Chapter 2 Second Book

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What is a word?

• Defining words syntactically

- Whose book is this? *My

Empirical Tests for Wordhood

Non-separability and integrity: Non-separability refers to a word cannot be broken up by inserting

Lexicon: the mental dictionary.

3 definitions were proposed within linguistics.

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