Lexeme
Alexeme(/ˈlɛksiːm/) is a unit oflexicalmeaning that underlies a set of words that are related throughinflection.It is a basic abstract unit of meaning,[1]aunitofmorphologicalanalysisinlinguisticsthat roughly corresponds to a set of forms taken by a single rootword.For example, inEnglish,run,runs,ranandrunningare forms of the same lexeme, which can be represented asRUN.[note 1]
One form, thelemma(or citation form), is chosen by convention as the canonical form of a lexeme. The lemma is the form used in dictionaries as an entry'sheadword.Other forms of a lexeme are often listed later in the entry if they are uncommon or irregularly inflected.
Description
[edit]The notion of the lexeme is central tomorphology,[2]the basis for defining other concepts in that field. For example, the difference betweeninflectionandderivationcan be stated in terms of lexemes:
- Inflectional rules relate a lexeme to its forms.
- Derivational rules relate a lexeme to another lexeme.
A lexeme belongs to a particularsyntactic category,has a certainmeaning(semantic value), and in inflecting languages, has a correspondinginflectional paradigm.That is, a lexeme in many languages will have many different forms. For example, the lexemeRUNhas a presentthird personsingularformruns,a present non-third-person singular formrun(which also functions as thepast participleandnon-finiteform), a past formran,and a presentparticiplerunning.(It does not includerunner, runners, runnableetc.) The use of the forms of a lexeme is governed by rules ofgrammar.In the case of English verbs such asRUN,they include subject–verbagreement and compoundtenserules, which determine the form of a verb that can be used in a givensentence.
In manyformaltheories oflanguage,lexemes havesubcategorization framesto account for the number and types of complements. They occur withinsentencesand othersyntactic structures.
Decomposition
[edit]A language's lexemes are often composed of smaller units with individual meaning calledmorphemes,according toroot morpheme+derivational morphemes+affix(not necessarily in that order), where:
- The root morpheme is the primary lexical unit of a word, which carries the most significant aspects of semantic content and cannot be reduced to smaller constituents.[3]
- The derivational morphemes carry onlyderivationalinformation.[4]
- Theaffixis composed of all inflectional morphemes, and carries onlyinflectionalinformation.[5]
The compound root morpheme + derivational morphemes is often called thestem.[6]The decomposition stem +desinencecan then be used to study inflection.
See also
[edit]- Ending (linguistics)
- Inflection
- Lemma
- Lexical word vs. grammatical word
- Marker (linguistics)
- Multiword expression
- Null morpheme
- Root (linguistics)
- Stem
- Syntagma (linguistics)
- Word family
Notes
[edit]- ^RUNis here intended to display insmall caps.Software limitations may result in its display either in full-sized capitals (RUN) or in full-sized capitals of a smaller font. Either is regarded as an acceptable substitute for genuine small caps.
References
[edit]- ^The Cambridge Encyclopedia of The English Language.David Crystal.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995. p. 118.ISBN0521401798.
- ^Bonami O, Boyé G, Dal G, Giraudo H, Namer F (2018). Bonami O, Boyé G, Dal G, Giraudo H, Namer F (eds.).The lexeme in descriptive and theoretical morphology(pdf).Berlin: Language Science Press.doi:10.5281/zenodo.1402520.ISBN978-3-96110-110-8.
- ^"SIL Glossary of Linguistic Terms: What is a Root?".Sil.org.3 December 2015.Retrieved2021-05-14.
- ^"SIL Glossary of Linguistic Terms: What is a Derivational Affix?".Sil.org.3 December 2015.Retrieved2021-05-14.
- ^"SIL Glossary of Linguistic Terms: What is an Inflectional Affix?".Sil.org.3 December 2015.Retrieved2021-05-14.
- ^"SIL Glossary of Linguistic Terms: What is a Stem?".Sil.org.3 December 2015.Retrieved2021-05-14.
External links
[edit]The dictionary definition oflexemeat Wiktionary