Other ways to define a word

Another definition method to consider for words is the integrity criterion, which sees words as invisible units “into which no intervening material may be inserted”. Therefore, any type of modification of words must happen at the edges of the word, but never inside of it (Plag 2003: 6).

This can be seen, for instance, in the use of the suffix -s with plurals and the use of prefix un- for negation. Indeed, these types of modifications always occur around the word they are modifying.

However, there are also cases where the modifications can take place within the word as well. For instance, the plural for daughter-in-law is daughters-in-law rather than daughter-in-laws. If we consider this to be a single word, the indication of its plurality occurs in its middle, rather than at the end. There are also some cases where curse words are added in the middle of other words, such as in the case of abso-bloody-lutely. Here, the word bloody is inserted in the middle of the word absolutely, rather than occurring at the edges of it. To gain the same effect, bloody cannot in fact in this case be placed at the edges of the word. Therefore, it seems there are some exceptions to this particular word definition rule as well (Plag 2003: 7).

“The semantic definition of “word” states that a word expressed a unified semantic concept” (Plag 2003: 7). This is indeed true for most words, but does not serve quite far enough to be a definition for what a word is and is not, as not every semantic concept can be explained by a single word in every language. Take for instance the concept of the smell of fresh rain in a forest in the fall. This is a single unified concept, but it cannot be expressed as a single word in the English language. Therefore, “a word may always express a unified concept, not every unified concept is expressed by one word”.

This way of defining words is not therefore very adequate. Even the definition of what unified

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semantic concept means is rather vague here, making this definition of what a word is even less useable (Plag 2003: 7).

We can also distinguish between word-forms and words as vocabulary items in English (Katamba 2005: 18). This differentiation is important, as often when we talk about words, we are thinking of something more abstract rather than word-forms. These are referred to as lexemes, or vocabulary items. Words in a dictionary, for instance, are listed with this in mind. This happens in the cases of different word forms, for instance write-wrote-written. These three would not gain their own entries in a dictionary, but rather the first item would likely have its own entry, with the others mentioned underneath it (Katamba 2005: 18–19). In the cases of words that follow the general patterns of English, the other forms will likely be left out altogether, such as in the case of wash-washes-washed and so on. Instead, the grammar of the language is expected to provide the rules of how the words are used. The same goes for regular and irregular nouns and adjectives. Lexeme here is “an abstract entry that is found in the dictionary and that has a certain meaning. Word-forms are the concrete objects that we put down on paper (orthographic words) or utter (phonological words) when we use language”. (Katamba 19–20). Lexemes and word-forms relate to one another through the means of realisation, representation or manifestation. The lexeme write, for instance, can be portrayed in any of the forms that belong to it, such as wrote. These forms are the ones that happen in speech and writing as manifestations of the lexeme write.

There is also the syntactic way of defining words. In this, words are seen as “syntactic atoms, i.e. the smallest elements in a sentence” (Plag 2003: 7). They belong to syntactic classes, such as nouns and verbs, which are referred to as parts of speech, word classes or syntactic categories. The place of a word in a sentence is dependent on the syntactic rules of language, which refer to words and the

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classes they are a part of. The, for instance, is a part of a class called articles, and the rules of English language determine where in a sentence such words can occur. With these thoughts in mind, we can test whether a word is a word by seeing if it belongs to a word class in this manner. Thus, if a word follows the rules of nouns, it can be counted as a noun, and therefore, it is a word. Additionally, only words or groups of words can be moved around in a sentence, furthering the criteria for word definition.

We can additionally look at words from a grammatical point of view (Katamba 2005: 21). Words have their own vital role in syntax, as sentences consist of different arrangements of words. “A word, in the sense of a lexical item with a certain meaning plus certain syntactic and morphological properties, is referred to as a GRAMMATICAL WORD”. Words generally need to have certain properties in order to be used in syntactic contexts (Katamba 2005: 21–22). Word-forms can have different types of grammatical usages in sentences, for instance when they occur in different tenses.

There are, however, differences in the appearance of certain tenses. Compare, for instance, the words play-played-played and take-took-taken. We can see that neither the past tense nor the supine look the same, and that with take, they do not even look the same as each other. This type of use of the same word-form for the realisation of “two (or more) distinct grammatical words that are represented separately in the grammatical representations of words, belonging to some other comparable lexemes” is referred to as syncretism by linguists. This is one method to tell apart word-forms and grammatical words. It lets us know that words of the same lexeme that have the same forms can still have different meanings. This can also be seen in verbs such as hit and cut, which can serve as both present and past tenses of the word (Katamba 2005: 23). This type of syncretism is not limited to verbs either, but can also be seen in cases of nouns such as sheep, which can be both singular and plural.

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According to Katamba (2005: 11), Leonard Bloomfield, an American linguist, stated in 1926 that “a minimum free form is a word”. He therefore saw word as “the smallest meaningful linguistic unit that can be used on its own. Its form cannot be divided into any smaller units that can be used independently to convey meaning”. (Katamba 2005: 11). Words are generally treated and seen as the minimal free forms that can be used as tools of grammar in a language (Katamba 2005: 23). By this free form we refer to a unit that “can stand on its own and act as a free agent; it is an element whose position in a sentence is not totally dictated by other items”. To understand what is meant by

“freedom” in this context, we need to consider two ancillary ideas: positional mobility and stability.

An example of this would be the word child, which cannot be divided into bits that would alone convey meaning. Instead, the word childish can be divided into the bits of child- and -ish. Child in this case has a meaning on its own, but -ish does not (Katamba 2005: 11). To understand what is meant by “freedom” in this context, we need to consider two ancillary ideas: positional mobility and stability (Katamba 2005: 23). Words may not be the smallest grammatical units in sentences, but they are generally treated as unanalysable units when it comes to sentence formation. Words can usually appear in different places in a sentence and still make sense together. However, the elements that make up words cannot be moved around in this manner. Elements of word cannot be transported from one place to another in a sentence according to syntactic rules, when moving words around generally only creates a different type of emphasis or meaning in the sentence.

In this way, words appear as grammatical units with stability and internal cohesion (Katamba 2005:

24). The form of words is fixed and cannot be altered. When they are moved around in a sentence, they move as a block. This is the reason for why words are considered the minimal units of sentences, and intended to separate words from phrases in sentences. Phrases, as well as words, can exist on their own and can be moved around in the sentence, but they are not the smallest units of sentences, as they also consist of smaller units, words. Phrases also are not internally cohesive the way words

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are, but can gain other words within them. My old house can easily become my very old beautiful house, where more words can be inserted into the phrase. However, even the assumption of the grammatical word as the smallest independent unit in a sentence can be problematic in certain cases, generally once again with compounds. Compound words can be said to not be the smallest possible independent unit, bur often rather consist of two or more of those smallest independent units.

Therefore, it is preferable to define words as units “on which purely syntactic operations can be performed”. This definition applies even with compounds (Katamba 2005: 24–25). One cannot manipulate even the compound word’s insides (Katamba 2005: 25). Syntactic rules cannot be applied separately to words creating the compound. For instance in the case of the compound word wheelbarrow, it can be modified by the adjective big to become big wheelbarrow, the adjective cannot be inserted between the two nouns wheel and barrow that make up the compound.