Lexeme

A lexeme (pronunciation (help·info)) is an abstract unit of morphological analysis in linguistics, that roughly corresponds to a set of forms taken by a single word. Morphology is the field of Linguistics that studies the internal structure of words In Linguistics, semantic analysis is the process of relating syntactic structures from the levels of Phrases Clauses sentences and Linguistics is the scientific study of Language, encompassing a number of sub-fields A word is a unit of Language that carries meaning and consists of one or more Morphemes which are linked more or less tightly together and has a Phonetic For example, in the English language, run, runs, ran and running are forms of the same lexeme, conventionally written as RUN. English is a West Germanic language originating in England and is the First language for most people in the United Kingdom, the United States ^[1] A related concept is the lemma (or citation form), which is a particular form of a lexeme that is chosen by convention to represent a canonical form of a lexeme. In Linguistics a lemma (plural lemmas or lemmata) has two distinct interpretations morphology / Lexicography: the Lemmas are used in dictionaries as the headwords, and other forms of a lexeme are often listed later in the entry if they are unusual in some way. See also Lemma (linguistics A headword, head word, lemma, or sometimes catchword is the word under which a set of related Dictionary

A lexeme belongs to a particular syntactic category, has a particular meaning (semantic value), and in inflecting languages, has a corresponding inflectional paradigm; that is, a lexeme in many languages will have many different forms. A syntactic category is either a phrasal category, such as Noun phrase or Verb phrase, which can be decomposed into smaller syntactic This article is about meaning as it is studied in the discipline of linguistics Semantics is the study of meaning in communication The word derives from Greek σημαντικός ( semantikos) "significant" from In Grammar, inflection or inflexion is the way language handles grammatical relations and relational categories such as tense, mood, voice For example, the lexeme RUN has a present third person singular form runs, a present non-third-person-singular form run (which also functions as the past participle and non-finite form), a past form ran, and a present participle running. Grammatical person, in Linguistics, is deictic reference to a participant in an event such as the speaker the Addressee, or others In linguistics grammatical number is a Grammatical category of nouns pronouns and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions (such as "one" In Linguistics, a participle (from Latin participium, a Calque of Greek μετοχη "partaking" is a derivative of a non-finite In Linguistics, a non-finite verb (or a verbal) is a Verb form that is not limited by a subject and more generally is not fully inflected by In Linguistics, a participle (from Latin participium, a Calque of Greek μετοχη "partaking" is a derivative of a non-finite (It does not include runner, runners, runnable, etc. ) The use of the forms of a lexeme is governed by rules of grammar; in the case of English verbs such as RUN, these include subject-verb agreement and compound tense rules, which determine which form of a verb can be used in a given sentence. Grammar is the field of Linguistics that covers the Rules governing the use of any given natural language. For English usage of verbs see the wiki article English verbs. In Linguistics, a sentence is a grammatical unit of one or more words bearing minimal syntactic relation to the words that precede or follow it often preceded and followed

A lexicon consists of lexemes. In Linguistics, the lexicon (from Greek Λεξικόν of a language is its Vocabulary, including its words and expressions

In many formal theories of language, lexemes have subcategorization frames to account for the number and types of complements they occur with in sentences and other syntactic structures. Theoretical linguistics is the branch of Linguistics that is most concerned with developing models of linguistic knowledge A language is a dynamic set of visual auditory or tactile Symbols of Communication and the elements used to manipulate them In syntactic linguistic theory the subcategorization frame of a Word is the number and types of syntactic arguments that it co-occurs with (i In Linguistics, a sentence is a grammatical unit of one or more words bearing minimal syntactic relation to the words that precede or follow it often preceded and followed In Linguistics, syntax (from Ancient Greek grc συν- syn-, "together" and grc τάξις táxis, "arrangement" is the

The notion of a lexeme is very central to morphology, and thus, many other notions can be defined in terms of it. Morphology is the field of Linguistics that studies the internal structure of words For example, the difference between inflection and derivation can be stated in terms of lexemes:

Inflectional rules relate a lexeme to its forms. In Grammar, inflection or inflexion is the way language handles grammatical relations and relational categories such as tense, mood, voice In Linguistics, derivation is "Used to form new words as with happi-ness and un-happy from happy, or determination from
Derivational rules relate a lexeme to another lexeme.

Decomposition

Lexemes are often composed of smaller units with individual meaning called morphemes, according to root morpheme + derivational morphemes + desinence (not necessarily in this 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. In Morpheme-based morphology, a morpheme is the smallest linguistic unit that has semantic meaning. The root is the primary lexical unit of a Word, which carries the most significant aspects of semantic content and cannot be reduced into smaller constituents ^[2]
The derivational morphemes carry only derivational information. In Linguistics, derivation is "Used to form new words as with happi-ness and un-happy from happy, or determination from ^[3]
The desinence is composed of all inflectional morphemes, and carries only inflectional information. In Grammar, a suffix (also postfix, ending) is an Affix which is placed at the end of a word In Grammar, inflection or inflexion is the way language handles grammatical relations and relational categories such as tense, mood, voice ^[4]

The compound root morpheme + derivational morphemes is often called the stem. In Linguistics, a stem (sometimes also theme) is the part of a word that is common to all its inflected variants ^[5] The decomposition stem + desinence can then be used to study inflection.

Notes

^ RUN is here intended to display in small caps. In Typography, small capitals (usually abbreviated small caps) are Uppercase ( capital) characters set at the same height as surrounding Software limitations may result in its display either in full-sized capitals (RUN) or in full-sized capitals of a smaller font; either is anyway regarded as an acceptable substitute for genuine small caps.
^ SIL dictionary of linguistic terms: What is a root?
^ SIL dictionary of linguistic terms: What is a derivational affix?
^ SIL dictionary of linguistic terms: What is an inflectional affix?
^ SIL dictionary of linguistic terms: What is a stem?

Dictionary

-noun

(linguistics) Roughly, the set of inflected forms taken by a single word, such as the lexeme RUN including as members "run" (lemma), "running" (inflected form), or "ran", and excluding "runner" (derived term).

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