The lexeme is the basic unit from which other words can be formed. It is listed in dictionaries, but the inflected forms are not. The assumption is that language speakers know the words which are derived from the lexeme.
Let us illustrate. The word bake is a lexeme. With the addition of inflectional affixes, other words can be formed. These include bakes, baked and baking. The lexeme bake underlies this set of words. The words baker and bakers are not part of the same set because they belong to a different grammatical category, the category of nouns. However, the plural bakers and the singular baker both belong to the lexeme baker.
The difference between lexemes and words is that lexeme are the basic units from which other words can be built. The lexeme can be considered an abstract notion. It consists of one morpheme. Unlike other words, it contains no affixes.
-
The opera Turandot features an Asian princess who many men wish to marry. However, if they wish to do so, they must answer three riddles c...
-
Most English compound nouns are endocentric. This means that the central meaning of the compound is carried by the head. The head of English... -
All English sentences can be classified as canonical and non-canonical clauses. Canonical clauses are the most basic sentences we can constr...
2 comments:
Mr. Szoldos, thank you for expanding my knowledge of the English language as well as my vocabulary. As a writer by profession, it helps to understand ways that careful writing and editing can improve meaning--but sometimes it's difficult to convey methods for improvement to my co-writers. Your teaching me words that precisely describe parts of speech, grammar, and practice, enhances my ability to understand, analyze, and communicate.
When searching for information on Nessun Dorma from Turandot I came across your site and fascinating references to orthography, inflectional affixes, and consonant voicing. Lucky for me! I am amazed at your knowledge of languages including but not limited to English. I'm curious to know more about how you came to such knowledge...but unfortunately, your bio here on Blogger is blank. Oh well, I will continue to enjoy your posts and, equally luckily, apparently there are years of them here to review, interspersed with your lovely poetry.
Thank you for writing!
--Barry
Thank you for writing. I now have information on my blog so that my readers can learn more about me.
Post a Comment