The word is the main, central, nodal unit of the language. A person called any actions and conditions, defined all the qualities and attributes. All his knowledge of the world, its phenomena and properties, he expressed a word.
What is the word, and what is not? Are the words considered separate sounds? What are the criteria for determining the word? Linguists respond differently to these questions. Characterization of the word and its definition today is one of the most controversial problems in the science of language.
The complexity of the problem is determined by the complex naturewords, difficulties in its delimitation from both the morpheme and the word combination. The problem of polysemy, homonymy, etc. complicates the solution of this question. Since at all levels of the language - phonetic, morphological, lexical and syntactic - the word is a word, it is difficult to give one definition capable of satisfying the tasks of all levels.
The word is infinitely diverse in its meanings,structure, grammatical features. The role of words in the language is different: these are the names of objects and phenomena, the transfer of relations between words, the expression of feelings and human emotions. Words are pronounced differently, some are stressed, others lose it in speech. They can lose, change and develop the inherent lexical meaning of the word, expanding or narrowing its boundaries over time.
The question of what a word is, forcednot only linguists, but also each of us. And schoolchildren, first-graders who are just beginning to comprehend the basics of grammar, and graduates, who have accumulated enough experience not to be afraid of the examination in literature, and every adult who knows the grammar of his native language and has a vast practical experience of writing.
Without defining the signs of the word, we can notsay about what it is. Its most important features are the lexical meaning of the word (the ability to name objects, signs, actions, numbers), as well as grammatical meaning (morphological signs, material for construction of word combinations and sentences). In addition, the word has also formal signs: reproducibility, stability, isolation and one-shot.
The lexical meaning of a word is considered the most importantits sign. It is this word that differs from phonemes - smaller lexical units. As to the nature of meaning, the word is primarily opposed to the sentence. The main difference is that in a speech the sentence is used ready, as an utterance, while a word can express a concept. In some utterances, one word is able to relate to whole episodes of extralinguistic reality.
Concepts do not express words, onlyPointing to an object - such as pronouns. Suppose a personal pronoun indicates the one who speaks, but does not mean all the speakers. A pronoun without an extralinguistic pointing gesture or reference in the text to the previous mention of this subject will not be able to clearly say what kind of subject it is.
Interjections are directly related to emotions andtoo, do not call concepts. The conclusion is that the lexical meaning of words is not inherent in all of them. Although, of course, sometimes interjection acts as another part of speech. Then it turns into a full-fledged word and its lexical meaning passes to it. In this situation, the interjection becomes even a member of the sentence. For example: "Ay, guys!". "Aye da" in this sentence plays the role of a definition.
