Word as the basic unit of language

What’s in a name? that which we call a rose

By any other name would smell as sweet.

W. Shakespear (“Romeo and Juliette”, act 2, scene 2)

It has always been clear that the word is the basic unit of any language, irrespective of the national affinity of this language, stage of its development, form of expression (oral or written), natural or artificial character. At the same time the problem of defining the notion of a word appeared to be one of the most complicated questions, both in linguistics as well as beyond its boundaries. The main obstacle here was in giving a laconic and exhaustive definition of this basic term. Each attempt to define a word has always started with a try to describe it. This is the way we shall follow in our case as well.

To begin with, the word itself can be readily split into smaller units of two kinds: meaningful (morphemes) and meaningless (phonemes). The main complexity here is the fact that the units of these three language levels (phonological, morhpological and lexical) may all conicide in fluent speech. Moreover, such auxiliary forms as articles and prepositions may historically be turned into morphemes and in many cases become morphemes and start to function as such.

The complexity still rises if we take into account the fact that a separate word may also coincide with a sentence, the latter being a unit of an opposite higher lingual level. When used in sentences, that is together with other words, the word becomes syntactically organized. In the course of development of linguistics quite a number of definitions can be proposed, each reflecting a different approach and viewpoint of its author.

1. We will start with the highest linguistic levels, which are syntax and semantics. So the word was syntactically defined by Henry Sweet and Leonard Bloomfield as “a minimum free form”. That means that a word can form a sentence.

2. A synatcical plus semantic definition of words was given by Edward Sapir, who called the word “one of the smallest completely satisfying bits of isolated meaning, into which a sentence resolves itself”. Sapir was also the first to point out such an important characteristics of the word as its indivisibility (a lion – an African lion (divisibility of a word combination), alive (indivisible)). A split of one word into separate elements will inevitably result in the distortion and disturbance of the meaning (alive – a live performance (change of meanings)).

3. On the other hand the English language knows quite a number of transitive forms which take the middle position between separate words and word combinations which sound the same way. A purely semantic treatment of the problem can be found in Stephen Ullman’s explanation: “A connected discourse will fall into a number of meaningful segments, which are ultimately composed of meaningful units. These meaningful units are called words”.

4. The eminent French scholar of the 20^th century Antoine Meillet combined several approaches, which were the semantic, the phonological and the grammatical criteria, and worked out the following formula: “A word is defined by the association of a particular meaning with a particular group of sounds, capable of a particular grammatical employment”.

All the rest of the definitions used in the modern linguistics are either the variations of the above or combinations of the same.

The general complexity of the problem of word treatment is stimulated by the fact that the word is traditionally understood as a linguistic phenomenon, meanwhile we do not fully understand the phenomenon called the language. The greatest problem here is the nature of the relations between the word and its referent, that is the thing (object, phenomenon, etc.) it denotes. What we know today is:

1. the word includes a total number of sounds or letters;

2. the word is a complex structure, possessing several characteristics, referred to both its form and content;

3. the word is making the basis of verbal communcation.

Thus the external structure of the word is its morphological complexity, studied by the word-building theory. The internal structure of the word is reflected in its meaning. It is making the semantic organization of the lexical unit and is studied by semasiology.

Among the aspects of the word structure is its unity, both formal and semantic. This unity may be treated as the integral indivisibility of words. Example:

There may be two words like broad sword and broadsword. The meanings of both are different. We may also say the broadest sword, by which having two words, yet no such process can take place with the word broadsword, because it may only permit addition of suffixes at its end (e.g. broadswording).

Summing the problem up we may say that the word is the fundamental unit of language, a dialectal unit of form and contents, manifested so in the course of verbal communication. The word is both a language and a speech unit, used in and for human communication.

From the material viewpoint it is represented by a group of sounds or letters, which possess a meaning, which can be grammatically employed and characterised by formal and semantic indivisibilty.

A written word is a unity of letters, separated by two spaces.