Lexical word - definition of Lexical word by The Free Dictionary /Lexical+word
function word (redirected from Lexical word)Also found in: , .
function wordn. A word, such as a preposition, a conjunction, or an article, that has little semantic content of its own and chiefly indicates a grammatical relationship. Also called
form word,
functor.function word
(Grammar) grammar a word, such as the, with a particular grammatical role but little identifiable meaning. Compare ,
func′tion word`
a word, as a preposition, conjunction, or article, that chiefly expresses grammatical relationships and has little semantic content of its own (disting. from ).
Switch to Noun1.function word - a word that is uninflected and serves a grammatical function but has little identifiable meaning - a unit of language that native s "words are the blocks from which sentences are made"; "he hardly said ten words all morning",
- one of a limited class of noun modifiers that determine the referents of noun phrases - a function word that combines with a noun or pronoun or noun phrase to form a prepositional phrase that can have an adverbial or adjectival relation to some other word - a function word that is used in place of a noun or noun phrase, , ,
- an uninflected function word that serves to conjoin words or phrases or clauses or sentences - a function word that can be used in English to form phrasal verbs - the meaning of a word that depends on it varies with inflectional form
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xxix) heires (LeCo rank 86; Salient lexical word 29; keyness = 745,6; p = 0,000000)In all of the examples in (27) and (28) the exponence is crucial in identifying the lexical word and the recategorizations and/or secondary categories involved.PCG's ComplianceSight(TM) uses sophisticated online reporting tools to review and analyze employee feedback at every level of the organization, a lexical word searching engine that can search comment fields written in 17 languages, highly-visual point-and-click "drill down" technology, and a real-time Web interface for gathering and storing information, reporting, and surveying.The newly formed lexical word is co-extensional to the prosodic word.This sentence is made up of one independent clause and contains seventeen lexical words (counting hfs as one lexical word); it, therefore, has a lexical density of 17 (lexical words) to 1 (clause).PCG's ComplianceSight(R) uses sophisticated online reporting tools to review and analyze employee feedback at every level of the organization, a lexical word searching engine that can search comment fields written in 17 languages, highly-visual point-and-click "drill down" technology, and a real-time Web interface for gathering and storing information, reporting, and surveying.Throughout this article, only lexical words are represented).Table 1: Sources of the Lexical Words in the Two Halves of Pearl(28) Sections I-X Sections XI-XX Number Percent Number Percent Lexical Words 2 100 English 1171 65.Together the occurrences of these 13 shared lexical words constituted some 19% of the total lexical tokens in the th by comparison, the suspect group sha red 74 lexical words whose occurrences accounted for almost half (49,3%) of all the lexical tokens.This can be quantified as lexical density--the mean number of lexical words (nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs) per clause.Grammaticalization is a sub-field within the study of language change that focuses on the process by which lexical words or word clusters come to fulfill more grammatical functions.She has a special interest in combinations of two monosyllabic lexical words, and particularly in "enclitics": combinations in which the first word appears to require more stress than the second (the ballad term "true love," for example) (134).
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英语语言学概论》重、难点问与答1.1.????Whatislanguage?“Languageissystemofarbitraryvocalsymbolsusedforhumancommunication.Itisasystem,sincelinguisticelementsarearrangedsystematically,ratherthanrandomly.Arbitrary,inthesensethatthereisusuallynointrinsicconnectionbetweenawork(like“book”)andtheobjectitrefersto.Thisexplainsandisexplainedbythefactthatdifferentlanguageshavedifferent“books”:“book”inEnglish,“livre”inFrench,inJapanese,inChinese,“check”inKorean.Itissymbolic,becausewordsareassociatedwithobjects,actions,ideasetc.bynothingbutconvention.Namely,peopleusethesoundsorvocalformstosymbolizewhattheywishtoreferto.Itisvocal,becausesoundorspeechistheprimarymediumforallhumanlanguages,developedor“new”.Writingsystemscamemuchlaterthanthespokenforms.Thefactthatsmallchildrenlearnandcanonlylearntospeak(andlisten)beforetheywrite(andread)alsoindicatesthatlanguageisprimarilyvocal,ratherthanwritten.Theterm“human”inthedefinitionismeanttospecifythatlanguageishumanspecific.1.2.????Whataredesignfeaturesoflanguage?“Designfeatures”hererefertothedefiningpropertiesofhumanlanguagethattellthedifferencebetweenhumanlanguageandanysystemofanimalcommunication.Theyarearbitrariness,duality,productivity,displacement,culturaltransmissionandinterchangeability1.3.????Whatisarbitrariness?By“arbitrariness”,wemeanthereisnologicalconnectionbetweenmeaningsandsounds(seeI.1).Adogmightbeapigifonlythefirstpersonorgroupofpersonshaduseditforapig.Languageisthereforelargelyarbitrary.Butlanguageisnotabsolutelyseemtobesomesound-meaningassociation,ifwethinkofechowords,like“bang”,“crash”,“roar”,whicharemotivatedinacertainsense.Secondly,somecompounds(wordscompoundedtobeoneword)arenotentirelyarbitraryeither.“Type”and“write”areopaqueorunmotivatedwords,while“type-writer”islessso,ormoretransparentormotivatedthanthewordsthatmakeit.Sowecansay“arbitrariness”isamatterofdegree.1.4.Whatisduality?Linguistsrefer“duality”(ofstructure)tothefactthatinalllanguagessofarinvestigated,onefindstwolevelsofstructureorpatterning.Atthefirst,higherlevel,la
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adjectiveThe definition of lexical is something that relates to vocabulary or the words which make up a language.An example of lexical used as an adjective is the phrase lexical similarity which means words that appear to be similar to other words.
lexical of a vocabulary, or stock of words, a specif., of words as isolated items of vocabulary rather than elements in a grammatical structure of, or having the nature of, a lexicon or lexicographyOrigin of lexicalModern Latin lexicalis ; from Classical Greek lexikon,
lexical adjective Of or relating to the vocabulary, words, or morphemes of a language. Of or relating to lexicography or a lexicon.Origin of lexical lexic(on) + &al1. Related Forms:lex&i·cal&i·ty
nounlex&i·cal·ly adverb
(not comparable)(linguistics) concerning the ,
of a (linguistics) concerning
, from Ancient Greek ?>>?-? 3/4 ???, (l?(C)xis, “word"?) + -al.
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English as a Second Language
by Richard Nordquist
DefinitionIn
and , a content word is a
that conveys information in a
or . Also known as a lexical word, lexical morpheme, substantive category, or contentive. Contrast with
or grammatical word.In his book The Secret Life of Pronouns (2011), social psychologist James W. Pennebaker expands this definition: "Content words are words that have a culturally shared
in labeling an object or action.
. . . Content words are absolutely necessary to convey an idea to someone else."Content words—which include , , , and —belong to
of words: that is, new members are readily added. "The
of a content word," say Kortmann and Loebner, "is the category, or set, of all its potential " (Understanding Semantics, 2014).See Examples and Observations below. Also see:
Examples and Observations"All
can be divided into the categories lexical [content] and grammatical []. A lexical morpheme has a meaning that can be understood fully in and of itself—{boy}, for example, as well as {run}, {green}, {quick}, {paper}, {large}, {throw}, and {now}. Nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs are typical kinds of lexical morphemes. Grammatical morphemes, on the other hand—such as {of}, {and}, {the}, {ness}, {to}, {pre}, {a}, {but}, {in}, and {ly}—can be understood completely only when they occur with other words in a sentence."(Thomas E. Murray, The Structure of English. Allyn and Bacon, 1995)
"Reverend Howard Thomas was the presiding elder over a district in Arkansas, which included Stamps."(Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. Random House, 1969) "Most people with low self-esteem have earned it."(George Carlin, Napalm & Silly Putty. Hyperion, 2001)
"The odor of fish hung thick in the air."(Jack Driscoll, Wanting Only to Be Heard. University of Massachusetts Press, 1995)
"Liberal and conservative have lost their meaning in America. I represent the distracted center."(Jon Stewart) "`Twas brillig, and the slithy tovesDid gyre and gimble in the wabe:All mimsy were the borogoves,And the mome raths outgrabe."(Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There, 1872)
Function Words vs. Content Words- "Grammatical words [] tend to be short: they are normally of one
and many are represented in
by less than three
('I,' 'he,' 'do,' 'on,' 'or'). Content words are longer and, with the exception of 'ox' and American English's 'ax,' are spelt with a minimum of three graphemes. This criterion of length can also be extended to the production of the two sets of words in . Here grammatical words are often unstressed or generally de-emphasised in ."(Paul Simpson, Language Through Literature. Routledge, 1997)- "All languages make some distinction between 'content words' and 'function words.' Content words carry nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs are types of content word. Function words are typically little words, and they signal relations between parts of sentences, or something about the
import of a sentence, e.g. whether it is a . Lewis Carroll's 'Jabberwocky' poem illustrates the distinction well:`Twas brillig, and the slithy tovesDid gyre and gimble in the wabe:All mimsy were the borogoves,And the mome raths outgrabe.In this poem all the made-up wor all the others are function words. In English, function words include , such as the, a, my, your,
(e.g. I, me, you, she, them), various
(e.g. have, is, can, will do),
(and, or, but), and
(e.g. if, when, as, because).
are a borderline case. They have some semantic content, but are a small , allowing hardly any historical innovation. Some English prepositions serve a mainly grammatical function, like of (what is the meaning of of?) and others have clear descriptive (and relational) content, like under. New content words in a language can new nouns, in particular, are continually being coined, and new verbs (e.g. Google, gazump) and adjectives (e.g. naff, grungy) also not infrequently come into use. The small set of function words in a language, by contrast, is much more fixed and relatively steady over centuries."(James R. Hurford, The Origins of Language: A Slim Guide. Oxford University Press, 2014)
Content Words in Speech"Typically, the prominent
in a tone unit will be a content word (e.g. a noun or verb) rather than a function word (e.g. a preposition or article), since content words carry more meaning than function words. Function words will only be stressed if prominence on them is contextually warranted."(Charles F. Meyer, Introducing English Linguistics. Cambridge University Press, 2010)
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What Are Function Words in English Grammar?}