2015-08-21
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The real nature of a word and the term itself has always been one of the most ambiguous issues in almost every branch of linguistics.
The word has acquired definitions from the syntactic, semantic, phonological points of view as well as a definition combining various approaches.
Syntactical point of view:
H. Sweet: a word is "the minimum sentence".
L. Bloomfield: a word is "the minimum independent unit of utterance".
E. Sapir concentrates on the syntactic and semantic aspects calling the word “one of the smallest completely satisfying bits of isolated meaning, into which the sentence resolves itself”.
A purely semantic treatment is observed in S. Ullmann’s explanation of words as meaningful segments that are ultimately composed of meaningful units.
The prominent French linguist A. Meillet combines the semantic, phonological and grammatical criteria:
| A. Meillet |
Our native school of linguistics understands the word as a dialectical double facet unit of form and content, reflecting human notions, and in this sense being considered as a form of their existence.
