Many linguists are aware that two of the most basic concepts of our field, “word” and “lexicon”, are used in confusing ways. But can we do something about this, other than pointing out the confusions once in a while? I now think we can, by defining “word” in a precise way (Haspelmath 2023), and by replacing “lexicon/lexical” in by one of four other terms if necessary (set of words, lexemicon, inventorium, mentalicon). For mnemonic reasons and because it was fun, I published my paper about “word” in the journal WORD, and my paper about “lexicon” was recently published in the journal “Lexique” (Haspelmath 2024b). Continue reading
Do we store “words”? Moving beyond the “lexicon” confusion
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