The word is the basic, central, nodal unit of language. A man named any actions and conditions, identified all qualities and signs. He expressed all knowledge about the world, its phenomena and properties in words.
What is a word and what is not? Are separate sounds considered words? What are the criteria for defining a word? Linguists answer these questions differently. The characterization of a word and its definition today is one of the most controversial issues in the science of language.
The complexity of the problem is determined by the difficult nature of the word, the difficulties in distinguishing it from both the morpheme and the phrase. The phenomena of polysemy, homonymy, etc. complicate the solution of this question. Since the word is a unit at all levels of the language - phonetic, morphological, lexical and syntactic, it is difficult to give one definition that can satisfy tasks of all levels.
The word is infinitely diverse in its meanings, structure, and grammatical features. The role of words in a 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 have stress, 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 such a word is compelled not only by linguistic scientists, but also by each of us. Both first-graders, who are just beginning to comprehend the basics of grammar, and graduates who have managed to accumulate enough experience so as not to be afraid of a language exam, and every adult who knows the grammar of his native language well and has vast practical experience in writing.
Without identifying the signs of the word, we will not be able to say 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 the grammatical meaning (morphological signs, material for the construction of phrases and sentences). In addition, the word also has formal features: reproducibility, stability, isolation, and one-hit.
The lexical meaning of the word is considered its most important sign. This is what the word differs from phonemes - smaller lexical units. As for the nature of meaning, the word is primarily opposed to the sentence. The main difference is that in speech, the sentence is used ready-made as a statement, while a word can express a concept. In some statements, one word can correlate with whole episodes of extra-linguistic reality.
It often happens that the lexical meaning of a word is wider than one concept. It may include evaluative and expressive components, but this does not apply to all words. For example,
proper names are not related to concepts. They name only a specific item, which does not apply to the entire class of similar items. If any of the proper names begins to denote a number of objects with similar features, it loses its exclusivity and goes into the rank
of common names.Words also do not express concepts, only pointing to the subject - such as pronouns. Suppose a personal pronoun refers to the one who speaks, but does not mean all the speakers. A pronoun without a non-lingual indicating gesture or reference in the text to the previous mention of this subject will not be able to clearly say which subject is being discussed.
Interjections are directly related to emotions and are also not called concepts. The conclusion suggests itself 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 word and its lexical meaning passes to it. In this situation, interjection becomes even a member of the sentence. For example: "Ah yes guys!". “Ah yes” in this sentence plays the role of definition.