There are different levels of scientific study of languages. Here are some of them: syntactic, lexical, morphemic, phonological. Each of these levels is occupied by a separate branch of linguistics - a complex science of language.
The emergence of the concept of language token
One of the key concepts of lexicology and linguistics in general is the lexeme. The essence of a large number of other phenomena can be expressed using this term. But first, it’s worth turning to the history of this concept.
It was first introduced into everyday life by the domestic linguist A. Peshkovsky at the beginning of the last century. Subsequently, such scientists as V. Vinogradov, A. Smirnitsky, A. Zaliznyak worked on the specification of this term in different years.
Term history
In the mid-twentieth century, this term was also used by linguists in England. They called the concept used in a meaning similar to the one endowed by Russian scientists.
In the USA, the term has been applied since the thirties of the twentieth century. However, its significance in American linguistics still remains somewhat blurred. More precisely, here, in parallel to each other, there are several definitions of this concept.
Often the concept of "token" is confused by American scientists with the concept of "idiom."
French linguists also interpret this term in their own way, significantly narrowing the boundaries of the concept. It is considered by them as a phenomenon similar in meaning to the term “word basis”.
Token in Russian Linguistics
In Russian linguistics, a token is a word as an abstract phenomenon, a unit of the vocabulary of a language. This term is usually found in headings of articles in spelling and some other dictionaries. A token is an abstract unit in the whole set of its forms and semantic meanings. Thus, the lexeme is considered as a complex phenomenon, combining the grammatical and semantic side.
A token is a variety of possible inflections (morphemes at the end of words and serving to connect them in a sentence: table, table-a, table-oh ). This means that it is possible to talk about this phenomenon only in relation to inflective languages, that is, those in which new forms of the word are formed using affixes (prefixes and suffixes).
It combines all the possible meanings of a word. But do not confuse it with the concept of a semantic field, since the latter consists of words, phrases and sentences that are not grammatically related. Nevertheless, it is worth mentioning that earlier the word “token” was also used to mean a semantic field, but this meaning of this term is outdated.
A specific example of the implementation of a token is called a token. For example, home is a lexeme, home is a lex. The token is usually unchanged, with rare exceptions. An example of an exception is the galosh galosh . An allolex is a set of all grammatical forms of a token.
Token Examples
For a deeper understanding of the concept, examples of tokens will be given below in comparison with language units such as phonemes, morphemes, semantic fields, words, and so on.
The first thing you should pay attention to is that a lexeme, unlike a word, necessarily carries a certain semantic load. For example, a “book” is at the same time a token and a word. And the pretext “but” is only a word, but not a token. Since the prepositions do not carry an independent meaning, then they cannot be tokens by definition. It is necessary to compare the phenomena of “semantic field” and “token” in order to distinguish between these concepts.
For example, the head token may be a semantic field. But the semantic field “head” usually includes the following words:
- eyes, mouth, mustache , etc.
And the head token is a combination of grammatical forms:
- head, chief, leader , etc.
It also includes semantic meanings:
- part of the body;
- supervisor;
- leader;
- smart person etc.
Another difference is that the lexeme is an objective phenomenon, and the content of the same semantic field may be different for different people, which indicates the subjectivity of semantic fields.
As for the "phoneme", this term is used to formally denote the smallest sound unit, while the token is a semantic and grammatical phenomenon. For example, the lexeme “house” consists of the morphemes “d”, “o” and “m”.
The term "morpheme" also belongs to a completely different field of linguistics - morphology.
An example is the “eye" token, which is also a morpheme at the same time. But the last concept implies the morphological composition of a given word, namely - the eye -, from the point of view of morphology - this is the root of the word.
Conclusion
A lexeme is one of the most important concepts of linguistics, along with a phoneme, morpheme, semantic field and others. A correct and accurate understanding of these terms is necessary for students of philological departments of various higher educational institutions who are preparing to become specialists in the field of linguistics. Information about this phenomenon will also be of interest to all people who are interested in the problems of lexicology.