Note: there is no consensus on the definition of a word. telugu: paRukunTundi | maaTlaaRtynnaaRu English: she is sleeping | he is talking Bangla: O ghumocche | o (kotha) bolchhe
For our current purposes, we shall differenciate one word from another on the basis of ‘space’ between two units of writing.
‘The apes in the jungle loved Tarzan and Jane’
Note, “Main ne dekha” and “mainne dekha” are both used often (as you can see, that our definition starts looking weird)
(If anyone other than me ever reads this note, know that I am having an existential crisis.)
It can be said to be a part of our mental grammar is it the linguistics job to figure out what’s happening in the mind? Chomsky would say that, we want to figure out what’s happening in the mind using the language data we get.
Each word is a sound meaning unit.
Knowing a word means
It is the smallest unit of meaning. Often defined as the the smallest linguistic piece of grammatical function. These pieces cannot be divided into smaller meaningful parts. A morpheme is the smallest unit of meaning looked = look + ed
question: “students” how many morphemes here?
If you’re thinking about making an LOTR reference, don’t.
Note: we do not care about sounds, when we’re breaking in to morphemes, i.e. for example we will break “are” into “is” + plurality because “are” breaks into those abstract meanings, the sound isn’t particularly important
Warning: DONOT try to count the number of morphemes anywhere