Warm-up exercise:
Count the number of words in the sentence below and enter you answer here:
Tom's math professor is a do-it-yourself kinda guy.
Watch this YouTube video created by the Virtual Linguistics Campus on the complexities involved in defining words. (optional)
General definitions:
In spoken language, a word is defined as the smallest sequence of phonemes that can be uttered in isolation with objective or practical meaning (Wikipedia).
In written language, a word represents a single distinct meaningful element, used with others (or sometimes alone) to form a sentence and typically shown with a space on either side when written or printed.
Definitions of words from five perspectives:
In spoken language, words have one main stress; longer words have primary and secondary stresses (phonological perspective)
? function words: of, in, the, and
? clitics: I'll, she's, can't
In written language, words are a combination of letters divided by blank spaces. (orthographic perspective)
? do-it-yourself, kinda
Words are units into which no intervening material can be inserted. (integrity perspective)
? abso-bloody-lutely; fantas-bloody-tic
Words are units that describe a unified idea, a semantic concept. (semantic perspective)
? Chinese ‘gu ma’/father’s sisters + ‘yi ma’ (mother’s sisters) = aunts (English)
Words are the building blocks of sentences. They have a syntactic category. (syntactic perspective)
? by and large