Word

词

A unit of expression which has universal intuitive recognition by native-speakers, in both spoken and written language. However, there are several difficulties in arriving at a consistent use of the term in relation to other categories of linguistic description, and in the comparison of languages of different structural types. These problems relate mainly to word identification and definition. They include, for example, decisions over word boundaries, as well as decisions over status.

Three main senses of ‘word’ are usually distinguished (though terminology varies):

(a) Words are the physically definable units which one encounters in a stretch of writing (bounded by spaces) or speech (where identification is more difficult, but where there may be phonological clues to identify boundaries, such as a pause, or juncture features). ‘Word’ in this sense is often referred to as the orthographic word (for writing) or the phonological word (for speech). A neutral term often used to subsume both is word form.

(b) There is a more abstract sense, referring to the common factor underlying the set of forms which are plainly variants of the same unit, such as walk, walks, walking, walked. The ‘underlying’ word unit is often referred to as a lexeme. Lexemes are the units of vocabulary, and as such would be listed in a dictionary.

(c) This then leaves the need for a comparably abstract unit to be set up to show how words work in the grammar of a language, and ‘word’, without qualification, is usually reserved for this role (alternatively, one may spell out this implication, referring to ‘morphemic / morphosyntactic / grammatical’ words, though the latter has an alternative sense). A word, then, is a grammatical unit, of the same theoretical kind as morpheme and sentence. In a hierarchical model of analysis, sentences (clauses, etc.) consist of words, and words consist of morphemes (minimally, one free morpheme). Word-order refers to the sequential arrangement of words in a language. Languages are sometimes classified in terms of whether their word-order is relatively ‘free’ (as in Latin) or ‘fixed’ (as in English).

 Several general subclassifications of words have been proposed, such as the distinction between variable and invariable types, grammatical (or function) words v. lexical words, closed-class v. open-class words, empty v. full words. At a more specific level, word-classes can be established, by analysing the various grammatical, semantic and phonological properties displayed by the words in a language, and grouping words into classes on the basis of formal similarities (e.g. their inflections and distribution). 

指操本族语者凭直觉普遍承认的一个表达单位，不管是口说语还是书写语。但是，与语言描写的其他范畴相比，或不同结构类型的语言相比较时，要对这个名称的用法取得一致有诸多困难。这些困难主要与词的识别和定义有关。例如，如何确定词的界限，又如何确定词的地位。

通常区分“词”的三种主要涵义（名称可能不一致）：

（a）词是物理上可定义的单位，即一段书写（有空格作边界）或一段言语（识别较困难，但可借助音韵线索来识别边界，如停顿或音渡特征）。这种涵义上的“词”常称作正字法的词（指书写）或音系学的词（指言语）。用一个中性名称统指两者，称作词形式。

（b）较抽象的一种涵义是指处于一组显然是统一单位不同变体底层的那个公因子，例如walk，walks，walking，walked“走”就是同一个“词”的不同变体。词位是词汇的单位，并作为这样的单位在词典中列出。

（c）还有必要建立一个比较抽象的单位来表示词在这一种语言的语法中如何起作用，而不加任何限定的“词”就有这种涵义（也可具体表达这种涵义，称作“语素学/形态句法学/语法的”词，但“语法的词”还另有涵义。因此词是一个语法单位，跟语素和句子有同类的理论地位。在层级分析模型中，句子（小句等）由词组成，词又由语素组成（最少为一个自由语素）。词序指一种语言中词的顺序排列。语言可根据其词序是相对“自由”（如拉丁语）或“固定”（如英语）来分类。

对词的分类已经提出的方法有好几种，例如区分变形词和不变形词，区分语法词（功能词）和词汇词，区分封闭类词和开放类词，区分虚词和实词。在一个较具体的层面上，可通过分析一种语言中词显示的各种语法、语义和音系特征来建立词类，并根据形式相似（如屈折形式和分布）标准将词归并成类。