lexeme en · NOUN
Pronunciation
- (US) audio
- lĕkˈsēmˌ
- /ˈlɛkˌsiːm/
Etymology
From Latin lexis, from Ancient Greek λέξις (léxis, “word”) + -eme, a suffix indicating a fundamental unit in some aspect of linguistic structure, on the model of phoneme.
Meanings
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(qualifier:strictly) A lexical item corresponding to the set of all words (or of all multi-word expressions) that are semantically related through inflection of a particular shared basic form. ▸ The abstract minimum unit of language or meaning that underlies such a set.
In a typical lexicalist approach (e.g. Koontz-Garboden 2006), the unmarked lexeme is taken as lexically listed, even if its meaning (as it often does) includes templatic entailments, and the derivational morphology is taken to operate on the underived form to yield the derived form. This is the case not only morphologically, but also semantically.
2014 September 25, Rochelle Lieber, Pavol Stekauer, editors, The Oxford Handbook of Derivational Morphology, page 347:A lexeme is a unit of lexical meaning, which exists regardless of any inflectional endings it may have or the number of words it may contain. Thus, fibrillate, rain cats and dogs, and come in are all lexemes, as are elephant, jog, cholesterol, happiness, put up with, face the music, and hundreds of thousands of other meaningful items in English.
2003, David Crystal, The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language, 2nd edition, Cambridge University Press, page 118:
- (broadly, metonymically) A lexical item corresponding to the set of all words (or of all multi-word expressions) that are semantically related through inflection of a particular shared basic form. ▸ The set itself; a lexemic family.
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(broadly, metonymically) A lexical item corresponding to the set of all words (or of all multi-word expressions) that are semantically related through inflection of a particular shared basic form. ▸ The wordform chosen to represent such a set or family.
For the second sense, where “word” means “item that should have its own dictionary entry,” lexicographers sometimes use the term “lemma,” but that has other meanings too, so among linguists the term lexeme is now standard, and I’ll use it. For the different forms or shapes that belong to a lexeme we can use the term word-form. ¶ And as a typographical convention, from now on I’ll always put lexeme names in bold italics with a capital letter. So I’ll say there is a lexeme called Pamper [emphasis in original]. It’s the name of a small collection of word-forms with particular spellings – four of them: pamper, pampered, pampering, and pampers. I will always put word-forms (and all the phrases and clauses I mention as examples) in italics.
2024, Geoffrey K. Pullum, The Truth About English Grammar, Polity Press, →ISBN, page 17:
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An individual instance of a continuous character sequence without spaces, used in lexical analysis.
Near-synonym: token
Forms
| Spelling | Features | Labels | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| lexemes | Number=Plur | lexicographic |
Deriveds
lexemic · interlexeme · lexemehood
Holonyms
Hypernyms
Relateds
phoneme · chroneme · listeme · lingueme · morpheme · chereme · hypheme · term · grapheme · toneme · lexical · lexical unit · solideme · word · principal part
Synonyms
base form · token · citation form · lexical item · dictionary form · lemma · basic form · semanteme · headword · canonical form
Translations (62)
az leksem (linguistics: unit of vocabulary, set of different forms of the same lemma) · sw leksimu (linguistics: unit of vocabulary, set of different forms of the same lemma) · sk lexéma (linguistics: unit of vocabulary, set of different forms of the same lemma) · it lessema (linguistics: unit of vocabulary, set of different forms of the same lemma) · nl lexeem (linguistics: unit of vocabulary, set of different forms of the same lemma) · km វចនតា (linguistics: unit of vocabulary, set of different forms of the same lemma) · pl leksem (linguistics: unit of vocabulary, set of different forms of the same lemma) · ar لِكْسِيم (linguistics: unit of vocabulary, set of different forms of the same lemma) · ms leksem (linguistics: unit of vocabulary, set of different forms of the same lemma) · ro lexem (linguistics: unit of vocabulary, set of different forms of the same lemma) · fa تکواژه (linguistics: unit of vocabulary, set of different forms of the same lemma) · fi lekseemi (linguistics: unit of vocabulary, set of different forms of the same lemma) · cs lexém (linguistics: unit of vocabulary, set of different forms of the same lemma) · gl lexema (linguistics: unit of vocabulary, set of different forms of the same lemma) · fr lexème (linguistics: unit of vocabulary, set of different forms of the same lemma) · ko 어휘소 (linguistics: unit of vocabulary, set of different forms of the same lemma) · tr leksem (linguistics: unit of vocabulary, set of different forms of the same lemma) · el λέξημα (linguistics: unit of vocabulary, set of different forms of the same lemma) · hu lexéma (linguistics: unit of vocabulary, set of different forms of the same lemma) · eo leksemo (linguistics: unit of vocabulary, set of different forms of the same lemma) · uk лексе́ма (linguistics: unit of vocabulary, set of different forms of the same lemma) · cmn 詞彙單位 /词汇单位 (linguistics: unit of vocabulary, set of different forms of the same lemma) · pt lexema (linguistics: unit of vocabulary, set of different forms of the same lemma) · be лексе́ма (linguistics: unit of vocabulary, set of different forms of the same lemma) · sl leksem (linguistics: unit of vocabulary, set of different forms of the same lemma) · hi शब्दिम (linguistics: unit of vocabulary, set of different forms of the same lemma) · ar مُفْرَدَة (linguistics: unit of vocabulary, set of different forms of the same lemma) · et lekseem (linguistics: unit of vocabulary, set of different forms of the same lemma) · is les (computing: continuous character sequence without spaces) · cmn 詞 /词 (linguistics: unit of vocabulary, set of different forms of the same lemma) · fi lekseemi (computing: continuous character sequence without spaces) · sh лексем (linguistics: unit of vocabulary, set of different forms of the same lemma) · pt semantema (linguistics: unit of vocabulary, set of different forms of the same lemma) · ja 語彙素 (linguistics: unit of vocabulary, set of different forms of the same lemma) · is flettiorð (linguistics: unit of vocabulary, set of different forms of the same lemma) · lt leksema (linguistics: unit of vocabulary, set of different forms of the same lemma) · cs lexém (computing: continuous character sequence without spaces) · io lexemo (linguistics: unit of vocabulary, set of different forms of the same lemma) · cmn 詞素 /词素 (computing: continuous character sequence without spaces) · nn leksem (linguistics: unit of vocabulary, set of different forms of the same lemma) · da leksem (linguistics: unit of vocabulary, set of different forms of the same lemma) · pl leksem (computing: continuous character sequence without spaces) · es lexema (linguistics: unit of vocabulary, set of different forms of the same lemma) · cmn 詞位 /词位 (linguistics: unit of vocabulary, set of different forms of the same lemma) · nb leksem (linguistics: unit of vocabulary, set of different forms of the same lemma) · sv lexem (linguistics: unit of vocabulary, set of different forms of the same lemma) · cmn 詞素 /词素 (linguistics: unit of vocabulary, set of different forms of the same lemma) · sh leksem (linguistics: unit of vocabulary, set of different forms of the same lemma) · de Lexem (linguistics: unit of vocabulary, set of different forms of the same lemma) · be лексэ́ма (linguistics: unit of vocabulary, set of different forms of the same lemma) · bg лексе́ма (linguistics: unit of vocabulary, set of different forms of the same lemma) · mk лексема (linguistics: unit of vocabulary, set of different forms of the same lemma) · vi từ vị (linguistics: unit of vocabulary, set of different forms of the same lemma) · ru лексе́ма (computing: continuous character sequence without spaces) · ka ლექსემა (linguistics: unit of vocabulary, set of different forms of the same lemma) · ru лексе́ма (linguistics: unit of vocabulary, set of different forms of the same lemma) · ca lexema (linguistics: unit of vocabulary, set of different forms of the same lemma) · is les (linguistics: unit of vocabulary, set of different forms of the same lemma) · hy բառույթ (linguistics: unit of vocabulary, set of different forms of the same lemma) · eo simbolo (computing: continuous character sequence without spaces) · tr sözlükbirim (linguistics: unit of vocabulary, set of different forms of the same lemma) · ml കോശിമം (linguistics: unit of vocabulary, set of different forms of the same lemma)