What is Lexis?

Lexis refers to the vocabulary of a language, encompassing all the words and phrases used by its
speakers. It is a fundamental component of linguistics and is closely associated with semantics
(meaning) and morphology (word formation). The study of lexis includes exploring the structure,
meaning, usage, and relationships among words and expressions in a language.

Key Aspects of Lexis:

1. Vocabulary: Lexis includes all the individual words, idiomatic expressions, fixed
phrases, and collocations in a language.
2. Word Formation: It involves processes like derivation, compounding, blending, and
borrowing that create new words.
3. Word Relationships:
o Synonyms: Words with similar meanings (e.g., "happy" and "joyful").
o Antonyms: Words with opposite meanings (e.g., "hot" and "cold").
o Collocations: Words that frequently occur together (e.g., "make a decision").
4. Lexical Semantics: The study of how words and phrases convey meaning individually
and in context.
5. Register and Usage: Words are chosen based on their appropriateness in formal,
informal, technical, or regional contexts.

Importance of Lexis:

 In language learning, building a strong lexical repertoire is critical for effective

communication.
 In discourse analysis, lexis is studied to understand how word choice shapes meaning and
tone.

Lexis encompasses the vocabulary of a language, focusing on the relationships, meanings, and
usage of words and expressions. Understanding the distinction between words and lexemes is
essential for linguistic analysis, as it highlights the difference between the tangible forms of
words and their abstract, core meanings. Together, these concepts provide a foundation for
studying language structure, vocabulary acquisition, and effective communication.

Words vs. Lexemes

The terms "words" and "lexemes" are related but differ in their linguistic implications. While
words are specific forms or tokens seen in speech or writing, lexemes are abstract units
representing the core meaning of a word family.
1. Words

A word is a physical, tangible unit of language that can be spoken, written, or identified in a text.
It is defined by its orthographic (spelling) and phonological (sound) form and its role in syntax.

Characteristics of Words:

 Surface-level units: Words are observable and tangible.

 Grammatical Variations: Words can change their forms through inflection to show
tense, number, person, or case.
 Context-dependent: A word's meaning can vary depending on how it is used in a
sentence.

Examples of Words:

 The words "run," "runs," "ran," and "running" are distinct word forms.

Lexeme Definition
A lexeme is an abstract linguistic unit representing a set of related word forms that share the
same core meaning. It is used in lexical studies and dictionaries to group words under one
conceptual entry. In other words,

A lexeme is a unit of language that represents a single, distinct meaning. It is the abstract form of a
word that includes all its inflected forms and variations. For example, the word "walk" is a lexeme
that includes variations such as "walks," "walked," and "walking." In linguistics, lexemes are used
to study the ways in which words are related to one another and how they function in sentences. By
analyzing lexemes, linguists can gain insights into the structure and meaning of language.

In other words, Lexemes are the headwords of dictionaries. This means it is the most grammatically
basic form of the word.

Lexemes, also called word stems, are minimal units of language (often words) with distinctive
meanings.

Key Differences Between Words and Lexemes

Aspect Words Lexemes

Nature Physical, specific form Abstract, conceptual unit
Representation Tangible tokens (e.g., "running") Core meaning (e.g., RUN)
Includes inflected or grammatical
Variation Groups related word forms
forms
Used for analysis and dictionary
Role in Language Appears in speech or text
entries
Examples "runs," "ran," "running" RUN
The word cut is a lexeme that would be a dictionary entry, but its inflected versions, e.g., cuts,
cutting, etc., may be included depending on the dictionary. These inflected versions may be
included as variations in the entry for cut.
Inflection is a change in the form of a word that expresses a shift in tense, mood, case, gender,
person, or number. Such change is commonly seen with the addition of an affix to a root word.
Sometimes the word changes spelling with inflection. For example, with the root word dig, you
simply add -s for the present tense and -ging for the present progressive form, but for the past tense,
you must alter the spelling to dug.
Inflected forms of a lexeme are called word-forms. So, the basic dictionary entry shows the
word fly, and might also show the word-forms flies, flying, and flied. Lexemes, not word-forms, are
the fundamental unit of a lexicon.
Lexicon
A lexicon is a compilation of words in a given language or branch of knowledge.
Your brain contains a lexicon of every word you know. There are lexicons for various professions
and fields of study, such as medicine, law, and even linguistics.

Lexemes are usually, though not always, a single word. Multiword (or composite) lexemes are
composed of more than one standard word. Think of phrasal verbs (e.g., lie down, or sit up), open
compounds (e.g., garbage can or boy scout), or idioms (e.g., break a leg or spill the beans)—these
are composite lexemes.

Types of Lexemes
There are two types of lexemes: variable and invariable.

Variable lexemes are word-sized lexical items that may have two or more forms. These lexemes
may be inflected by adding an affix or some other transformation of the word (remember
the dig/dug example).

The following are ways to inflect words belonging to various syntactic categories.

 Nouns can change in number (bird, birds)

 Verbs can change in tense or number (shape, shapes, shaped, shaping)

 Adjectives can change in degree (big, bigger, biggest)

 Adverbs can change in degree (good, better, best)

 Pronouns can change in case (you, your, yours)

Invariable lexemes, on the other hand, only have one word corresponding to a particular meaning.
Think of the words the and so; they only have one form. There are no other versions of these words.

Invariable lexemes are largely conjunctions (and, although, but) and prepositions (like through, by,
up) which are largely function words. Essentially, the difference between variable and invariable
lexemes is whether the word has various forms.
Lexeme Examples
A lexeme is a fundamental unit of the lexicon of a language that belongs to a particular syntactic
category, carries a particular meaning, and in most cases, has corresponding inflectional versions of
itself.

Lexeme: park

Syntactic category: noun

Meaning: an outdoor recreational space.

Inflectional versions: parks, park’s, parks’

This word park is a lexeme that might be confused with another lexeme; its homonym park.

Lexeme: park

Syntactic category: verb

Meaning: to bring a vehicle to a temporary stop

Inflectional versions: parks, parked, parking

Although these two words sound and are spelled the same, they are two distinct lexemes because
their meanings are different. Due to the difference in syntactic category—one is a verb, and one is a
noun—the corresponding inflections also vary.

These examples serve to illustrate the true function of lexemes. Simply put, they convey the true
intended meaning.

The Function of Lexemes (and Function Words)

The function of lexemes is to communicate concepts. They are the main parts of speech that convey
meaning, such as nouns, verbs, adjectives, and so on. In other words, they are the words that carry
the significance of a statement like, “I placed the flowers and vegetables on a table.”

What about the other words in that sentence, like the, a, and on? These are called function words,
and they act like the mortar between the bricks (lexemes), i.e., they hold the sentence together.
Function words have very little lexical meaning.

Here are a few other examples of function words:

Articles
  The

 A

Pronouns

 She

 He

 Her

 It

 They

Conjunctions

 And

 That

 When

 While

Lexemes carry the main meaning of a sentence, and function words join them to create a
grammatically correct sentence or phrase.
Lexeme vs. Morpheme
Lexemes can understandably be confused with morphemes, which are the smallest meaningful unit
of language that can’t be subdivided. An example of a morpheme is the suffix -ful, which, when
added to a root word, essentially means “full of.”

The difference between lexemes and morphemes is that lexemes are never partial words; they are
always complete words. Morphemes can be both whole and partial words.

Morphemes are categorized as either “bound” or “free.” Free morphemes are those that are
complete words and are thus “free” to stand alone without additional components. Bound
morphemes must attach to another morpheme to create a complete word.

Here are some examples of free morphemes:

 Eat

 Week
  Beach

 The

Here are some examples of bound morphemes:

 -est

 -er

 Pre-

 dis-

Lexemes are essentially free morphemes, but a lexeme is not necessarily the same thing as a
morpheme.