What is a Lexeme?

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What is a Lexeme?

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Anonymous 0 Comments

The lexeme is the basic unit of meaning that connects a set of related words. For example, the lexeme that connects the words heat, heating, heated, and heater is ***HEAT***.

Anonymous 0 Comments

You know how we can turn certain nouns into plurals by just adding something like an “s” to the end or switching some letters against other or just pronouncing things slightly differently or how we can turn verbs into past tense or any number of other tenses and similar by messing with them?

We can recognize that these forms are not quite the same word but they are still closely related enough to be normal grouped together as a single entry in for example a dictionary. they are group together under one lexeme

“car” and “cars” are not the same word but the same lexeme

“write”, “written”, “wrote” are all the same lexme

“is”, “am”, “are”, “be” is a more extreme example of the different forms a lexeme can take.

In some languages this may work differently than in others.

Write and written are part of the same lexeme, but you normally don’t extend that to include unwritten or writer unless you go by a very broad definition of the concept.