In
linguistics
Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Lingu ...
, the term lexis (from grc, λέξις / word) designates the complete set of all possible words in a language, or a particular subset of words that are grouped by some specific linguistic criteria. For example, the general term ''English lexis'' refers to all words of the
English language
English is a West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family, with its earliest forms spoken by the inhabitants of early medieval England. It is named after the Angles, one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to t ...
, while more specific term ''English religious lexis'' refers to a particular subset within English lexis, encompassing only words that are
semantically
Semantics (from grc, σημαντικός ''sēmantikós'', "significant") is the study of reference, meaning, or truth. The term can be used to refer to subfields of several distinct disciplines, including philosophy, linguistics and compu ...
related to the religious sphere of life.
In
systemic-functional linguistics #
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Systemic functional linguistics (SFL) is an approach to linguistics, among functional linguistics, that considers language as a social semiotic system.
It was devised by Michael Halliday, who took the notion of system from J. R. Firth, his ...
, a lexis or lexical item is the way one calls a particular thing or a type of phenomenon. Since a lexis from a systemic-functional perspective is a way of calling, it can be realised by multiple grammatical words such as "The White House", "New York City" or "heart attack". Moreover, since a lexis is a way of calling, different words such as ''child'', ''children'', ''child's'' and ''children's'' may realise the same lexical item.
Lexical groups
Lexical grouping may be:
* Formulaic: it relies on partially fixed expressions and highly probable word combinations
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Idiomatic: it follows conventions and patterns for usage
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Metaphoric: concepts such as ''time'' and ''money'', ''business'' and ''sex'', ''systems'' and ''water'', all share a large portion of the same vocabulary
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Grammatical: it uses rules based on sampling of the lexical corpus
* Register-specific: it uses the same word differently and/or less frequently in different contexts
A major area of study,
psycholinguistics and
neurolinguistics, involves the question of how words are retrieved from the mental lexical corpus in online language processing and production. For example, the
cohort model seeks to describe lexical retrieval in terms of segment-by-segment activation of competing lexical entries.
[Altmann, Gerry T.M. (1997). "Words, and how we (eventually) find them." ''The Ascent of Babel: An Exploration of Language, Mind, and Understanding''. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 65–83.][ Packard, Jerome L (2000). "Chinese words and the lexicon". ''The Morphology of Chinese: A Linguistic and Cognitive Approach''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 284–309.]
Formulaic language
In recent years, the compilation of
language databases using real samples from speech and writing has enabled researchers to take a fresh look at the composition of languages. Among other things, statistical research methods offer reliable insight into the ways in which words interact. The most interesting findings have taken place in the dichotomy between language use (how language is used) and language usage (how language could be used).
Language use shows which occurrences of words and their partners are most probable. The major finding of this research is that language users rely to a very high extent on ready-made language "
lexical chunk
In lexicography, a lexical item is a single word, a part of a word, or a chain of words (catena) that forms the basic elements of a language's lexicon (≈ vocabulary). Examples are ''cat'', ''traffic light'', ''take care of'', ''by the way'' ...
s", which can be easily combined to form sentences. This eliminates the need for the speaker to analyse each sentence grammatically, yet deals with a situation effectively. Typical examples include "I see what you mean" or "Could you please hand me the..." or "Recent research shows that..."
Language usage, on the other hand, is what takes place when the ready-made chunks do not fulfill the speaker's immediate needs; in other words, a new sentence is about to be formed and must be analyzed for correctness. Grammar rules have been internalised by native speakers, allowing them to determine the viability of new sentences. Language usage might be defined as a fall-back position when all other options have been exhausted.
Context and co-text
When analyzing the structure of language statistically, a useful place to start is with high frequency context words, or so-called
Key Word in Context (KWICs). After millions of samples of spoken and written language have been stored in a database, these KWICs can be sorted and analyzed for their co-text, or words which commonly co-occur with them. Valuable principles with which KWICs can be analyzed include:
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Collocation
In corpus linguistics, a collocation is a series of words or terms that co-occur more often than would be expected by chance. In phraseology, a collocation is a type of compositional phraseme, meaning that it can be understood from the words ...
: words and their co-occurrences (examples include "fulfill needs" and "fall-back position")
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Semantic prosody: the connotation words carry ("pay attention" can be neutral or remonstrative, as when a teacher says to a pupil: "Pay attention!"
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