What is a word?
Elliot Murphy
In order to design strong paradigms for isolating lexical access and
semantics, we need to know what a word is. Surprisingly few linguists and
philosophers have a clear model of what a word is, even though words impact
basically every aspect of human life. Researchers that regularly publish
academic papers about language often rely on outdated, or inaccurate,
assumptions about wordhood. This short pedagogical document outlines what the
lexicon is most certainly not (though is often mistakenly taken to be), what it
might be (based on current good theories), and what some implications for
experimental design are.