Any human being, given the time, could list thousands of words in his or her native language. If this list were then passed on to another speaker, the second person would undoubtedly agree that at least 99 per cent of the items on the list were, indeed, words But what is a word? Can this concept be defined in such a way that the definition accounts for every item identified as a word by speakers of a language? Linguists and dictionary makers have tried to describe the concept "word, but all of their attempts have failed in some way. And yet, speakers of every language know what a word is: they demonstrate this knowledge through their ability to list words, segment utterances into words, or identify words, as opposed to phrases, when they encounter them in a list.
If the linguist, whose goal is the description of the knowledge speakers have of their language, and the dictionary compiler, who would like at least to provide clear, complete definitions of common terms, have not succeeded in identifying this basic concept, the problem must be extremely complex. We all know what a word is, yet no one can explain it. The problem is worth examining in some detail.
EFINITONN One common deliuitieon of a word is the following A wod in any unit of language that, in wrikng, appears be rween spaces or between a s hyphen Linguisth, since they are interested in accounting for the linguistic compet ers, esamine such definitions and ask whether they are valid, complete dese of spcak at sqeakers know about words In the definition given above,
the answer to the le usts question is no Although most literate people would accept the definition really complete, nor is it explicit. That is, given the statement, we cannot every case whether or not something is a word Consider the following matchbox determine in muich mnAo LEach way of writing this fonn is generally conssdered to be it would cettainly be awk warnd to call this unit a single word when it is written withoul a intemal space or hyphen but to call it two wonls when a space or hyphen occurs berween the lętters A and b. To do so implies that the concept "word" is not really a unt f anguage but simply an artifact of our writing system. Some people maintain tha true, yet even illiterate speakers of a language generally share with their literate counter parts the know ledge of which spoken forms are words and which are not Words cxit. therefore, even for those who do not know where spaces and hyphens are placad in writing The definition, then, fails to describe the knowledge all speakers of a language share reganding the concept "word.
" correct. Ye ct, Since all normal people sjpeak their native language, whether or not they are able to real and write, it is worthwhile to investigate actual speech to see if the pronunciation of a sentence contains any information that might lead to a more satisfactory description of wool "Perhaps if careful attestion were paid to speech, brief pauses could be detecte between the forms we identity as words This would be a simple solution to the problem Unfornunately,
while pauses often do occur at the end of phrases, clauses, and sentences it is only in slow, deliterate speech that they are detectable between words, and, even then, pauses are not present between all words If you attempt to say any sentence aloud with discernable pauses between each word, it will be immediately clear that such produc tion is highly abnormal The lack of pauses between words is especially noticeable when you listen to a foreign language For example,
in normal conversational Spanish, you might well hear a sentence that soundod like a single word Exosombresondecuudor which Actually, speakers of Spanish would be able to identify five words in this sentence, is written as follows (2) Estos hombres son de Ecuaulor These men are from Esuador) However it is that Spanish speakers recognize these words, it is definitely not becausc any pauses between them, for such pauses only rarely occur The same is true for l languages as well or all oda investigation of actual linguistic performance--speak ing and writing-reia 26