noun a unit of vocabulary recognized by the grammar of a language
In linguistics, a lexeme is a unit of lexical meaning that exists regardless of the number of inflectional endings it may have. It is the abstract unit of meaning that underlies all the inflected forms of a word.
In morphology, a lexeme is the base form of a word to which inflections and derivational affixes can be added. It represents the core meaning of a word.
In computational linguistics, lexemes are used in natural language processing tasks such as stemming, lemmatization, and part-of-speech tagging to analyze and process text data more effectively.
In psycholinguistics, lexemes are studied in relation to how they are processed and stored in the mental lexicon, which is the mental repository of words and their meanings.
In lexicography, lexemes are used to compile dictionaries and lexical databases, organizing words based on their core meanings rather than their inflected forms.
In linguistics, a writer may use the term 'lexeme' when discussing the basic unit of meaning in a language, such as a word or root that cannot be broken down further.
Psychologists may use the term 'lexeme' when studying language development and processing in individuals, particularly in relation to how lexemes are stored and accessed in the brain.
Linguists often use the term 'lexeme' when analyzing the structure and meaning of words in different languages, as well as when comparing lexemes across languages for research purposes.
Educators may use the term 'lexeme' when teaching vocabulary and word formation to students, helping them understand the importance of lexemes in language comprehension and production.