I.
Introduction
Nowadays,
many linguists use the term 'word' less carefully, so Lyons proposes as
follows,
"However, since most linguists now employ the term 'word' to refer to such phonological or orthographical units such as /sæŋ/ or 'sang' or /ˌɪdɪəˈsɪŋkrəsi / or "idiosyncrasy" on the one hand, or to the grammatical units they represent, on the other hand, (and indeed do not always distinguish even between these two senses), we shall introduce another term, lexeme, to denote the more 'abstract' units which occur in different inflexional 'forms' according to the syntactic rules involved in the generation of sentences" (1968:197). So, the word or 'word' is distinguished from the word or 'lexeme'.
Actually, the term lexeme was used by Whorf in 1938. In one
of his essays, the pioneer of language relativity explained that "The
lexeme ..." is "…..the word as an item of the vocabulary, and as a
part analyzed or abstracted from sentence words" (see Carol
1956:125).
Lyons
in another essay, stated, "…vocabulary words constitute one sub-class or
what….we do called as lexeme".(1977:19). Then he says,
"…lexemes are the words and phrases that a dictionary would list under a
separate entry" (1977:23). Another scholar, Mathews, states that a lexeme
is "an Abstract unit" (1974:21) is "….the fundamental unit….of
the lexicon (1974:22)..
In
the following, various linguists' views on the concept of Lexeme will be
presented, including the opinions of F. Katamba, Laurie Bauer, Harimurti
Kridalaksana, and D. Edi Subroto.
II. DISCUSSION
A.
The view of Francis Katamba
A
lexeme is an abstract vocabulary item. Forms such as pickling, pickle,
and pickled are different realizations or representations of
the lexeme PICKLE. The lexeme is written in capital letters. These words have a
core meaning even though they are spelled and pronounced differently, according
to Di Scivilo and Williams 1987. Lexemes are the vocabulary items that are
listed in the dictionary. We agree that the physical form of words: see,
sees, seeing, saw, seen is a realization of the SEE lexeme The
words tall, taller, tallest are the realization of the lexeme
TALL. The words boy, boys are the realization of the lexeme
BOY, and the terms woman, women are the realization of the
lexeme WOMAN.
The term 'word' is not an abstract vocabulary item with a
general core meaning (lexemes), but refers to certain physical realizations of
lexemes in spoken or written form. So: see, sees, seeing, saw, and seen are
five different words from the same lexeme. "Word" can also be seen as
a representation of a lexeme associated with morpho-syntactic devices, such as
nouns, adjectives, verbs, tenses (kala), gender, numerals, and so on.
"Word" in this case we call 'grammatical word'. The word 'cut' in the
following sentences is a representation of different grammatical words:
a.
usually, I cut the bread on table
b.
Yesterday I cut the bread in the sink
'cut'
on a. represents grammatical word – present tense.
'cut'
on b. represents grammatical word–past tense.
They
are from the same lexeme, namely the verb lexeme CUT. But the sentence 'Jane
has a cut on her finger'. The word 'cut' is a realization of
the noun lexeme.
B.
Laurie Bauer's View
Lexeme is the primary key within the boundaries of the
paradigm, which does not refer to a particular form that is owned by a word in
certain circumstances but instead refers to all the possible shapes
that the word can have.
For
example: if we find the sentence "This hunter shoots big
game", but we do not understand the verb in the sentence. In this
situation, we will look up the meaning of the word in the dictionary. We will
not look for the word 'shoots' but the form of the word shoot. With
the entry of the word 'shoot' we hope to find all the info needed to translate
the meaning of not only shoot but also shoots,
shooting, and shot.
The
word shoot is the key to the inflectional paradigm that causes
the word shoots to emerge. Words like shoot, shoots,
shooting, and shot are all under the lexeme
"SHOOT".
Forms
of words and lexemes:
Forms
of words refer to certain forms of a word in certain situations. The emphasis
is on phonological and orthographical forms (conventional spelling), while
lexemes refer to more abstract forms. For example, the word 'shot' is a form of
'shoot.' With the use of new terminology, it can be clarified by stating that
the word 'shot' is a form of the lexeme 'shoot'. According to typographical
conventions, capital letters are used to distinguish word forms. So the above
statement can be made that "shot is a form of SHOOT".
Word
forms are representations of lexemes. The
form of a lexeme is the word form of the inflectional paradigm, which is used
when a lexeme is inserted et into a standard dictionary; So, the form of the
English lexeme that has been discussed above is shoot, NOT shot,
shoots or shooting.
C.
D. Edi Subroto's view
A
lexeme results from an abstraction that does not change its identity. Identity,
in this case, is the identity that does not change the paradigm. More
specifically, it is said that lexemes result from the minor abstraction that
does not change the identity of the paradigm. The paradigm will be in the form
of nouns, verbs, adjectives etc.
For
example, there are different forms of the WRITE lexeme such as writes,
wrote, written, etc. This is still in the verb paradigm. While the form of
writer, the writing is in a different paradigm, namely the noun paradigm. This
two-form lexeme is not WRITE but WRITER. The word 'writer' is already the
smallest unit.
D.
Harimurti Kridalaksana's view
The
lexeme, as the basic unit in the lexicon, is distinguished from the word. A
lexeme is a basic material that becomes a word in the grammatical sub-system
after undergoing a grammatical process.
So
the lexeme is:
1.
the smallest unit in the lexicon
2.
units that act as inputs in the morphological process
3.
raw materials in the process of morphology
4.
Elements known to exist from forms that, after being segmented from complex
forms, are basic forms separated from affixed-morphemes.
Lexeme
in morphology
Morphology is seen as a sub-system that processes lexemes into words.
Lexeme as input is a lexical unit, and word as output is a grammatical unit.
Apart from changing form, there is also a change in meaning in the process.
Lexeme
– – – – – – – Morphological Process – – – – – –– – Word
–zero derivation
-affixation
-reduplication
–clipping
III.
CONCLUSION
From
the description above, it can be concluded that, in general, the opinions of F.
Katamba, Laurie Bauer, and D. Edi Subroto have the same idea in the concept of
the lexeme, even though the form of the description and explanation is
different. According to F. Katamba, lexemes are abstract vocabulary items;
according to Bauer, lexemes are the main keys within the boundaries of the
paradigm that do not refer to certain forms but refer to all possible forms
that the word can have, and according to D.Edi Subroto lexemes are the result
of the smallest abstraction that does not change the identity of the paradigm.
Meanwhile, Harimurti
Kridalaksana has an opini on that contradicts the views of the three
linguists above. A lexeme is an essential material that becomes a word in the
grammatical sub-system after undergoing grammatical processing. The term basic
material is deemed inappropriate according to the point of view of other
linguistic experts because it is considered to be too general in its
conception. The general opinion of linguists regarding the lexeme is determined
as the smallest abstraction that refers to all the possible forms that the word
can have ('all the possible shapes'), which does not change the identity of the
paradigm. Syntactic factors or syntactic factors determine changes in the
paradigm. This opinion is also in line with Jack Richards in "Longman
Dictionary of Applied Linguistics" that "lexeme is the smallest unit
in the meaning system of language that can be distinguished from other similar
units. A lexeme is an abstract unit. It can occur in many different forms in
actual spoken or written sentences. And is regarded as the same lexeme even
when inflected.." (p.163).
Bauer, Laurie 1983. English Word Formation. Cambridge University Press.
London
D. Edi Subroto. Seminar Nasional I Semantik. Ikhwal Relasi Makna :
Beberapa Kasus dalam Bahasa Indonesia. S–2 Linguistik, UNS, 26–27 Februari 1999
Harimurti Kridalaksana. Beberapa Prinsip Perpaduan Leksem dalam Bahasa
Indonesia. Penerbit Kanisius. Jakarta
Katamba, Francis . Morphology. Penguin Press...
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