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<div dir="auto">Dear typologists,<br>
<br>
As you may know already, the concept of “word” is notoriously hard to define.<br>
Without getting into that, is the concept of wordhood attested cross-linguistically?<br>
In other words, do people with different language backgrounds believe that there is such a thing as a “word”, and do what people perceive as a “word” tend to be roughly the same concept?<br>
Which boils down to two questions:</div>
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<li>Do many languages have a native, monomorphemic word for “word”?</li><li>If so, do these words for “word” refer to roughly the same (or, at least, similar) concept?</li></ol>
<div dir="auto">I would like to examine whether wordhood is a psychological reality shared by speakers of different languages.</div>
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Regards,
<div dir="auto">Ian</div>
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