The word is a set or sequence of articulated sounds, that can be represented graphically with letters, and generally, they associate a meaning.
Since ancient times, grammarians have devoted themselves to the study of the word they conceived as the basic unit of the language without worrying about establishing subclasses. It has been in recent times when the word has been renounced as a fundamental unit, precisely because of the difficulties of delimitation.
Among the first definitions of the word is that of Aristotle, who considered it as the least significant unit. Later, some focused on the autonomy of the word and defined it as the minimal free form or as the sequence of phonic elements endowed with meaning that can be preceded and followed by virtual pauses.
Others, from graphic criteria, insist that it is a significant unit that is written between two blank spaces; There are those who, using a formal, functional and significant point of view, consider it as a set of sounds with an associated meaning and susceptible to a certain grammatical use; and who, from an exclusively formal criterion, think that it is a homogeneous set of inseparable monemes and placed in an unalterable order.
Despite the limitations that the concept of the word offers, there are several disciplines whose reason for being is precisely in the study of the word. Thus lexicology focused on the observation and analysis of vocabulary or etymology , description of the origin and evolutionary process of the word.
On the other hand, the weight of tradition has kept the concept of parts of the sentence (noun, adjective, article, pronoun, verb, adverb, preposition, conjunction, interjection and participle), and that the distribution of the Lexicon available in categories, always defining words from the points of view of their form, function and their meaning.
The word by its origin can be primitive, the one that does not derive from another belonging to the same language (house, pen, sea, etc.); derived, that formed by adding a prefix or suffix (house, feather duster, submarine, etc.); or compound, formed by the combination of two or more words (hummingbird, bienmesabe, corkscrew, etc.).
By the number of syllables they can be monosyllables and polysyllables (bisyllables, trisyllables, fourisyllables,…); and according to the position that the stressed syllable occupies are the words acute, bass, esdrújulas and sobreesdrújulas.
The word term can also refer to a promise or commitment to do something by a person; and in formal meetings it is the right or turn to speak.
