928: What Makes a Word (pt. 1/3) Jun 24, 2017

Except by linguists, the questions of 'why is a word a word?' or 'what even is a word?' may be seldom asked. The answer to this is debated occasionally, but in a general sense the word 'word' is used to describe any discrete "meaningful element" (i.e. it conveys meaning unlike an affix which only affects syntax) but this is vague. It may seem easier to determine to understand what a word is because it is separated by spaces when printed, but this is misleading. The term 'passive-aggressive' is a compound of two words, but is only one; while it usually spelt with a hyphen, though not always, this is not the reason it is not two words: it's because when modified into being a noun, only the latter half is morphed. If this were not the case, it would become 'passivity-agression' or 'passiveness-aggression'. There is much more to this topic, and that will be explored tomorrow.