Zum Wortbegriff im Deutschen und Arabischen

Abstract

On the Concept of “Word” in German and Arabic

The definition of the word is of capital importance for any grammatical (or linguistic) theory which proceeds to a division into classes of words (or which accepts, in an uncritical way, a classification of the traditional type, as is the case in generative grammar. This article tackles the definitional and classificatory aspects of the concept of “Word”. Many definitions have been discussed in detail as well as the criteria of divisions, namely orthographic, distributional, phonological, and semantic. Some nuances have been disambiguated like the opposition word-lexeme. Then, comparative perspectives have been adopted to shed light on the behaviour of the word in Arabic and German.