By desmond bett; B. A- criminology m. A – public administration & policy

2.2.2
Words as vocabulary items
We need to distinguish between words in the sense of wordform as opposed to words as vocabulary items. Let us revisit the examples in [2.2.1] on pp. 11-12. If we are considering word forms, we can see that the hyphenated word-form street-lamp occurs three times. So if we were counting different word-forms, we would count street-lamp three times. However, if we were counting distinct words, in the sense of distinct VOCUBULARY ITEMS we would only count once.
The distinction between word-forms, but something more abstract-what we will refer to here as LEXEMES (i.e. vocabulary items). Anyone compiling a dictionary lists words in this sense. So, although the word-forms in each of the columns in [2.8] below are different, we do not find each one of them given a separate entry in an English dictionary. The first word in each column is listed under a heading of its own. The rest may be mentioned under the heading, if they do not follow a regular pattern of the language-e.g. write, written (past participle), wrote (past tense). But if they do not follow a general pattern (e.g. washes, washing, washed; smile, smiling, smiled) they will be left out of the dictionary altogether. Instead, the grammar will be expected to provide a general statement to the effect that verbs take an –ing suffix, which marks progressive aspect, and an –ed suffix that marks both the past and the past participle, and so on.
[2.8]
WASH TAKE BRING

Wash take bring

Washes takes brings
Washing taking bringing
Washed took brought
Washed taken brought
In [2.8] each lexeme (i.e. vocabulary item) that would be entered in a dictionary is shown in capital letters and all the different word-forms belonging to it are shown in the lower-case letters.
The examples in [2.8] are all verbs. But, of-course, lexemes can be nouns, adjectives or adverbs as well. In [2.9] you will find examples from these other word classes.
[2.9]
Noun Adjective Adverb

1. 
   MATCH KIND SOON
   

match kind soon
matches kinder sooner

2. 
   GOOSE BAD WELL
   

goose bad well
geese worse better
In [2.9] we have three pairs of lexemes: the nouns, match and goose; the adjectives kind and bad; and adverb soon and well. In each case the word-forms belonging to each lexeme in [2.9a] follow a general pattern for words of their type and need not be listed in the dictionary. But all the ones in [2.9b] are irregular and must be listed in the dictionary.
The lexeme is an abstract entity that is found in the dictionary and has a certain meaning. Word-forms are the concrete objects that we put down on paper (orthographic words) or utter (phonological words) when we use language. The relationship between a lexeme and the word-forms belonging to it is one of REALISATION or MANIFESTATION. If we take the lexeme write which is entered in the dictionary, for example, we can see that it may be realized by any one of the word-forms write, writes, writing, wrote and written which belong to it. These are the actual forms that are used in speech or appear on paper. When you see the orthographic words written and wrote on the page, you know that although they are spelt differently they are manifestations of the same vocabulary item WRITE.
The distinction between word-forms and lexemes which I have just made is not abstruse. It is a distinction that we are intuitively aware of from early age. It is the distinction on which word play in puns and in intentional ambiguity in everyday life depends. At a certain period in our childhood we were fascinated by words. We loved jokes-even awful ones like [2.10]
The humour, of course, lies in recognizing that the word-form shrimp can belong to two separate lexemes whose very different and unrelated meanings are none the less pertinent here. It can mean either `an edible, long, slender crustacean’ or `a tiny person’ (in colloquial English). Also, the word serve has two possible interpretations. It can mean` to wait upon a person at a table’ or `to dish up food’. Thus, word-play exploits the lexical ambiguity arising from the fact that the same word-form represents two distinct lexemes with very distinct meanings.
In real-life communication, where potential ambiguity occurs we generally manage to come to just one interpretation without too much difficulty by selecting the most appropriate and RELEVANT interpretation in the situation. Suppose a 20-stone super heavy weight boxer went to Joe’s Vegetarian Restaurant and asked the waiter for a nice shrimp curry and the waiter said in reply, ‘We don’t serve shrimps’, it would be obvious that it was shrimps in the sense of crustaceans that was intended. If, on the other hand, a little man, barely 5 feet tall and weighing a mere 7 stone, went to a fish restaurant and saw almost everyone at the tables around him tucking into a plateful of succulent shrimps, and thought that he would quite fancy some himself, he would be rightly offended if the waiter said ‘We do not serve shrimps.’ It is obvious in this situation that shrimps are on the menu and are dished up for consumption. What is not done is serve up food to people deemed to be puny.
Puns are not restricted to jokes. Many advertisement like that for Standens rely on puns for their effect. Given the context, it is obvious that sound is meant to be read in more than one sense here.
Serious literature also uses this device. For instance, the First World War poet Siegfried gives the title ‘Base details’ to the poem in which he parodies cowardly generals who stay away at the base, at a safe distance from the action, and gladly speed young soldiers to their death at the front. The word-form base in the title represents two distinct lexemes here whose meanings are both relevant: (i) Base details are details of what is happening at the base (Noun) (meaning ‘military encampment’), and (ii) Base details are particulars of something that is base (Adjectives) (meaning ‘reprehensibly cowardly, means ets.’).
The term HOMONYM is used to denote word-forms belonging to distinct lexemes that are written and pronounced in the same way. There are separate dictionary entries for such words. Shrimp and base are examples of homonyms. But perhaps they are not so obvious. Better examples of homonyms are shown in [2.11].
[2.11]
a. bat: bat (Noun) ‘a small flying mammal’