wordbyitself

Wordbyitself is a coined term used in linguistics and lexicography to describe a lexical unit that exists as a standalone word with its own form and definition, rather than as a bound morpheme or as part of a fixed multiword expression. The concept serves to distinguish words that can function independently in discourse from affixes or from phrases that must appear together to convey a specific meaning.

Definition and scope: A wordbyitself typically corresponds to a lemma or headword in a dictionary and can appear in isolation or as the base form for inflection. In contrast, bound morphemes (such as -ed or re-) attach to other units and do not appear alone in isolation, and many fixed phrases (kick the bucket) are treated as a single unit not reducible to its parts.

Examples: "cat," "happiness," and "blue" are commonly treated as wordbyitself entries. Bound morphemes like "un-" or "-ing" are not. Compound words such as "bookshelf" may be debated; some analyses treat them as wordbyitself entries if they are semantically integrated as a single word, while others classify them as multiword expressions.

Usage and relevance: The term is not standard in most reference grammars but may appear in theoretical discussions about word formation, dictionaries, and natural language processing to highlight whether a unit is a stand-alone word or part of a larger expression.

See also: lemma, headword, multiword expression, bound morpheme.