In language, a word is the smallest free form that may be uttered in isolation with semantic or pragmatic content (with literal or practical meaning). This contrasts with a morpheme, which is the smallest unit of meaning but will not necessarily stand on its own. A word may consist of a single morpheme (for example: ''oh!, rock, red, quick, run, expect''), or several (''rocks, redness, quickly, running, unexpected''), whereas a morpheme may not be able to stand on its own as a word (in the words just mentioned, these are ''-s, -ness, -ly, -ing, un-, -ed'').

A complex word will typically include a root and one or more affixes (''rock-s, red-ness, quick-ly, run-ning, un-expect-ed''), or more than one root in a compound (''black-board, rat-race''). Words can be put together to build larger elements of language, such as phrases (''a red rock''), clauses (''I threw a rock''), and sentences (''he threw one too but he missed'').

The term ''word'' may refer to a spoken word or to a written word, or sometimes to the abstract concept behind either. Spoken words are made up of units of sound called phonemes, and written words of symbols called graphemes, such as the letters of English.

Definitions

The ease or difficulty of deciphering a word depends on the language. Dictionaries categorize a language's lexicon (i.e., its vocabulary) into lemmas. These can be taken as an indication of what constitutes a "word" in the opinion of the writers of that language.

Semantic definition

Leonard Bloomfield introduced the concept of "Minimal Free Forms" in 1926. Words are thought of as the smallest meaningful unit of speech that can stand by themselves. This correlates phonemes (units of sound) to lexemes (units of meaning). However, some written words are not minimal free forms, as they make no sense by themselves (for example, ''the'' and ''of'').

Some semanticists have proposed a theory of so-called semantic primitives or semantic primes, indefinable words representing fundamental concepts that are intuitively meaningful. According to this theory, semantic primes serve as the basis for describing the meaning, without circularity, of other words and their associated conceptual denotations.

Features

In the Minimalist school of theoretical syntax, words (also called ''lexical items'' in the literature) are construed as "bundles" of linguistic features that are united into a structure with form and meaning. For example, the word "bears" has semantic features (it denotes real-world objects, bears), category features (it is a noun), number features (it is plural and must agree with verbs, pronouns, and demonstratives in its domain), phonological features (it is pronounced a certain way), etc.

Word boundaries

The task of defining what constitutes a "word" involves determining where one word ends and another word begins—in other words, identifying word boundaries. There are several ways to determine where the word boundaries of spoken language should be placed:

Potential pause: A speaker is told to repeat a given sentence slowly, allowing for pauses. The speaker will tend to insert pauses at the word boundaries. However, this method is not foolproof: the speaker could easily break up polysyllabic words, or fail to separate two or more closely related words.

Indivisibility: A speaker is told to say a sentence out loud, and then is told to say the sentence again with extra words added to it. Thus, ''I have lived in this village for ten years'' might become ''My family and I have lived in this little village for about ten or so years''. These extra words will tend to be added in the word boundaries of the original sentence. However, some languages have infixes, which are put inside a word. Similarly, some have separable affixes; in the German sentence "Ich komme gut zu Hause an", the verb ''ankommen'' is separated.

Phonetic boundaries: Some languages have particular rules of pronunciation that make it easy to spot where a word boundary should be. For example, in a language that regularly stresses the last syllable of a word, a word boundary is likely to fall after each stressed syllable. Another example can be seen in a language that has vowel harmony (like Turkish): the vowels within a given word share the same ''quality'', so a word boundary is likely to occur whenever the vowel quality changes. Nevertheless, not all languages have such convenient phonetic rules, and even those that do present the occasional exceptions.

Orthographic boundaries: See below.

Orthography

In languages with a literary tradition, there is interrelation between orthography and the question of what is considered a single word. Word separators (typically spaces) are common in modern orthography of languages using alphabetic scripts, but these are (excepting isolated precedents) a relatively modern development (see also history of writing).

In English orthography, compound expressions may contain spaces. Examples are ''ice cream'', ''air raid shelter'', ''get up'', and these must thus be considered as more than one word. (''Ice'', ''cream'', ''air'' etc. indisputably exist as free forms, the case of ''get'' is less clear.) In contrast, ''brownstone'' is spelt as a single word and would thus be considered as such for most purposes even though ''brown'' and ''stone'' are free forms.

Vietnamese orthography, although using the Latin alphabet, delimits monosyllabic morphemes, not words. East Asian orthography (languages using CJK characters) also tend to delimit syllables (in the case of Chinese characters) or morae (in the case of kana) rather than full words. Hangul the Korean alphabet, delimits both syllables and words, by grouping graphemes into syllabic blocks but also adds spaces between words. Conversely, synthetic languages often combine many lexical morphemes into single words, making it difficult to boil them down to the traditional sense of words found more easily in analytic languages; this is especially difficult for polysynthetic languages, such as Inuktitut and Ubykh, where entire sentences may consist of a single word.

Morphology

In synthetic languages, a single word stem (for example, ''love'') may have a number of different forms (for example, ''loves'', ''loving'', and ''loved''). However for some purposes these are not usually considered to be different words, but rather different forms of the same word. In these languages, words may be considered to be constructed from a number of morphemes. In Indo-European languages in particular, the morphemes distinguished are

the root

optional suffixes

a desinence.

Thus, the Proto-Indo-European '''' would be analyzed as consisting of # '''', the zero grade of the root '''' # a root-extension '''' (diachronically a suffix), resulting in a complex root '''' # The thematic suffix '''' # the neuter gender nominative or accusative singular desinence ''''.

Philosophy

Philosophers have found words objects of fascination since at least the 5th century BC, with the foundation of the philosophy of language. Plato analyzed words in terms of their origins and the sounds making them up, concluding that there was some connection between sound and meaning, though words change a great deal over time. John Locke wrote that the use of words "is to be sensible marks of ideas", though they are chosen "not by any natural connexion that there is between particular articulate sounds and certain ideas, for then there would be but one language amongst all men; but by a voluntary imposition, whereby such a word is made arbitrarily the mark of such an idea". Wittgenstein's thought transitioned from a word as representation of meaning to "the meaning of a word is its use in the language."

Classes

Grammar classifies a language's lexicon into several groups of words. The basic bipartite division possible for virtually every natural language is that of nouns vs. verbs.

The classification into such classes is in the tradition of Dionysius Thrax, who distinguished eight categories: noun, verb, adjective, pronoun, preposition, adverb, conjunction and interjection.

In Indian grammatical tradition, Pāṇini introduced a similar fundamental classification into a nominal (nāma, suP) and a verbal (ākhyāta, tiN) class, based on the set of desinences taken by the word.

See also

Grammar

Lexeme

Lexical item

Lexicon

Lexis (linguistics)

Meaning (linguistics)

Morphology (linguistics)

Speech

Utterance

Longest words

English words with unusual properties

Footnotes

References

Brown, Keith R. (Ed.) (2005) Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics (2nd ed.). Elsevier. 14 vols.

External links

What Is a Word? – a working paper by Larry Trask (see for attribution), Department of Linguistics and English Language, University of Sussex.

Category:Concepts Category:Lexical units Category:Syntactic entities Category:Units of linguistic morphology

ar:كلمة (لغة) an:Palabra ast:Pallabra az:Söz be:Слова be-x-old:Слова bs:Riječ br:Ger (yezhoniezh) bg:Дума ca:Paraula cv:Сăмах cs:Slovo cy:Gair da:Ord de:Wort et:Sõna es:Palabra eo:Vorto eu:Hitz fa:واژه hif:Word fo:Orð fr:Mot fy:Wurd gl:Palabra gan:詞 ko:낱말 hr:Riječ io:Vorto id:Kata ia:Vocabulo os:Дзырд is:Orð it:Parola he:מילה (בלשנות) krc:Сёз ka:სიტყვა kk:Сөз sw:Neno ht:Mo ku:Peyv la:Verbum (grammatica generalis) lv:Vārds lt:Žodis ln:Nkómbó hu:Szó mk:Збор mg:Teny ml:വാക്ക് mr:शब्द ms:Perkataan mwl:Palabra nl:Woord new:खंग्वः ja:語 no:Ord nn:Ord oc:Mot pnb:بول pap:Palabra pl:Wyraz pt:Palavra ksh:Woot (Kalle) ro:Cuvânt qu:Rima rue:Слово ru:Слово sah:Өс sq:Fjala scn:Palora (unitati) simple:Word sk:Slovo (lingvistika) sl:Beseda sr:Реч sh:Riječ fi:Sana sv:Ord tl:Salita ta:சொல் te:తెలుగు పదాలు th:คำ tr:Kelime uk:Слово ur:لفظ vi:Từ wa:Mot war:Pulong yi:ווארט bat-smg:Žuodis zh:單字

name	Chris Medina
birth name	Christopher Edward Medina
birth place	1983 Chicago, IL
instruments	VocalsPiano
occupation	Singer-songwriter, guitarist, pianist
years active	2011–present
e-mail	ChrisMedina1984@gmail.com
associated acts	The Able Body (band)
website	Official Facebook Page
notable instruments	Guitar Piano Drums
background	solo_singer }}

Christopher Edward "Chris" Medina (born 1983) is an American singer born in Chicago, Illinois. Medina is most notable as a former ''American Idol'' contestant during the tenth season of ''Idol'' and his single, "What Are Words", which went to #1 in Norway and Sweden and spent 19 weeks at number 1 combined. 11 in Norway and 8 in Sweden.

He released a single called "What Are Words" on February 25, 2011, the day after his elimination from ''American Idol''. He made it to the top 40 out of 327 contestants. The song is about his fiancée who suffered a brain injury as the result of a car accident on Oct 2, 2009. The song debuted at #22 on the Heatseekers Songs chart, and then reached #83 on the Billboard Hot 100. It has since sold 61,000 copies. He performed the ballad on ''The Tonight Show with Jay Leno'' on February 28, 2011 and on ''Good Morning America'' on March 4, 2011. The song debuted at #6 on the Norwegian VG-lista on April 22, 2011, climbing to the top spot in its second week.

Biography

Chris Medina graduated from Columbia College Chicago.

Chris Medina's ''American Idol'' audition took place in Milwaukee on October 2, 2010 (a year to the date of his fiancée's accident). His song on that audition was Breakeven by The Script. His inspiration for the song came from his fiancée who was in a car accident two months before their wedding. He received a golden ticket to Hollywood and made it to the top 40 before getting eliminated. He has been on ''The Tonight Show with Jay Leno'', ''Live with Regis and Kelly'', ''Good Morning America'', and ''On-Air with Ryan Seacrest''. He has also been featured in ''People'', ''US Weekly'', and ''TV Guide''. In the summer of 2011, Chris has been invited to perform in countries all over the world, including Norway, Sweden, Germany, and Singapore. In Singapore he performed for the "President's Star Charity", which is done to raise money for the physically and mentally challenged. Chris Medina sang "What Are Words" in the funeral of one of the victims of the Norwegian terror attacks 7/22.2011. Monica Iselin Didriksen loved that song, so her parents asked him to come and sing at her funeral.

Discography

Singles

{|class="wikitable plainrowheaders" style="text-align:center;" border="1" ! scope="col" rowspan="2" style="width:10em;"| Title ! scope="col" rowspan="2"| Year ! scope="col" colspan="3"| Peak chart positions |- ! scope="col" style="width:3em;font-size:90%;"| NOR ! scope="col" style="width:3em;font-size:90%;"| SWE ! scope="col" style="width:3em;font-size:90%;"| US |- ! scope="row"| "What Are Words" | 2011 | 1 || 1 || 83 |}

References

External links

Chris Medina's Official Facebook Page

Chris Medina's Official Youtube Channel

Chris Medina's Band - Division St

Chris Medina's Band - The Able Body

Category:American Idol participants Category:1984 births Category:Living people

no:Chris Medina nn:Chris Medina sv:Chris Medina

name	F. R. David
background	solo_singer
birth name	Elli Robert Fitoussi
born	January 01, 1947Menzel Bourguiba, Tunisia
origin	France
instrument	Vocal, Bass, Guitar, Piano, Keyboard, Drum
genre	Pop, Rock, New Wave
occupation	Singer-Songwriter
years active	1967–present
label	Carrere, CBS
website	}}

F. R. David (born Elli Robert Fitoussi, 1 January 1947, Menzel Bourguiba, Tunisia) is a Tunisian-born French singer.

Career

During the early 1970s, he was a band member in the French rock band, Les Variations. His personal "trademarks" are his sunglasses and his guitar (a white Fender Stratocaster). His most recognised song was his hit "Words" (1982), which sold eight million Carrère records across the world, topped charts around Europe in late 1982, and reached No. 2 in the UK Singles Chart in Spring 1983, going on to becoming the 22nd best selling single in the UK during 1983.

The track's eventual UK success was caused by its exposure on BBC TV's ''Top Of The Pops''. The disc was featured on the first edition of a special Euro-slot incorporated in the TV programme. The song is a catchy, slightly plaintive mid-tempo ballad sung in a slender, high-pitched voice.

In 1983 Thomas Anders (later of Modern Talking fame) covered David's song "Pick Up The Phone" in German. In 2007 Mr. Oizo of Ed Banger Records sampled the song "Don't Go" on his song First Love, which features singer Uffie.

Discography

Albums

''Words'' (1982)

''Long Distance Flight'' (1984)

''Reflections'' (1987)

''Voices Of The Blue Planet'' (1998)

''Words – ' 99 Version'' (1999)

''The Wheel'' (2006)

''Numbers'' (2008)

Singles

Words (1982)

Pick Up The Phone (1982)

Music (1983)

I Need You (1983)

Gotta Get A Move On (1983)

Play A Little Game (1983)

Rock Fame (1983)

Sand Dunes (1983)

Dream Away (1984)

Sahara Night (1986)

Don't Go (1987)

Words '91 (1991)

I'll Try To Love Again (1992)

Compilations

''Greatest Hits'' (1991)

''Best Of F.R. David'' (2000)

References

External links

F.R. DAVID's France Official Web Fansite Club

F.R. DAVID's Fanclub In Korea

Category:1947 births Category:Living people Category:French male singers Category:French people of Tunisian descent Category:French people of Arab descent Category:Tunisian emigrants to France

de:F. R. David es:F. R. David fr:F. R. David it:F.R. David ka:F.R. David nl:F.R. David pl:F.R. David pt:F.R. David ru:F. R. David fi:F. R. David sv:F.R. David

name	Skylar Grey
background	solo_singer
birth name	Holly Brook Hafermann
alias	Holly Brook
birth date	February 23, 1986
origin	Mazomanie, Wisconsin,
instrument	Vocals, piano, guitar
genre	Pop, soul, folk rock, rock, hip hop
occupation	Singer, songwriter, record producer
years active	2004–present
label	KIDinaKORNER, Interscope, Machine Shop
website	}}

Holly Brook Hafermann (born February 23, 1986), better known by her stage name Skylar Grey, is a Grammy-nominated American multi-instrumentalist, singer, songwriter, and record producer. Grey was signed to Machine Shop Recordings under the name Holly Brook. She released her debut album as Holly Brook, ''Like Blood Like Honey'', in 2006. She co-wrote the three versions of "Love the Way You Lie" with Alex da Kid, who signed her to his Wonderland Music label. She was featured as a guest vocalist on Fort Minor's "Where'd You Go" and "Be Somebody", Diddy-Dirty Money's "Coming Home", Dr. Dre's "I Need a Doctor" and Lupe Fiasco's "Words I Never Said".

Life and career

2001–2010: Early life and career beginnings

Grey performed professionally as a child in a folk duo with her mother called Generations. Together, (with producer/engineer Randy Green) they independently produced three albums, ''Dream Maker'', ''Lift Me'', and ''Millennial Child/Waiting For You''. Grey started her first band at the age of fifteen after 'sneaking' into bars, working with jazz musicians including Jeff Eckles, Tim Whalen and Leo Sidran in Madison, Wisconsin.

In 2003, Brook moved to Los Angeles and recorded a demo, which led to her being signed by Linkin Park guitarist Brad Delson to the band's vanity label, Machine Shop Recordings, at age 18 in the fall of 2004. Her voice is featured on the Fort Minor songs "Where'd You Go" and "Be Somebody". Working with producer Jonathan Ingoldsby, Brook released her debut album, ''Like Blood Like Honey'', on June 6, 2006. She landed opening spots for tours with Jamie Cullum, KD Lang, Daniel Powter, Teddy Geiger and Duncan Sheik.

In 2010, Brook lent both her song "It's Raining Again" and her image to a promotional campaign for Ciao Water. Prior to this, she has appeared on albums by other artists, including Brie Larson's ''Finally Out of P.E.'', and Fort Minor's ''The Rising Tied''. Brook has toured with as part of Duncan Sheik's band, and appears heavily on his 2009 album ''Whisper House''. At the beginning in 2010 she also performed in the theatrical version of "Whisper House," playing one of the two lead ghost vocalists along with David Poe. Also in 2010, she self-released the seven-song ''O’Dark:Thirty EP'', produced by Duncan Sheik and Jon Ingoldsby. In 2009, Brook appeared as a backing vocalist on Eurovision contestant, Yohanna's debut album, ''Butterflies and Elvis''.

2011–present: ''Invinsible''

Brook later changed her name to Skylar Grey. She explained that “it represents the unknowns in life. People seem to be afraid of the unknowns, but I’m the complete opposite. I dive into the unknown because I feel like that’s where all your possibilities come from.”

She was still living in Oregon and had no recognition as Skylar Grey. Grey went to New York to meet her publicist and was introduced to Alex da Kid, who played Grey the song "Airplanes" by B.O.B and Hayley Williams which he produced. Grey liked what she heard and sent Alex da Kid the songs "Love The Way You Lie" Parts I, II and III.

Producer Alex da Kid signed her to a production deal on his KIDinaKORNER imprint. She helped write sections of all three versions of "Love the Way You Lie" by rapper Eminem and Rihanna as well as performing the demo for the song. Grey earned a Grammy nomination for Song of the Year for her writing contributions to "Love the Way You Lie". She also co-wrote Diddy-Dirty Money's "Coming Home", along with "Castle Walls" by T.I. and Christina Aguilera. On March 10, 2011, Diddy-Dirty Money performed the single "Coming Home" with Grey and two female background vocalists Dawn Richard and Kalenna Harper, live on ''American Idol''.

She is also a featured guest on "I Need a Doctor". Grey is also featured on Lupe Fiasco's third studio album ''Lasers'', on the second single, "Words I Never Said" and was also featured in the live performance of the song, with Lupe, on ''The Colbert Report'' on May 9, 2011. Grey made her live performance debut under her new alias during the 53rd Grammy Awards, performing "I Need a Doctor" alongside Eminem and Dr. Dre. She is currently working on her solo studio album ''Invinsible'' with Alex Da Kid. She has signed to Interscope Records through Da Kid's KIDinaKORNER, and her first promotional buzz single "Dance Without You" was released on June 6, 2011, with the official music video being released on July 5. The first official single "Invisible" was released to radio on June 16. On July 9, 2011, Grey performed live at the World Peace Event in Washington, DC, appearing along with the 14th Dalai Lama. On the 6th of August, she peformed at the 20th Lollaplooza festival as both a solo artist and with Eminem during the song "I Need A Doctor". The next day, while passing by the area where YouTube sensation Karmin was recording their cover of "I Need A Doctor," Skylar joined the duo for an impromptu performance.

Influences

Grey has listed Marilyn Manson, Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Sarah McLachlan and Death Cab for Cutie as her influences.

Discography

''Like Blood Like Honey'' (2006)

''Invinsible'' (2011)

References

External links

Category:1986 births Category:American singer-songwriters Category:American female singers Category:American pop pianists Category:American female guitarists Category:Living people Category:People from Dane County, Wisconsin Category:Songwriters from Wisconsin

ar:سكايلر غري da:Skylar Grey de:Skylar Grey fr:Skylar Grey it:Skylar Grey he:סקיילר גריי nl:Skylar Grey no:Holly Brook pl:Skylar Grey pt:Skylar Grey ru:Скайлар Грей zh-yue:Holly Brook

{{infobox film | name

The N-Word | imageTHE N WORD DVD COVER.jpg | caption Movie cover for ''The N-Word''| writer Todd Larkins Williams | starringVarious actors, actresses, comedians, musicians, politicians, and activists | directorTodd Larkins Williams | music Michael Cohen | distributor Trio Films| releasedJune 26, 2004 | runtime86 min. | languageEnglish | movie_series| awards| producerHelena Echegoyen Nelson George | budget |}}

''The N-Word'' is a 2004 documentary directed and written by Todd Larkins Williams. The movie, as the title may suggest, looks into the history and usage of the word nigger and its variations.

Interviews With:

Sandra Bernhard

Todd Boyd

Elaine Brown

LeVar Burton

George Carlin

Cee-Lo Green

Morris Chestnut

Stanley Crouch

Ice Cube

Damon Dash

Chuck D

Nelson George

Whoopi Goldberg

Dick Gregory

Bryant Gumbel

Lisa Gay Hamilton

Samuel L. Jackson

Quincy Jones

Robin D.G. Kelley

Regina King

Talib Kweli

Nia Long

Wynton Marsalis

Chi McBride

Paul Mooney

Alvin F. Poussaint

Michael Rapaport

Ving Rhames

Chris Rock

John Salley

Ron Shelton

Russell Simmons

John Singleton

Cree Summer

Saul Williams

George C. Wolfe

See also

''Guilty or Innocent of Using the N Word''

External links

Category:Documentary films about words and language Category:Race-related films Category:2004 films