Lexical Semantics

This entry offers a short description of basic research questions, different theories, and topics in lexical semantic research. At the beginning, it states five fundamental questions that all lexical semantics theories need to attend to in descriptions and explanations of their observations and findings. A brief presentation of past and present theoretical approaches on lexical semantics follows, in the light of their answers to the fundamental questions. The focus in the remaining sections is on central issues in lexical semantics. This account is primarily within the cognitive semantic framework, even though the issues are key in any theory of lexical semantics. The issues concern the relation between words and concepts and lexical semantic relations such as polysemy, synonymy, and antonymy. The entry concludes with some words on the nature of meanings of words in language in use.