ABSTRACT
Lexical semantics is the study of word meaning. This chapter addresses the question of word meaning from a number of directions: What is involved in knowing the meaning of a word? How do word meanings relate to one another? Is the meaning of a word made up of more primitive pieces of meaning, is it made up of a set of necessary and sufficient conditions, or is it something different, something fuzzier? The chapter discusses where new words come from, including such sources as historical descent, borrowing from other languages, blending of existing words, and many others. And of course no chapter on word meaning would be complete without a discussion of the Great Sandwich Controversy.
