1 online resource (viii, 151 pages) : What exactly are words? Are they the things that get listed in dictionaries, or are they the basic units of sentence structure? Andrew Carstairs-McCarthy explores the implications of these different approaches to words in English Includes bibliographical references (pages 148-149) and index Print version record 1. Introduction -- 2. Words, sentences and dictionaries -- 3. A word and its parts: roots, affixes and their shapes -- 4. A word and its forms inflection -- 5. A word and its relatives: derivation -- 6. Compound words, blends and phrasal words -- 7. A word and its structure -- 8. Productivity -- 9. The historical sources of English word formation -- 10. Conclusion: words in English and in languages generally