The Word as the Basic Unit of the Language

It is very difficult to give a comprehensive definition of the word and at the same time the one which would unambiguously apply to all the different word-units of the lexicon. M.Y. Blokh [2, p. 20] admits that within the framework of different linguistic trends and theories the word is defined as the minimal potential sentence, the minimal free linguistic form, the elementary component of the sentence, the articulate sound-symbol, the grammatically arranged combination of sound with meaning, the uninterrupted string of morphemes and so on.