@morphail – Yes, I agree. There is no clear-cut way of defining words.
@the100thmonkey – Meaningful?
Here’s the problem:
‘Word’ itself is a word. The meaning of the word ‘meaning’ is what? We are talking about a fundamental philosophical problem here. And we are talking perceived reality, neuroscience and consciousness. How do babies learn language in the first place? Why is this even possible? How do we define the meaning of a word?
Suppose someone beams you into the Amazon rain forest and you encounter a native tribe who has never met another human being outside their tribe. You don’t know their language, and they don’t know your language. How do you communicate? Ah, pointing to this and that. Making signs with your hand. Making strange sounds. And so forth. You are making connections between objects and concept and abstract forms (sounds) i.e. words. Now explain to them the word parsimonious? You can’t. At least not initially. You need to build up more complete sets of simple objects and concepts. Your pools is growing slowly. You combine stuff from your pool and you get more complex objects and concepts and so worth.
Ultimately words refer to stuff you’re building up from scratch. Like talking to those natives. But you need an outside reality otherwise you can’t point to anything.