lemma
8.4
The basic form of a word used to represent its other forms
- noun
- /ˈlɛm.ə/
- Specialized
:
lema (lingüística)
- In grammar, a lemma serves as the base form of a word for analysis.
Examples
-
The linguist explained that each lemma represents all inflected forms of a word.
-
Finally, I used lemma processing, which treats different forms of a word as the same word.
Academic text (2015) -
In order to be as comprehensive as possible, the dictionary list was expanded by suggestions generated by WordStat on the basis of lemma, synonyms, antonyms, and so forth.
Academic text (2013) -
When writing a thesaurus, it's important to ensure each lemma is accurately represented.
Surface Forms
Etymology
Lemma in linguistics and NLP also comes from Greek lambanein 'to take', meaning a form that is 'taken' to represent others. So a computational lemma is the single base form chosen to stand for all the different forms of a word.
