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Lexicon vs Syntax - What's the difference?

lexicon | syntax |

In linguistics terms the difference between lexicon and syntax

is that lexicon is a dictionary that includes or focuses on lexemes while syntax is the study of the structure of phrases, sentences and language.

As nouns the difference between lexicon and syntax

is that lexicon is the vocabulary of a language while syntax is a set of rules that govern how words are combined to form phrases and sentences.

lexicon

English

Noun

(wikipedia lexicon) (en-noun)
  • The vocabulary of a language.
  • (linguistics) A dictionary that includes or focuses on lexemes.
  • A dictionary of Classical Greek, Hebrew, Latin, or Aramaic.
  • (programming) The lexicology of a programming language. (Usually called lexical structure.)
  • (rare) Any dictionary.
  • The vocabulary used by or known to an individual. (Also called lexical knowledge)
  • A vocabulary specific to a certain subject.
  • a baseball lexicon

    Synonyms

    * (l)

    syntax

    English

    (wikipedia syntax)

    Noun

    (syntaxes)
  • A set of rules that govern how words are combined to form phrases and sentences.
  • *
  •   The incorporation of a rule of V MOVEMENT into our description of English Syntax turns out to have fundamental theoretical implications for our overall Theory of Grammar: it means that we are no longer able to posit that the syntactic structure of a sentence can be described in terms of a single Phrase-marker representing its S-structure. For, the postulation of a rule of V-MOVEMENT means that we must recognise at least two different levels of structure in our Theory of Grammar — namely, a level of D-structure'' (formerly known as ‘Deep Structure?) which serves as input to the rule, and a separate level of ''S-structure which is formed by application of the rule.
  • (computing, countable) The formal rules of formulating the statements of a computer language.
  • (linguistics) The study of the structure of phrases, sentences and language.
  • Usage notes

    The joke plural syntices occasionally occurs in blogs (by false analogy with matrix etc.)

    Derived terms

    * morphosyntax * syntactic * syntactician

    See also

    * grammar * morphology ----