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semantic, phonological and grammatical criteria: “A word is
defined by the association of a given meaning with a given group
of sounds susceptible of a given grammatical employment”.
Our native school of linguistics understands the word as a
doublefacet unit of form and content, reflecting human notions,
and in this sense being considered as a form of their existence.
Notions fixed in word meanings are formed as generalized and
approximately correct reflections of reality, thus, signifying them
words objectivize reality and conceptual worlds in their content.
So, the word is a basic unit of a language resulting from the
association of a given meaning with a given cluster of sounds
susceptible of a certain grammatical employment.
Taking into consideration the above, let us consider the
nature of the word.
First, the word is a unit of speech which serves the purposes
of human communication. Thus, the word can be defined as a unit
of communication.
Secondly, the word can be perceived as the total of the
sounds which comprise it.
Third, the word, viewed structurally, possesses several
characteristics.
a) The modern approach to the word as a double-facet unit is
based on distinguishing between the external and the internal
structures of the word. By the external structure of the word we
mean its morphological structure. For example, in the word post-
impressionists the following morphemes can be distinguished: the
prefixes post-, im-, the root –press-, the noun-forming suffixes -
ion, -ist, and the grammatical suffix of plurality -s. All these
morphemes constitute the external structure of the word post-
impressionists. The internal structure of the word, or its meaning,
is nowadays commonly referred to as the word's semantic
structure. This is the word's main aspect. Words can serve the
purposes of human communication solely due to their meanings.

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