The set of inflected forms taken by a single word is:

Correct option is D

Explanation:

A lexeme is the fundamental unit of meaning in linguistics that represents all inflected forms of a word without altering its base meaning. For example:

• The lexeme "write" includes write, writes, writing, wrote, and written.

The other options are incorrect because:

• Phoneme: This is the smallest unit of sound in a language, such as /k/ or /m/.
• Morpheme: This refers to the smallest grammatical unit that conveys meaning, e.g., -ed in played.
• Sememe: Refers to the smallest unit of meaning or a semantic component of a word.

Information Booster:

1. Inflection in Language: Inflection changes a word’s form (e.g., tense, number, case) while maintaining its core meaning.
2. Lemmatisation vs. Stemming: Lemmatisation maps different forms of a lexeme to its base, while stemming focuses on reducing words to their roots.
3. Lexemes in Syntax: Lexemes form the basis for building sentences while allowing inflected variations based on grammatical rules.

Additional Knowledge:

• Role of Morphemes: While morphemes create word meaning, lexemes unify all inflected variations.
• Phonology and Morphology Link: Phonemes and morphemes form the structural backbone of lexemes.
• Computational Applications: Lexemes are fundamental in natural language processing for tasks like machine translation and text analysis.