What is multi token word versus multi word token? Could you give examples of each

Answer 1

Tokens are occurrences of distinctly meaningful lexical items that are not categorized into types/lexemes (usually under inflection).

Some tokens consist of more than one word. In English, these include verbs whose meanings are altered with adverbial particles (a.k.a., "phrasal verbs"), multi-word prepositions, and the like:

Here are some examples of the aforementioned:

1. "taking up" (every inflection of the type "take up" is a separate token),
2. "in regards to" (functionally, a preposition, though it consists of three words),
3. "United States" (a proper noun, though it consists of two words),
4. "land mines" (a multi-word term that is often compounded as "landmines").

In contrast, most words, as types/lexemes, contain several tokens, mainly because of inflection. Most single-word types/lexemes of an open word class will have more than one token.

Here are some examples:

1. In English, "be", "is", "am", "were", etc. are all tokens of the type "be".
2. In Spanish, "me fui", "te irás", "nos íbamos", etc. are all tokens of the type "irse".
3. In Mandarin, "朋友們" and "朋友" are tokens of the type "朋友".