The Lexeme data model aims to align with the LEMON model by the Ontolex W3C community group, where useful and practical. The specification of the Lexeme data model is based on the Wikibase data model, so the Wikidata glossary and the Wikibase data model primer may be helpful in understanding this document. This ontology provides a minimal scaffolding that allows Items and Statements to be used for detailed modeling of a lexeme. The Lexeme data model defines basic concepts and relationships needed to describe lexemes, which act as a fixed ontology. Separate documents describe the serialization of the Wikibase data model in JSON ( JavaScript Object Notation) and in RDF ( Resource Description Framework).
This data model is conceptual ("Which information do we have to support?") and does not specify how this data should be represented technically ("Which data structures should the software use?") or syntactically ("How should the data be expressed in a file?").
While it would be theoretically possible to model these things using Items, a more expressive specialized model helps to reduce complexity, and improve re-use and mappings to other vocabularies. The data model of WikibaseLexeme describes the structure of the data that is handled as "Lexemes" in Wikibase, such as words and phrases.