sememe

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se·meme

 (sē′mēm′)
n.
The meaning expressed by a morpheme.

[Greek sēma, sign + -eme.]
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

sememe

(ˈsiːmiːm)
n
1. (Linguistics) the meaning of a morpheme
2. (Linguistics) Also called: semanteme a minimum unit of meaning in terms of which it is sometimes proposed that meaning in general might be analysed
[C20 (coined in 1933 by Leonard Bloomfield (1887–1949), US linguist): from Greek sēma a sign + -eme]
Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014
Translations
sémème
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References in periodicals archive ?
In a recent study it is pointed out that the abbreviation concept is represented by four sememes in the English language.
The shifts between 'slope' [left right arrow] 'bank' and between 'swamp' [left right arrow] 'spring, water-hole' rare also classified among this type of "related" sememes ([phrase omitted], [phrase omitted] 1991 : 115-116).
From a speaker's point of view, this conflation of sememes expressing different events into one phonological word results in a clear property enhancement, namely the conveyance of a complex situation or event structure in an economic way.
Since we have decided to analyze only sememes with a performative function or verging thereon, other meanings of appoint ('decide on a time/place'), declare ('tell that one owns taxable property'), and pronounce ('utter') will not be treated here.
4) Sememes: the smallest units at the level of semantics--meaning of clauses and sentences.
Julia Kristeva later defines the utterance as "an operation, a motion that links, and even more so, constitutes what might be called the arguments of the operation, which, in the study of a written text, are either words or word sequences (sentences, paragraphs) as sememes" (37).
[...] Autour, aux premiers rangs [...] le notaire pend a ses breloques a chiffres [...] les gros bureaux (11) bouffis trainent leurs grosses dames [...] des clubs d'epiciers retraites [...] Fort serieusement discutent des traites Puis prisent en argent, et reprennent: "En somme!..." (119) Nous remarquerons, outre la forte recurrence de sememes relevant d'un champ lexical renvoyant a l'argent et qui reduit tout (qu'il s'agisse de la musique, de la femme, du tabac ou des affaires de l'Etat) a une question de valeur d'echange et de propriete, une poetique de la parodie resolument contre-moderne--car plus tard surgira la figure du poete debraille, en opposition radicalement ironique avec cet ordre disciplinaire bourgeois qui regne dans la ville.
Les mots << monstre >>, << sa Majeste >>, << homme >>, << chair et os >> sont des sememes constituant l'isotopie / humain/ ; le Ca etant bien entendu le Mont Blanc pour qui le narrateur eprouve une grande admiration.
Unlike, say, the Linnaean system for classifying animals, which is an exemplary system, folksonomies are more horizontal, labelling systems organised on a grid and open to characteristics that are known in linguistics as sememes.