Sememe

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Sememe (Greek semaino - mean, signify) - semantical language unit of meaning, correlative to morpheme.

A sememe is a proposed unit of transmitted or intended meaning; it is atomic or indivisible. A sememe can be the meaning expressed by a morpheme, such as the English pluralizing morpheme -s, which carries the sememic feature [+ plural]. Alternately, a single sememe (for example [go] or [move]) can be conceived as the abstract representation of such verbs as skate, roll, jump, slide, turn, or boogie. It can be thought of as the semantic counterpart to any of the following: a meme in a culture of ideas, a gene in a genetic makeup, or an atom (or, more specifically, an elementary particle) in a substance.

There are five type of sememes, 2 denotational and 3 conotational, while conotational are occurring only in phrase units (they do not reflect the denotat )^[1]:

1. Denotational 1: Straight denotation, for example "head" (body);
2. Denotational 2: Secondary, denotation by resemblance with other denotation: "head" (ship);
3. Conotational 1:
4. Conotational 2:
5. Conotational 3:

[edit] Notes

1. ^ Pragmatic and syntagmatic aspects of phraseology, Krassnoff (in russian)

[edit] Bibliography

• Bazell, Charles Ernest (1954). The sememe in "Litera", I, 17-31. . Reprinted in: Hamp, Eric P.; Fred W. Householder, Robert Austerlitz (eds.) (1966). Readings in linguistics II. University of Chicago Press, 329-40. 

[edit] See also

• lexeme
• semantics
• semantic field
• word sense