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Seme, the smallest unit of meaning recognized in
semantics Semantics is the study of linguistic Meaning (philosophy), meaning. It examines what meaning is, how words get their meaning, and how the meaning of a complex expression depends on its parts. Part of this process involves the distinction betwee ...
, refers to a single characteristic of a
sememe A sememe (; ) is a semantic language unit of meaning, analogous to a morpheme. The concept is relevant in structural semiotics. A seme is a proposed unit of transmitted or intended meaning; it is atomic or indivisible. A sememe can be the meaning ...
. These characteristics are defined according to the differences between sememes. The term was introduced by in the 1930s and developed by in the 1960s. It is the result produced when determining the minimal elements of meaning, which enables one to describe
word A word is a basic element of language that carries semantics, meaning, can be used on its own, and is uninterruptible. Despite the fact that language speakers often have an intuitive grasp of what a word is, there is no consensus among linguist ...
s multilingually. Such elements provide a bridge to componential analysis and the initial work of
ontologies In information science, an ontology encompasses a representation, formal naming, and definitions of the categories, properties, and relations between the concepts, data, or entities that pertain to one, many, or all domains of discourse. More ...
.


See also

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Asemic writing Asemic writing is a wordless open Semantics, semantic form of writing. The word ''asemic'' means "having no specific semantic content", or "without the smallest unit of meaning". With the non-specificity of asemic writing there comes a vacuum of ...
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Meme A meme (; ) is an idea, behavior, or style that Mimesis, spreads by means of imitation from person to person within a culture and often carries symbolic meaning representing a particular phenomenon or theme. A meme acts as a unit for carrying c ...
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Phoneme A phoneme () is any set of similar Phone (phonetics), speech sounds that are perceptually regarded by the speakers of a language as a single basic sound—a smallest possible Phonetics, phonetic unit—that helps distinguish one word fr ...
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Memetics Memetics is a theory of the evolution of culture based on Darwinian principles with the meme as the unit of culture. The term "meme" was coined by biologist Richard Dawkins in his 1976 book '' The Selfish Gene'', to illustrate the principle that h ...
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Mimicry In evolutionary biology, mimicry is an evolved resemblance between an organism and another object, often an organism of another species. Mimicry may evolve between different species, or between individuals of the same species. In the simples ...


Further reading


Functional Approach to Semantic Heterogeneity Ontological Semantics and the Study of Meaning in Linguistics, Philosophy and Computational Linguistics
Semantic units {{semantics-stub