Dictema ( – "I say, I state") is an elementary situational-thematic unit of a text, formed of one or more sentences as units of the immediately lower level of language segments.

History of creation

The concept of the dictema was put forward by Mark Bloch in the mid-twentieth century in connection with a scientific discussion on the communicative units of language as described by

Ferdinand de Saussure Ferdinand Mongin de Saussure (; ; 26 November 185722 February 1913) was a Swiss linguist, semiotician and philosopher. His ideas laid a foundation for many significant developments in both linguistics and semiotics in the 20th century. He is wi ...

of the Geneva School, as well as Professor Alexander Smirnitsky. In turn, Professor Bloch considered the level of language units that had gone unnoticed, namely the levels of the

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 ...

and

morpheme A morpheme is any of the smallest meaningful constituents within a linguistic expression and particularly within a word. Many words are themselves standalone morphemes, while other words contain multiple morphemes; in linguistic terminology, this ...

, to which he added the "third integral level of constructions with blurred boundaries" – syntax. Thus, following the creation of morphology by

Dionysius Thrax Dionysius Thrax ( ''Dionýsios ho Thrâix'', 170–90 BC) was a Greek grammarian and a pupil of Aristarchus of Samothrace. He was long considered to be the author of the earliest grammatical text on the Greek language, one that was used as a st ...

and

syntax In linguistics, syntax ( ) is the study of how words and morphemes combine to form larger units such as phrases and sentences. Central concerns of syntax include word order, grammatical relations, hierarchical sentence structure (constituenc ...

by Apollonius Dyscolus, the isolation of the dictema represents another key stage in the history of

grammar In linguistics, grammar is the set of rules for how a natural language is structured, as demonstrated by its speakers or writers. Grammar rules may concern the use of clauses, phrases, and words. The term may also refer to the study of such rul ...

Structure

In a uniformly unfolding monologic written text, the dictema is usually represented by a paragraph, whereas in dialogical speech, the dictema is usually represented by a rejoinder.''Ленская И. С.'' Проблема невербализованного содержания текста // Проблемы вербальной коммуникации и представления знаний. — Иркутск, 1998. As an integrative unit of linguistic expression, the dictema distinguishes four main functionally significant aspects: naming, predication, thematization and stylization.

Notes

{{Reflist Grammar Linguistic units

History of creation

Structure

See also

Notes