/ English Dictionary |
LINGUISTIC UNIT
Pronunciation (US): | (GB): |
I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
One of the natural units into which linguistic messages can be analyzed
Synonyms:
language unit; linguistic unit
Classified under:
Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents
Hypernyms ("linguistic unit" is a kind of...):
component; component part; constituent; part; portion (something determined in relation to something that includes it)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "linguistic unit"):
discourse (extended verbal expression in speech or writing)
word (a unit of language that native speakers can identify)
syllable (a unit of spoken language larger than a phoneme)
lexeme (a minimal unit (as a word or stem) in the lexicon of a language; 'go' and 'went' and 'gone' and 'going' are all members of the English lexeme 'go')
morpheme (minimal meaningful language unit; it cannot be divided into smaller meaningful units)
formative (minimal language unit that has a syntactic (or morphological) function)
name (a language unit by which a person or thing is known)
collocation (a grouping of words in a sentence)
phone; sound; speech sound ((phonetics) an individual sound unit of speech without concern as to whether or not it is a phoneme of some language)
sign (a fundamental linguistic unit linking a signifier to that which is signified)
Holonyms ("linguistic unit" is a part of...):
string (a linear sequence (as of characters, words, proteins, etc.))