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Seme
(redirected from semes)

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Seme 

in linguistics, the minimum unit of the content plane, representing an elementary lexical or grammatical meaning. The seme is opposed to the morpheme—the minimum meaningful unit of the expression plane—and is a component of the morpheme’s content. For example, in the word form knig-u (“book”), the -u contains three semes: singular number, feminine gender, and accusative case. Sometimes the concept of the seme is treated as syntagmatic, an opposition being made to the paradigmatic concept of the sememe. Some linguists define the seme as a semantic feature by which larger units in the content plane are differentiated. For example, the lexical content of the word, otets (“father”) may be described as a combination of semes: direct relative, male, of the immediately preceding generation, and so forth.



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Both "civility" and "politeness" were seen as features of civil and civilized societies, but the former term emphasized "elegance of behaviour" (Johnson's phrase) as a requirement in man as a citizen, while "politeness" saw this elegance more as a characteristic of advanced civilization: the archaic senses of the latter word have to do with polish and smoothness of surface; the dominant semes (or units of meaning) in the word pertain to refinement.
He then presents results of four extensive experiments conducted to verify his theories, which demonstrate the equal predicting capacity of native and nonnative speakers, the interconnection between linguistic and extralinguistic factors, the significant role of prototypical semes, and the usual dominance of a single central reading.
I usually retch whenever I see a rainbow anything, but Dean Sameshima's use of rainbow pride here triggered glee: Tearing at the semes of Baker's handmade prototype, Sameshima allows the sign of craft to remain only in the rainbow tinting of his images scanned from underground 1950s and '60s physical-culture-turned-sugary-porn chapbooks like Butch that, picturing "young men at play" as nude or pouch-clad cowboys, gymnasts, wrestlers, footballers, and artists, sexed the postal system.
 
 
 
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