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. Alternatively 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 a gene in a genetic make-up or an atom (or more specifically an elementary particle) in a substance. A seme is the name for the smallest unit of meaning recognized in semantics referring to a single characteristic of a sememe.

There are five types of sememes: two denotational and three connotational with connotational occurring only in phrase units (they do not reflect the denotation):1 Denotational 1: Primary denotation for example "head" (body); Denotational 2: Secondary denotation by resemblance with other denotation: "head" (ship); Connotational 1: High position as the role or function of "head" in the operation of the human body; Connotational 2: Emotive e.g. meaning in "honey"; Connotational 3: Evaluative e.g. meaning in "sneak" move silently and secretly for a bad purpose

Notes Pragmatic and syntagmatic aspects of phraseology Krassnoff (in russian) Bibliography Bazell Charles Ernest (1954). The sememe in "Litera" I. Istanbul. pp. 1731. . Reprinted in: Hamp Eric P.; Fred W. Householder Robert Austerlitz (eds.) (1966). Readings in linguistics II. University of Chicago Press. pp. 32940.  See also lexeme lexical unit memetics semantics semantic field word sense problem of universals

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