linguistic unit

Thesaurus

Noun

1.

linguistic unit - one of the natural units into which linguistic messages can be analyzed language unit discourse - extended verbal expression in speech or writing word - a unit of language that native speakers can identify; "words are the blocks from which sentences are made"; "he hardly said ten words all morning" syllable - a unit of spoken language larger than a phoneme; "the word `pocket' has two syllables" 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; "his name really is George Washington"; "those are two names for the same thing" string - a linear sequence of symbols (characters or words or phrases) collocation - a grouping of words in a sentence speech sound, phone, 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; "The bond between the signifier and the signified is arbitrary"--de Saussure component part, part, portion, component, constituent - something determined in relation to something that includes it; "he wanted to feel a part of something bigger than himself"; "I read a portion of the manuscript"; "the smaller component is hard to reach"; "the animal constituent of plankton"