categorytonemes
Categorytonemes are a theoretical concept in linguistics, particularly within phonology and morphology. They are proposed units of meaning that are associated with grammatical categories. Unlike lexical morphemes which carry core semantic content, categorytonemes are thought to signal grammatical information such as tense, number, gender, or case. The term suggests a fusion of "category" and "phoneme," implying a phonological unit that functions grammatically.
The idea behind categorytonemes is that certain phonological distinctions, which might otherwise seem arbitrary, actually carry
The existence and precise nature of categorytonemes remain a subject of debate among linguists. Some scholars