minieme

Minieme is a theoretical term used in linguistics to denote a smallest unit of meaning that is purportedly smaller than a morpheme. The concept is not part of mainstream morphology or semantics, and there is no universally accepted definition or method for identifying miniemes. In some proposals, miniemes are imagined as submorphemic semantic content or microsemantic units that, together, contribute to the overall meaning of a word but are smaller than any morpheme.

Proponents of miniemes sometimes describe them as tiny semantic features or facets that accompany a lexeme, such as distinctions related to animacy, definiteness, or aspect. Under this view, a single word could be analyzed as containing multiple coexisting miniemes, each adding a layer of meaning without constituting a full morpheme on its own. Critics, however, argue that there is little empirical grounding for submorphemic units and that existing semantic theories already provide finer-grained analyses through features, primitives, or decompositional frameworks without invoking miniemes.

The term remains largely theoretical and is not widely used in formal analyses of language. It is often cited in discussions about the limits of meaning granularity, issues of compositionality, and the boundary between morphology and semantics rather than as a standard analytical tool.

See also: Morpheme, Phoneme, Semantic feature, Semantic primitive, Lexical semantics.