paradigmatic

Paradigmatic is an adjective that describes something relating to a paradigm or serving as a model, pattern, or standard within a field. In general usage, it can refer to an exemplary case or to something characteristic of a particular set or category.

In linguistics and semiotics, paradigmatic refers to a type of relation across signs that involves substitution. A paradigmatic set comprises items that could replace one another in the same structural slot, forming a horizontal axis of choice. This is contrasted with the syntagmatic axis, which concerns how signs combine in sequence. For example, color adjectives such as red, blue, and green are paradigmatically related because any one of them can fill the same position in a sentence like “The car is ___.” In morphology or verb forms, forms such as walk, walks, and walked constitute a paradigmatic set for the same base verb in a given tense or mood.

The term is also used more broadly to describe the standard framework or model governing a field of inquiry; a paradigmatic shift denotes a fundamental change in the basic assumptions or methods of a discipline, often replacing an older paradigm with a newer one.

Etymology traces to paradigm, from Latin paradigmum and Greek paradeigma, meaning a pattern, example, or model. The word thus carries both the sense of an illustrative example and the notion of a structured set of related items that can substitute for one another in context.