LANGUAGE UNIT

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does language unit mean? 

• LANGUAGE UNIT (noun)
  The noun LANGUAGE UNIT has 1 sense:

1. one of the natural units into which linguistic messages can be analyzed

  Familiarity information: LANGUAGE UNIT used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• LANGUAGE UNIT (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

One of the natural units into which linguistic messages can be analyzed

Classified under:

Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents

Synonyms:

language unit; linguistic unit

Hypernyms ("language unit" is a kind of...):

component; component part; constituent; part; portion (something determined in relation to something that includes it)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "language unit"):

discourse (extended verbal expression in speech or writing)

word (a unit of language that native speakers can identify)

syllable (a unit of spoken language larger than a phoneme)

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)

collocation (a grouping of words in a sentence)

phone; sound; speech 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)

Holonyms ("language unit" is a part of...):

string (a linear sequence (as of characters, words, proteins, etc.))

 Context examples 

The universe of discourse that surrounds a language unit and helps to determine its interpretation.

(Context, NCI Thesaurus)