A grammeme is a grammatical morpheme.
The idea of grameme is used in the field of linguistics to refer to a grammatical morpheme (it is worth mentioning that this is the name it receives in traditional grammar). This is a value linked to a grammar category.
A morpheme is the minimum unit that can be isolated in a morphological analysis. In the case of gramemes, they are morphemes that follow lexemes (a concept known as base morpheme in traditional grammar) and that allow us to point out the grammatical accidents that affect said lexemes. There are grammars of manner, person, time and number.
What is a grameme
Precisely, the grameme is a unit of the word that does not have a lexical meaning , that is, it cannot be defined in itself as a word, but rather fulfills a grammatical or syntactic function to complete or specify the meaning of a word. word.
Take the case of the term “cats” . This word contains the lexeme “gat” , the grameme “o” (which indicates the masculine gender) and the grameme “s” (necessary to indicate the plural). In a similar sense, the term “user” is formed with the lexeme “usuari” and the grameme “a” (feminine).
It is worth mentioning that in certain words its base morpheme does not require the use of a grameme to indicate its gender, since it does not allow more than one option: while there are "gatos" and "gatas", there are only "songs". Therefore, the lexeme "song" only needs to be combined with the grameme "is" to give rise to the only plural of the word. Furthermore, lexemes can be dependent or independent, while grammes are always dependent : the lexeme "and" depends on grammes such as "ar" or "vee" ; the lexeme "sun" does not depend on any other morpheme to complete its meaning as "the star that is at the center of our galaxy"; Gramemes cannot be used in isolation in communication .
In the word "cat", the grammar "o" appears.
Add meanings
Gramemes can also be added to verbs to give them a meaning linked to tense, voice and mood. These morphemes do not have morphological independence and must be joined to certain lexemes for the meanings to be specified.
It should be noted that, in addition to adding meaning to a lexeme, gramemes also allow establishing marks that are linked to the agreement between words and phrases.
Types of gramemes
According to their characteristics , it is possible to classify gramemes as verbal gramemes (related to mode, number, person and time), nominal gramemes (indicating number and gender), derivative gramemes (they do not have morphological independence and must join certain lexemes) and gramme zero (no marks are evident in the lexeme). Derivative gramemes, in turn, can be heterogeneous or homogeneous .
We have seen nominal gramemes in some of the previous examples, fulfilling their function of complementing lexemes for the formation of complete nouns and adjectives, providing their gender and number. This is a fundamental aspect of our language, which distinguishes it from many others in which nouns and adjectives do not have gender or, in some cases, number. Yes, it may seem impossible to imagine but in certain languages, when faced with the word that designates the concept of "cat", for example, there is no way to know if we are talking about one or more or if they are males or females.
Verbal grammars serve to express accidents that in our language do not correspond to nouns or adjectives, such as person, time and manner, but also for number. For example: starting from the verb "comer", which in itself is composed of the lexeme "com" and the grameme "er", we can say "as", for the first person singular of the present tense of the indicative mood, or "they ate" , for the third person plural of the past tense of the subjunctive mood.