taxeme (n.)

A term introduced by Leonard Bloomfield, on analogy with the PHONEME, to refer to a single minimal feature of GRAMMATICAL ARRANGEMENT. Examples of taxemes include WORD-ORDER, CONCORD, the grammatical use of PITCH, and the constituents of the ACTOR–ACTION–GOAL relationship. Combinations of taxemes, occurring as a conventional grammatical unit, are tactic forms. Taxemes are distinguished in this approach from TAGMEMES, which are the smallest meaningful units of grammatical FORM.