chroneme
nounEtymology From Ancient Greek χρόνος (khrónos) + -eme, a suffix indicating a fundamental unit in some aspect of linguistic structure, extracted from phoneme, from Ancient Greek φώνημα (phṓnēma, “sound”), from φωνέω (phōnéō, “to sound”), from φωνή (phōnḗ, “sound”). By surface analysis, chrono- + -eme.
1
A basic, theoretical unit of sound that can distinguish words by duration only of a vowel or consonant.
- Related terms
- chronemic, chronemical, chronemically, chronemics, chrono-