Grapheme ( Concept )
http://purl.org/linguistics/gold/Grapheme


Thing
      |_ Abstract
            |_ Linguistic Unit
                  |_ Form Unit
                        |_ Grapheme

Definition:

A Grapheme is the smallest meaningful contrastive unit in a writing system. A grapheme is an abstraction over a set of like glyphs, the actual images on the page. That is, a particular grapheme is realized by particular glyphs. More than one glyph can realize the same grapheme. For instance, the letter A and its cursive equivalent are each realizations of the grapheme Latin Capital Letter A.

Crystal defines a grapheme as the minimal contrastive unit in the writing system of a language; usually enclosed in angle brackets. The grapheme <a>, for example, is realized as several allographs A, a, a, etc., which may be seen as units in complementary distribution (e.g. upper case restricted to sentence-initial position, proper names, etc.), or in free variation (as in some styles of handwriting), just as in phonemic analysis. 'Grapheme Analysis' is the main business of graphemics (or graphology). [Crystal 2008: 220]




PropertiesValuesDefinition
acoustic Realization Spoken Linguistic Expression     The relation between some linguistic unit and its corresponding spoken expression.
constituents Thing     The relation holding between a linguistic unit and a list (rdf:Seq) of its constituents.
has Constituent Linguistic Unit     The relation hasConstituent is an abstract partial ordering relation that expresses dominance between two linguistic units. This relation is meant to cover all possible types of linguistic constituency: phonological, morphological, syntactic, etc. constituency.
in Language Human Language Variety     The relation that holds between a LinguisticSign and a Language. The sign is said to be a member or part of that language.
ordering Relation Linguistic Unit     Any relation that establishes a linear ordering of linguistic units.
realization Linguistic Expression     The relation holding between a linguistic unit and its physical form, either a spoken, written or signed expression.
signed Realization Signed Linguistic Expression     The relation between some linguistic unit and its corresponding signed expression.
string Rep string    
written Realization Written Linguistic Expression     The relation between some linguistic unit and its corresponding written expression.

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