Dictionary

syntagma en · NOUN

Pronunciation

• /sɪnˈtæɡmə/ (Received-Pronunciation)
• sĭntăgʹmə (Received-Pronunciation)
• (Southern-England) audio

Etymology

From Late Latin syntagma, from Ancient Greek σύνταγμα (súntagma, “orderly arrangement”), from συντάσσω (suntássō, “arrange together”, “to order”).

Meanings

1. A constituent segment within a text, such as a word or a phrase that forms a syntactic unit.
   • The syntagma “the God of peace” (in Greek ὁ Θεὸς τῆς εἰρήνης) occurs in all undisputed Pauline letters.
2. An arrangement of units that together bears a meaning.
   • A syntagma is, consequently, a unit of actual relationship, while a paradigm is a unit of potential relationship. 1974, “A note on teminology”, in Michael Taylor, transl., Film Language: A Semiotics of the Cinema, New York: Oxford University Press, translation of original by Christian Metz, page x:
   • Note that [Christian] Metz is interested in narrative elements—syntagmas—that can exist within shots as well as between them, an important refinement since, as we have already indicated, the effects of many types of montage can be accomplished within a shot without actually cutting. 2000, James Monaco, “The language of film: signs and syntax”, in How to Read a Film: The World of Movies, Media, and Multimedia : Language, History, Theory, Oxford University Press, USA, →ISBN, page 220:
   • So he gives us a sort of potential sequence—an undetermined sequence—that represents a new type of syntagma, a novel form of the “logic of montage,” but that remains entirely a figure of narrativity. 2000, Warren Buckland, The Cognitive Semiotics of Film, Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, page 125:
   • The Gospel is not a system of Theology, nor a Syntagma of theoretical propositions and conclusions for the enlargement of speculative knowledge, ethical or metaphysical. 1825, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, “Aphorisms on that which is indeed spiritual religion”, in Aids to Reflection, page 198:
   • To combine a sequence of shots into a larger syntagma, there has to be a connection between the successive shots.
3. (qualifier:Ancient Greece) A Macedonian phalanx fighting formation consisting of 256 men with long spears (sarissae).
   • The men forming the syntagma were arranged in a square of sixteen files of sixteen.
4. (dated) An organized structural, functional unit of anatomical or chemical subunits.
5. A treatise or compendium.
   • Though he informs us in the preface that his object was to trace the outlines of the great "latifundium regni philosophici" in a single syntagma, yet he really does no more than arrange a number of separate treatises or manuals, and even dictionaries, within the limits of a couple of folios. 1905 [1878], John Morley, Diderot and the Encyclopædists, volume 1:

Forms

Deriveds

syntagmatic

Hyponyms

phoneme · phrase · sentence · word

Relateds

paradigm · syntaxis · tagma · syntax · syntagm>>

Synonyms

tagma

Translations (29)

eo sintagmo (syntactic arrangement) · de Syntagma (semiotic arrangement) · de Syntagma (syntactic arrangement) · ru синта́гма (semiotic arrangement) · sv syntagm (semiotic arrangement) · fi syntagma (syntactic arrangement) · ro sintagmă (semiotic arrangement) · pl syntagma (syntactic arrangement) · eo sintagmo (semiotic arrangement) · pt sintagma (syntactic arrangement) · fr syntagme (semiotic arrangement) · sv syntagm (syntactic arrangement) · pt sintagma (semiotic arrangement) · sh синтагма (semiotic arrangement) · gl sintagma (semiotic arrangement) · fr syntagme (syntactic arrangement) · fi syntagma (Macedonian phalanx) · sh sintagma (syntactic arrangement) · sh sintagma (semiotic arrangement) · fi syntagma (semiotic arrangement) · pl syntagma (semiotic arrangement) · es sintagma (semiotic arrangement) · sh синтагма (syntactic arrangement) · el σύνταγμα (Macedonian phalanx) · gl sintagma (syntactic arrangement) · es sintagma (syntactic arrangement) · ru синта́гма (syntactic arrangement) · ro sintagmă (syntactic arrangement) · es falange Macedónica (Macedonian phalanx)