Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id FAA03887 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Mon, 18 Feb 2002 05:39:36 GMT Date: Sun, 17 Feb 2002 21:34:00 -0800 Message-Id: <200202180534.g1I5Y0j09376@mail23.bigmailbox.com> Content-Type: text/plain Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: binary X-Mailer: MIME-tools 4.104 (Entity 4.116) X-Originating-Ip: [65.80.163.167] From: "Joe Dees" <joedees@addall.com> To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Subject: Re: Why memeoids? Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk('binary' encoding is not supported, stored as-is)
>Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2002 10:57:40 +1100
> Re: Why memeoids? John Wilkins <wilkins@wehi.edu.au> memetics@mmu.ac.ukReply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
>
>
>On Tuesday, February 12, 2002, at 06:32 PM, Joe Dees wrote:
>
>>
>>
>>> Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2002 16:22:03 +1100
>>> Re: Why memeoids? John Wilkins <wilkins@wehi.edu.au>
>>> memetics@mmu.ac.ukReply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
>>>
>>>
>>> On Tuesday, February 12, 2002, at 03:51 PM, Keith Henson wrote:
>>>
>>>> At 10:01 PM 11/02/02 -0500, you wrote:
>>>>> Hi Keith Henson -
>>>>>
>>>>>> Infective speech fillers people pick up of the "you know" and "fact
>>>>> of the
>>>>>> matter" are these kind of minimal memes. I am not aware of a term
>>>>> for for
>>>>>> such minimal memes. Suggest one if you wish.
>>>>>
>>>>> Mememurs.
>>>>
>>>> Why? (what derivation does -murs have?)
>>>>
>>>>
>>> I think he means -mers, as in polymers and monomers. But then it should
>>> be polymemes and monomemes, and this requires some notion of a "simple"
>>> meme just as monomer requires some notion of a simple molecule (which
>>> is
>>> not, so far as I can tell, forthcoming :-)
>>>
>> The smallest meaningful unit of language is the morpheme; how could one
>> combine/contract these two (morpheme and meme) into a single
>> distinctive word? Morph-memes?
>
>Bill Croft of Manchester uni has already coined a perfectly good
>linguistic unit for an evolutionary account of language - the lingueme,
>and I strongly suggest we adopt it - he defines it in a forthcoming
>paper in Selection as "a token of linguistic structure". Morphemes only
>apply to words and word parts, while phonemes refer to sound parts. Both
>are linguemes if they are passed on entire.
>
The difference is that morphemes are the smallest meaningful linguistic unit, whereas phonemes are meaningless in themselves except where a phoneme also happens to be a morpheme. This is why a term that conflates the two is unsatisfactory to me for the purposes of memetic study, as I consider memes to be irretrieveable semantic (meaning-laden).
>
>--
>John S Wilkins
>Head, Communication Services
>The Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research
>Parkville, Victoria, Australia
>
>
>===============================================================
>This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
>Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission
>For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing)
>see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit
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This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission
For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing)
see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit
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