Final answer:
The basic units of meaning in a language are called morphemes. They differ from phonemes, which are the smallest sound units, and graphemes, which are the smallest units of written language.
Step-by-step explanation:
The basic units of meaning in a language are called morphemes. For example, in the word 'boys', 'boy' is the main unit carrying the meaning while the 's' signifies the plural form, making 'boys' consist of two morphemes.
Morphemes are distinct from phonemes, which are the smallest units of sound in a language. Phonemes do not have inherent meaning but are combined to create morphemes, which do carry meaning. Additionally, lexemes are the set of all forms taken by a single morpheme, such as 'run', 'runs', 'ran', and 'running'. Finally, graphemes are the smallest units of written language that represent phonemes; for example, the letter 's' in 'boys' is a grapheme that represents the phoneme .