Meaning & use
Rheme
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In linguistics, the part of a sentence or clause that provides new information, as opposed to the 'theme,' which is the already-known starting point.
See it in a sentence
In the sentence 'The cat sat on the mat,' the phrase 'on the mat' functions as the rheme, adding new information.
Linguists analyze theme and rheme to understand how information flows through a text.
A note on using this word
Central to functional sentence perspective, a framework developed by the Prague School of linguistics.
Words with a similar meaning
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Words with an opposite meaning
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