Meaning is definable by environment. [...] The meaning of every word and phrase has to be learned from its sociolinguistic setting.
- Nida (1949), a pag.152

[...] there are three functional types of symbolization: (1) signals for objects (this is in broadest sense of the term), (2) signal for classes of signals (these are pronouns and other types of substitutes), and (3) signals for relationships between signals. To define the meaning of any of these types of symbols we must refer to the environment in which they are employed. In the first instance, we refer to the practical world and to the subjective reactions of speakers to the signals for practical-world objects. in the second two instances, we refer to the linguistic environment.
- Nida (1949), a pag.154

First, we may depict the meaning of any morpheme as an area, and plot the central (or primary) meaning and then describe various peripheral meanings; or, secondly, we may describe each morpheme as having a 'sememe' (cf. the root 'sem-' of 'semantics'), and each sememe (the meaningful contrastivness of any morpheme) would then be subdivided into 'allosemes'.
- Nida (1949), a pag.155