'Grammatical' or 'linguistic meaning' depends on the occurrence of a form in significanti situations defined only or at least primarily in terms of the linguistic environments. [...] The linguistic meaning of a morpheme can be defined in terms of several criteria: (1) the types of construction in which it occurs, (2) its frequency of occurrence, and (3) its productiveness in new combinations. The first of these are linguistically the most meaningful
- Nida (1948), a pag.430

The linguistic meaning of 'boy' includes such facts as the following: 'boy' occurs as the subject of a sentence, the object of a verb, and the second member in a prepositional phrase, it combines with derivative formatives such as '-isch' ('boyisch'); and it occurs in an exclamatory phrase 'Oh boy!'. If we disregard entirely the biosocial distinction in the meanings of 'boy' and 'girl' , we can still say that the linguistic meaning of these two words differ in that 'boy' occurs in a type of exclamatory phrase from which 'girl' is excluded.
- Nida (1948), a pag.430