Mythème

Neologism coined by Levi-Strauss by analogy with phoneme, and used to describe the elementary units employed in the structural analysis of myths.

Like Saussure's signs, mytheme are created by binary or ternary oppositions and are analogous with the functions identified by Propp in his morphology of the folk tale.

Mythemes are to be identified with functions, and not with the characters of mythical tales.