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Reference.org
Determinative
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<p>A determinative, also known as a taxogram or semagram, is an <a href="/facts/Ideogram/7NvclbIG">ideogram</a> used to mark <a href="/facts/Semantics/1L4WwLAP">semantic</a> categories of words in <a href="/facts/Logograph/wWYAITGc">logographic</a> scripts which helps to disambiguate interpretation. They have no direct counterpart in spoken language, though they may derive historically from glyphs for real words, and functionally they resemble <a href="/facts/Classifier_(linguistics)/nWVQKzbz">classifiers</a> in East Asian and sign languages. For example, Egyptian hieroglyphic determinatives include symbols for divinities, people, parts of the body, animals, plants, and books/abstract ideas, which helped in reading but were not pronounced. </p>