A semiotic paradigmatic analysis breaks a syntagm into its constituent paradigm and then considers the role of each element and the roles of the relationships among the elements in establishing the meaning of the syntagm.

Paradigmatic analyses are static (sometimes called "synchronic") in that they "freeze" the syntagm in time in order to deconstruct it into its elements. An dynamic (sometimes called "diachronic") approach is also available -- it is called syntagmatic analysis.