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217 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
- 3rd side (hint)
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ablative
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The case typically assigned to objects of prepositions denoting instruments or sources.
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ablaut
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Internal vowel change. Also known as apophony.
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absolutive
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In an ergative-absolutive case system, the case that is assigned to the subject of an intransitive clause and the object of a transitive clause.
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accusative
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In a nominative-accusative case system, the case assigned to the direct object of the clause, and in some languages to objects of prepositions.
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acronym
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A word made up of the initial letter or letters of a phrase and pronounced as a word. For example, from self-contained underwater breathing apparatus we get the acronym scuba, pronounced [skubə].
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active
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A voice in which the subject of the clause is (typically) the agent, instrument, or experiencer and the direct object the theme or patient. In English an active clause would be Fenster ate the pizza, as opposed to a passive The pizza was eaten.
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adjuncts
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Non-argumental phrases that are not necessary to the meaning of a verb.
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affix
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A bound morpheme that consists of one or more segments that typically appear before, after, or within, a base morpheme.
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affixal polysemy
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Multiple related meanings of an affix.
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agent
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The argument of the verb that performs or does the action. Agents typically
are sentient and have intentional or volitional control of actions. |
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ablative
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The case typically assigned to objects of prepositions denoting instruments or sources.
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ablaut
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Internal vowel change. Also known as apophony.
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absolutive
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In an ergative-absolutive case system, the case that is assigned to the subject of an intransitive clause and the object of a transitive clause.
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accusative
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In a nominative-accusative case system, the case assigned to the direct object of the clause, and in some languages to objects of prepositions.
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acronym
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A word made up of the initial letter or letters of a phrase and pronounced as a word. For example, from self-contained underwater breathing apparatus we get the acronym scuba, pronounced [skubə].
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active
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A voice in which the subject of the clause is (typically) the agent, instrument, or experiencer and the direct object the theme or patient. In English an active clause would be Fenster ate the pizza, as opposed to a passive The pizza was eaten.
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adjuncts
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Non-argumental phrases that are not necessary to the meaning of a verb.
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affix
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A bound morpheme that consists of one or more segments that typically appear before, after, or within, a base morpheme.
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affixal polysemy
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Multiple related meanings of an affix.
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agent
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The argument of the verb that performs or does the action. Agents typically
are sentient and have intentional or volitional control of actions. |
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agglutinative
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One of the four traditional classifications of morphological systems. Agglutinative systems are characterized by sequences of affixes each of which is easily segmentable from the base and associated with a single meaning or grammatical function.
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agrammatism
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A form of aphasia in which comprehension is good, production is labored, and grammatical or function words largely absent.
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agreement
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Contextual inflection of elements of a phrase or sentence to match another element of that phrase or sentence. For example, in the Romance languages the inflection of adjectives in a noun phrase must match the gender and number of the head noun. In Latin the verb must be inflected to match the person and number of its subject.
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allomorph
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A phonologically distinct variant of a morpheme.
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analytic
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One of the traditional four classifications of morphological systems. In analytic systems words consist of only one morpheme. Also known as isolating.
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anti-passive
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Morphology that decreases the valency of verbs by eliminating the object argument.
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apophony
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Internal vowel change. Also known as ablaut.
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applicative
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Morphology that increases the valency of a verb by adding an object argument.
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argument
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A noun phrase that is semantically and often syntactically necessary to the meaning of a verb. The arguments of a verb consist of its subject and complement(s).
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aspect
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A type of inflection that conveys information about the internal composition of an event.
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assimilation
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A phonological process in which segments come to be more like each other in some phonological feature such as voicing or nasality.
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attenuative affixes
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Affixes that denote ‘sort of X’ or ‘a little X’.
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attributive compound
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A compound in which the two elements bear a modifier-modified relationship to one another.
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augmentative
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A kind of expressive morphology which conveys notions of larger size and sometimes pejorative tone.
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backformation
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A morphological process in which a word is formed by subtracting a piece, usually an affix, from a word which is or appears to be complex. In English, for example, the verb peddle was created by back formation from peddler (originally spelled peddlar).
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base-driven selection
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Choice of an affix by its base, whether a simple or complex word. For example, in English, words prefixed by en- always form nouns by suffixation of -ment. The complex base enX therefore selects its affix.
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binyan
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A templatic pattern associated with a specific meaning or function.
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blend
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A type of word formation in which parts of words that are not themselves morphemes are combined to form a new word. For example, the word smog is a blend of smoke and fog.
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blocking
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The tendency of an already existent word to preclude the derivation of another word that would have the same meaning. For example, the existence of the word glory precludes the derivation of gloriosity and the existence of went precludes the formation of the regular past tense goed.
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bound base
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A morpheme which is not an affix but which nevertheless cannot stand on its own. In English, bound bases are items like endo, derm, and ology, from which neo-classical compounds like endoderm and dermatology are formed.
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bracketing paradoxes
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Complex words in which there is a mismatch between syntactic structure and phonological form or between syntactic structure and semantic interpretation. Within theories that admit stratal ordering, bracketing paradoxes can also involve mismatches between the structure required on the basis of word formation rules and the structure consistent with stratal ordering.
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case
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Inflectional marking which signals the function of noun phrases in sentences.
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causative
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Valency-changing morphology that adds an external causer to a verb.
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circumfix
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A morpheme that consists of the simultaneous attachment of a prefix and a suffix which convey meaning or function only when they appear together.
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clipping
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A word formed by subtraction of part of a larger word. For example, in English math is a clipping from mathematics and ad is a clipping from advertisement.
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clitic
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Small grammatical elements that cannot occur independently but are not as closely bound to their hosts as inflectional affixes are.
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closed class
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A fixed list from which particular forms can be lost, but to which no new forms can be added.
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coinage
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A word that is made up from whole cloth rather than by affixation, compounding, conversion, blending, reduplication, or other processes.
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completive
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An aspectual distinction that focuses on the end of an event.
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complex word
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A word made up of more than one morpheme.
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Complexity Based Ordering
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The hypothesis that suffixes which are more transparent, more productive, and more easily segmented from their bases will occur outside those that are less transparent, less productive, and less easily segmented from their bases.
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compositional
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The semantic interpretation of a word is compositional to the extent that it can be computed as the sum of the meanings of each of its morphemes.
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compound
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A word made up of two or more separate lexemes.
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conjugation
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The traditional name for the inflectional paradigm of a verb.
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consonant mutation
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A form of internal stem change in which consonants of a base differ systematically in different morphological contexts.
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contextual inflection
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Inflection which is determined by the syntactic construction in which a word finds itself.
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continuative
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An aspectual distinction that focuses on the middle of an event as it progresses.
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conversion
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A type of word formation in which the category of a base is changed with no corresponding change in its form. For example, in English the verb to chair is formed by conversion from the noun chair. Also called functional shift.
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coordinative compound
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A type of compound in which the two elements have equal semantic weight. Examples in English are producer-director or blue-green.
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corpus
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A database comprised of spoken language and/or written texts that can be mined for various forms of linguistic study.
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cran morph
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A bound morpheme that occurs in only one word. An example in English is cran in cranberry.
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creativity
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The conscious use of unproductive word formation processes to form new words that are often perceived as humorous, annoying, or otherwise worthy of note.
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dative
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In languages which mark case, the case assigned to the indirect object and frequently to objects of prepositions.
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declarative
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The mood/modality of ordinary statements (as opposed to questions or imperatives, for example).
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declension
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The traditional name for the inflectional paradigm of a noun, especially in languages that display case marking.
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default endings
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Inflectional markings that are used when no more specific marking is applicable.
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dependent-marking
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Morphological marking of the dependents of a phrase rather than its head. For example, in noun phrases marking occurs on determiners and adjectives rather than the noun.
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derivation
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Lexeme formation processes that either change syntactic category or add substantial meaning or both.
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diminutive
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Evaluative morphology that expresses smallness, youth, and/or affection.
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dissimilation
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A phonological process in which sounds come to be less alike in terms of some phonological characteristic.
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double marking
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Morphological marking of both the head of a phrase and its dependents. For example, in a noun phrase marking would occur on both the head noun and on adjectives and/or determiners that modify it.
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dual
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Number-marking that denotes exactly two objects.
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enclitic
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A clitic that is positioned after its host.
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endocentric
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Having a head. In endocentric compounds the compound as a whole is the same category and semantic type as its head.
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ergative
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In an ergative/absolutive case system, the marking of the subject of a transitive verb.
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ergative/absolutive case system
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A case-marking system in which the subject of an intransitive verb is marked with the same case as the object of a transitive verb, and the subject of a transitive verb receives a different marking.
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etymology
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The study of the origins and development of words.
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evaluative affixes
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Affixes, including diminutives and augmentatives, that denote size and/or negative or positive associations.
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evaluative morphology
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Morphology that conveys information about size and frequently also about positive or negative valuation.
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exclusive
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Person-marking in which the hearer is not included.
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exocentric
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Lacking a head. In exocentric compounds the compound as a whole is not of the category or semantic type of either of its elements.
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fast mapping
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The ability of language-learners to rapidly create lexical entries for new words that they hear.
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free base
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A base that can occur as an independent word.
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frequency of base type
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The number of different bases that are available for an affix to attach to,
thus resulting in new words. |
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frequentative
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Aspectual marking that signals repetition of an action. See also iterative.
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full reduplication
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A word formation process in which whole words are repeated to denote some inflectional or derivational meaning.
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functional shift
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See conversion.
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fusional
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One of the four traditional classifications of morphological systems. In fusional systems words are complex but not easily segmentable into distinct morphemes. Morphological markings may bear more than one function or meaning.
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Gavagai problem
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A philosophical problem concerning how children come to associate the meaning of a word with the action or entity the word denotes.
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gender
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Inflectional classes of noun that may be either arbitrary (grammatical gender) or semantically based (natural gender). See also noun classes.
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genitive
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The case assigned to the possessor of a noun.
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habilitative
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A verb form meaning ‘can V’.
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habitual aspect
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Aspectual marking that designates that an action is usually or characteristically
done. |
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hapax legomenon
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A word that occurs only once in a corpus.
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head
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The morpheme that determines the category and semantic type of the word or phrase.
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head-marking
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Morphological marking of the head of a phrase rather than its dependents. For example, in noun phrases marking occurs on the noun itself, rather than on determiners and adjectives that modify the noun.
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imperative
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The mood/modality used for commands.
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imperfective
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Aspectual distinction in which the event is viewed from inside as on-going.
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implicational universal
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In linguistic typology a generalization that if one linguistic characteristic is found in a language, another characteristic is expected to occur as well.
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inceptive
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Aspectual distinction that focuses on the beginning of an event.
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inclusive
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Person-marking that includes the hearer as well as the speaker.
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index of fusion
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Typological measure of how many meanings may be packed into a single inflectional morpheme in a language.
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index of synthesis
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Typological measure of how many morphemes there are per word in a language.
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infix
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An affix which is inserted into a base morpheme, rather than occurring at the beginning or the end.
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inflection
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Word formation process that expresses a grammatical distinction.
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inflectional class
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Different inflectional subpatterns displayed by a category. See also noun classes, gender.
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inherent inflection
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Inflection that does not depend on context. For example, the inflectional category of aspect is inherent in verbs. The inflectional category of number is inherent in nouns.
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initialism
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A word created from the first letters of a phrase, and pronounced as a sequence of letters. For example, FBI is an initialism created from Federal Bureau of Investigation, and pronounced [ɛf bi ai].
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interfix
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See linking element.
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internal stem change
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Morphological process which changes a vowel or consonant in the stem. Also sometimes called simulfixation. Internal vowel change is called ablaut and internal consonant change is called consonant mutation.
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interrogative
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The mood/modality of questions.
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intervocalic voicing
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A phonological process which voices consonants when they occur between two vowels.
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intransitive
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The valency of a verb that takes only one argument.
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irrealis
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A mood/modality signaling that an event is imagined or thought of but not verifiable.
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isolating
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See analytic.
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Item and Arrangement Model (IA)
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A theoretical model of word formation in which affixes have lexical entries just as bases do, and words are built by rules which combine bases and affixes hierarchically.
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Item and Process Model (IP)
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A theoretical model of word formation in which derivation and inflection are accomplished by rules that add affixes, or perform reduplication, internal stem change, and other processes of word formation.
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iterative
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Aspectual distinction that signals that an action is done repeatedly. See also frequentative.
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jargon aphasia
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A form of language impairment in which the subject produces fluent sentences in which function words are evident but content words are often replaced by nonsense words.
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lexeme
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Families of words that differ only in their grammatical endings or grammatical forms. For example, the words walk, walking, walked, and walks all belong to the same lexeme.
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Lexical Contrast Principle
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The principle that the language learner will always assume that a new word refers to something that does not already have a name.
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Lexical Integrity Hypothesis
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The hypothesis that syntactic rules may not create or affect the internal structure of words.
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lexical strata
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Layers of word formation within a single language that display different phonological properties and different patterns of attachment.
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lexicalization
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The process by which complex words come to have meanings that are not compositional.
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lexicalized
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The property of having a meaning that is not the sum of the meanings of its parts.
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lexicography
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The art and science of making dictionaries. Lexicographer
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One who writes dictionaries.
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linking element
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A meaningless vowel or consonant that occurs between the two elements that make up a compound.
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logographic writing
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A writing system in which each symbol stands for one word.
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mental lexicon
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The sum total of all the information a native speaker of a language has about the words, morphemes, and morphological rules of her/his language.
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mood/modality
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Inflectional distinctions that signal the kind of speech act in which a verb is deployed.
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morpheme
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The smallest meaningful part of a word.
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multiple exponence
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The property of having an inflectional distinction marked in a single word by more than one morpheme.
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Mutual Exclusivity Principle
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The tendency of language learners to assume that each object has one and only one name.
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nasal assimilation
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A phonological process in which a nasal assimilates to the point of articulation of a preceding or following consonant.
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negative affix
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An affix that means ‘not-X’.
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neo-classical compound
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In English, a compound that consists of bound bases that are derived from Greek or Latin.
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nominative
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In a nominative/accusative case system, the case assigned to the subject of
the sentence. |
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nominative/accusative case system
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A case system in which the subject of a transitive sentence receives the same marking a the subject of an intransitive sentence, and the object of a transitive sentence receives a different case.
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nonce word
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A word that occurs only once.
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noun classes
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Groupings of nouns that share the particular inflectional forms that they select for. Noun classes can be based roughly on gender, shape, animacy or some combination of these semantic properties, but frequently the membership in noun classes is largely arbitrary.
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noun incorporation
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A form of word formation in which a single compound-like word consists of a verb or verb stem and a noun or noun stem that functions as one of its arguments, typically its object.
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number
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An inflectional distinction that marks how many entities there are.
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orthography
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The spelling system of a language.
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palatalization
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A phonological process by which one segment takes on a palatal point of articulation, frequently in the environment of a front vowel.
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paradigm
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A grid or table consisting of all of the different inflectional forms of a particular lexeme or class of lexemes.
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parasynthesis
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A type of word formation in which a particular morphological category is signaled by the simultaneous presence of two morphemes.
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partial reduplication
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A type of word formation in which part of a base morpheme is repeated.
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passive
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A voice in which the theme/patient of the verb serves as the subject and the agent is either absent or marked by a preposition or oblique case marking.
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past
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Tense that signals that an action has occurred before the time of the speaker’s utterance.
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patient
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The noun phrase in a sentence that undergoes the action.
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perfect
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An aspectual distinction that expresses something that happened in the past but still has relevance to the present.
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perfective
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An aspect in which an event is viewed as completed. The event is viewed from the outside, and its internal structure is not relevant.
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periphrastic marking
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Marking by means of separate words, as opposed to morphological processes. For example, in English one- or two-syllable adjectives form the comparative by affixation of -er (redder, happier) but three-syllable adjectives form their comparatives periphrastically (more intelligent).
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person
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Inflectional distinction that expresses the involvement of the speaker, the hearer, or a person other than the speaker or hearer.
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personal affix
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Derivational affixes that produce either agent nouns (writer, accountant) or patient nouns referring to humans (employee).
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PET (positron emission tomography) scan
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An imaging technique that measures the level of blood flow to different parts of the brain, which in turn shows us areas of activation in those parts.
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phrasal compound
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A compound that consists of a phrase or sentence as its first element and a noun as its second element. For example, stuff-blowing-up effects.
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phrasal verb
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A combination of a verb plus a preposition, frequently having an idiomatic meaning. Phrasal verbs have the characteristic that the preposition can and sometimes must occur separated from its verb. For example, call up.
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polysynthetic
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One of the four traditional typological classifications of morphological systems. In polysynthetic languages words are frequently extremely complex, consisting of many morphemes, some of which have meanings that are typically expressed by separate lexemes in other languages.
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progressive
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Aspectual distinction that expresses on-going action.
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prepositional/ relational affix
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Affixes that convey notions of space and time. For example, over-, pre-.
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present
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Tense relating the speaker’s utterance to the moment of speaking.
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privative affixes
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Affixes that denote ‘without X’ (for example -less in English) or ‘remove X’ (for example de- in English).
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proclitic
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A clitic that is positioned before its host.
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productivity
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The extent to which a morphological process can be used to create new words.
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quantificational aspect
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An aspect denoting the number of times or the frequency with which an action is done.
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quantitative affixes
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Affixes that express something relating to amount (for example, multi- or -ful in English).
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realis
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A mood/modality in which the speaker means to signal that the event is actual, that it has happened or is happening, or is directly verifiable by perception.
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realizational model
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A theoretical model of word formation that does not separate out morphemes into discrete pieces, but rather states rules that associate meanings (single or multiple) with complex forms.
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reduplication
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A morphological process whereby words are formed by repeating all or part of their base.
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Righthand Head Rule
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A theoretical hypothesis that defines the head of a morphologically complex word to be the righthand member of that word.
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root
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The part of a word that is left after all affixes have been removed. Roots may be free bases, as is frequently the case in English, or bound morphemes, as is the case in Latin.
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root and pattern morphology
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See templatic morphology.
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root compound
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A compound in which the head element is not derived from a verb (cf. synthetic compound). Dog bed, windmill, blue-green, and stir-fry are root compounds.
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semelfactive
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An aspectual distinction that expresses that an action is done just once.
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separable prefix verb
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A kind of verb found in Dutch and German which consists of two parts which frequently together have an idiomatic meaning and which occur as one word in some syntactic contexts but separated from each other in other syntactic contexts.
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simple clitic
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A clitic that appears in the same position as the independent word of which it is a variant. In English, the contractions ’ll and ’d are simple clitics.
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simplex
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Consisting of one morpheme.
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simulfix
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See internal stem change.
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special clitic
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A clitic that is not a reduced form of an independent word. The object pronouns in Romance languages are examples of special clitics.
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Specific Language Impairment (SLI)
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A genetic disorder in which individuals display normal intelligence and have no hearing impairment but are slow to produce and understand language, and display speech characterized by the omission of various inflectional morphemes.
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speech act
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Ways in which we can use words to perform actions, for example, asking a question or giving a command.
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stem
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The part of a word that is left when all inflectional endings are removed.
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Stratal Ordering Hypothesis
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The hypothesis that English morphology is divided into levels, each of which is comprised of a set of affixes and phonological rules. Strata are strictly ordered with respect to each other such that the rules of an earlier stratum cannot apply to the output of a later stratum.
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strong verb
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In Germanic languages, verbs whose past tenses and past participles are formed by internal stem change.
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subjunctive
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A mood/modality that is used to express counterfactual situations or situations expressing desire.
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subordinative compound
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A compound in which one element bears an argumental relation to the other. Compounds like truck driver or dog attack in English are subordinative.
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suppletion
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An instance in which one or more of the inflected forms of a lexeme are built on a base that bears no relationship to the base of other members of the paradigm.
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syncretism
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An instance in which two or more cells in a paradigm are filled with the same form
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synthetic compound
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A compound in which the head is derived from a verb and the non-head bears an argumental relationship to the head. Examples of synthetic compounds in English are truck driver and hand washing.
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template
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In a root and pattern system of morphology, a pattern of consonants and vowels that is associated with some meaning.
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templatic morphology
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A kind of morphological process in which words are derived by means of arranging morphemes according to meaningful patterns of consonants and vowels or templates. Also called root and pattern morphology, simulfixation or transfixation.
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tense
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Inflectional morphology that gives information about the time of an action.
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theme
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The noun phrase in a sentence that gets moved by the action.
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theme vowel
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In languages like Latin and the Romance languages, the vowel that attaches to the root before inflectional and derivational affixes are added.
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token
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In counting words in a text or corpus, each instance of a word counts as a token of that word. This gives the raw number of words that occur with a particular affix.
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transfix
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See templatic morphology.
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transitive
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A valency in which a verb takes two arguments, generally a subject and object.
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transparent process
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A morphological process resulting in words that can be easily segmented such that there is a one-to-one correspondence between form and meaning.
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transpositional affixes
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Affixes that change syntactic category without adding meaning.
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triliteral root
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A root consisting of three consonants. These typically occur in the templatic morphology of the Semitic languages.
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type
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In counting words in a text or corpus, only the first instance of each word is counted. This gives the number of types with a particular affix.
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typology
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Linguistic subfield that attempts to classify languages according to kinds of structures, and to find correlations between structures and genetic or areal characteristics.
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umlaut
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Phonological process in which the vowel of the base is fronted or raised under the influence of a high vowel in the following syllable.
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Unitary Base Hypothesis
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The theoretical hypothesis that affixes will not select bases of more than one category.
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usefulness
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The extent to which a morphological process produces words that are needed by speakers.
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valency
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The number of arguments selected by a verb.
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voice
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A category of inflection that allows different arguments to be focused in sentences. In active voice sentences, the agent is typically focused because it is the subject, and is passive sentences, the patient is focused because it is the subject.
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voicing assimilation
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A phonological process whereby segments come to be voiced in the environment of voiced segments or voiceless in the environment of voiceless segments.
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vowel harmony
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A phonological process whereby all the vowels of a word come to agree in some phonological feature, for example in backness or rounding.
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weak verb
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In the Germanic languages, verbs that form their past tenses and participles by suffixation.
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Whole Object Principle
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The principle that word learners will not assume that a new word refers to a part of the object or its color or shape if they do not already have a word for the object as a whole.
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Williams Syndrome
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A genetic disorder in which individuals (in addition to certain physical traits and some developmental delay) speak fluently and produce sentences with correct regular past tenses, but have more trouble with irregular ones.
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word
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A linguistic unit made up of one or more morphemes that can stand alone in a language.
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Word and Paradigm Model (WP)
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See realizational model.
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word forms
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Differently inflected forms that belong to the same lexeme. For example, walks, walking, walk, and walked are all word forms that belong to the same lexeme.
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zero affixation
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An analysis of conversion in which a change of part of speech or semantic
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