The Cambridge History of the English Language Volume 2 part 10 pptx

Glossary of linguistic terms agglutinative Of a language or form that strings out grammatical morphs in sequence with only one category represented on each, e.g. cats' cat + plural'. agreement See concord, allograph See grapheme. allomorph Different realisations of the same morpheme, e.g. /z/ in dogs and /s/ in cats are different allomorphs of the PDE plural morpheme. allophone The particular individual sounds or phones which are all members of the same phoneme. In PDE [p] and [p h ] are allophones of the phoneme /?/• ambisyllabic A phonological term referring to a sound which belongs to both of two abutting syllables, like the medial /t/ in sitting. analogy A term referring to the historical process whereby irregular forms are replaced by regular ones. In morphophonology the process usually involves either the extension of a change, which permits it to occur where it should not phonologically speaking, or the levelling of a change so that it does not occur where it might have been expected. A typical analogical form is PDE roofs with final /fs/ alongside rooves with final /vs/ showing allomorphic variation of the root. analytic A term referring to language or even grammatical categories to indicate an organisation through separate words in a particular order rather than one through affixes in words, which is referred to as synthetic. Grammatically, more lovely is analytic as compared with loveli-er, which is synthetic. anaphoric A term used of linguistic elements, such as pronouns, which have no referential meaning of their own, that refer back to another constituent within the clause or discourse. (Cataphoric elements are those which refer forwards.) In / saw John and then he left, the he is an anaphoric pronoun referring back to John. anchor (text) A term in historical dialectology referring to those historical texts whose provenance can be plotted on non-linguistic evidence and can therefore be considered secure. antepenult A term referring to the third last syllable in a word. anthroponym The name of a person; hence anthroponymj is the study of such names. aorist One of the past-tense forms of the Greek verbs not marked for aspect, and usually represented in English by the simple past, e.g. walked, ran. In linguistic discussions the issue is most often the phonological shape rather than the semantic nature of the aorist. 608 Glossary of linguistic terms aphetic The loss of a short unaccented vowel at the beginning of a word, e.g. esquire I squire. apocope Deletion of word-final vowel(s). apposition A syntactic construction in which there is a sequence of two constituents with the same grammatical role and semantic reference, as in 7, Henry Smith, declare , in which Henry Smith is in apposition to I. argument A term used of a noun phrase which is a member of the predicate. argument structure A term used of the configuration in which a predicate may occur, i.e. it consists of a verb and its dependants. artes praedicandi Rhetorical manuals for writing sermons. aspect A category indicating the manner by which the grammar of a language refers to the duration or type of temporal activity of a verb. In English the clearest aspectual contrast is between perfective and imperfective (as in 7 have read the book compared with 7 read the book). assimilation A phonological process by which two sounds become closer in pronunciation. asyndetic Formed by apposition only, without preposition, inflection or other linking device. See also parataxis. athematic See theme. auxiliary verb A ' helping' verb such as PDE may, can, have, be, do. It typically carries information about tense, aspect or modality. back-derivation The morphological process by which a shorter word is formed by the deletion of a morpheme interpreted as an affix, e.g. peddle < pedlar. bahuvrihi A compound in which the semantic reference of the compound is to an entity to which neither of its elements refers. Structurally bahuvrihi compounds are exocentric. baptismal name An onomastic term referring in ME to the primary component in a personal-name phrase, since any by-name was at this time a secondary, and optional, addition. base See root. bilingual The property of being proficient in two languages; contrast diglossia. bimoric See mora. 609 Glossary of linguistic terms by-name An onomastic term used of any qualifying phrase apposed (usually postposed) to an idionym or a baptismal name to prevent misun- derstanding of which person is referred to. In Richard the Redeless, the phrase the Redeless is the by-name which specifies which Richard is intended. cataphoric See anaphoric. causative A verb expressing as part of its meaning the sense 'cause to' e.g. set 'cause to sit'. chain shift A sequence of changes in which one change is claimed to depend on another or others. The most notable example is the Great Vowel Shift. Christian name A baptismal name taken from the name of a biblical character or saint. cleft construction A construction in which a clause is divided into two parts, each with its own verb, e.g. It's John who left compared with John left. clitic A form which in general depends upon the existence of a neighbouring lexical item. In phonology and morphophonology a clitic is always attached to another unit. If attached at the front it is a proclitic, e.g. ne is > nis; and if attached at the end it is an enclitic, e.g. PDE is not > isn't. Syntactically, the is a clitic because it demands the existence of a noun. But a syntactic clitic can also be an unstressed element like a pronoun whose behaviour differs from full nouns in that it can take up an exceptional position in the clause. coda That portion of rhyme of a syllable following the peak or nucleus as the /t/ in cat /kwt/ (simple) or the /mpst/ in glimpsed /glimpst/ (complex). See further chapter 2, section 2.5.1. cognate A language or form which has the same source as another language or form, e.g. English and German are cognate languages as both have the same source, namely Germanic. colligation The relationship between linguistic items at both lexical and syntactic levels, as in dark night or blue sky. The term is frequently confused with collocation. collocation The habitual co-occurrence of lexical items in the speech chain irrespective of whether they are syntactically related. Collocates constitute a lexical set of words which frequently co-occur. compensatory lengthening The phonological process by which one phonetic segment (usually a vowel) is lengthened to compensate for the loss of a following segment in the same syllable. complement A clause functioning as a noun phrase dependent on a transitive verb, e.g. / believe that you are right. 610 Glossary of linguistic terms complementiser Grammatical markers that occur in initial position to introduce a complement or an infinitive. In 1 believe that you are right the complementiser is that which introduces the complement (that)you are right. composite (text) A text which contains the linguistic forms of two or more scribes who have written different parts of it. concord The formal relationship between one or more units whereby the form of one word dictates a corresponding form or grammatical category in another word. In PDE the verb is marked for number in the third person to correspond to the number of the subject, e.g. he walks, but they walk. concrete case A form that marks a semantically definable case function such as location (ablative or dative), direction (accusative) or source (genitive). conjugation The set of inflectional forms or paradigm of a verb; a class of verbs whose forms are generally the same in some major respect, e.g. the weak conjugation. connotation A term used to mean the peripheral significances of a lexical item such as affective or emotional associations. conspiracy A set of rules or changes that are formally unrelated but appear to 'act in concert' or 'serve a single goal', e.g. lengthenings or shortenings whose effect is to favour certain syllable types to the exclusion of others. constraint(s) The arbitrary and usually subconscious limits to the amount of variation tolerated in individual forms or structures within a particular dialect or speech community at a spoken or written level. context A term broadly understood to include all the circumstances relevant to any particular occurrence of a linguistic item, whether verbal, situational, social or psychological. continental A term used in onomastics as a portmanteau description (in contradistinction to insular) of the types of baptismal name favoured by post-Conquest immigrants, mainly ones of Continental Germanic and of Christian types but also including some Breton and Normano-Scandinavian forms. contracted verbs A set of verbs in which the stem and inflection have become fused as a result of the loss of a stem-final consonant. copula A linking verb, typically a verb of being, e.g. This is a glossary. copulative co-ordination The linking of two co-ordinate clauses by means of a semantically neutral conjunction (typically and). correlative A construction in which the relationship between two or more units is marked on each unit, e.g. either or. 611 Glossary of linguistic terms co-text A term which contrasts with context by referring only to the verbal context accompanying the occurrence of a linguistic item. creole A pidgin language which is the mother-tongue of a group of speakers. de-adjectival Formed from adjectives by morphophonemic processes. declension See paradigm. degemination The phonological process whereby a double consonant is reduced to a single one. deictic Of an item reflecting the orientation of discourse participants in time and space, normally with reference to the speaker, along a proximal (toward-speaker) versus distal (away-from-speaker) axis, e.g. I:jou; this: that; present: past. demonstrative A deictic pronoun or adjective like this or that. denotation The meaning of a lexical item free of co-text, which, though imprecise, is partially determined by cultural norms. Although usually contrasted with connotation, in chapter 5 it is also contrasted with sense. derivation See morpheme. determiner The term covering articles, demonstratives and quantifiers. diachronic A term used to refer to linguistic differences through time. diacritic A term used of a mark or letter which has no phonetic value in itself, but which modifies the phonetic realisation of a graph. diatopic A term which contrasts with diachronic and refers to linguistic differences existing at a particular point in time. dictamen A rhetorical manual advocating formulas and styles for particular genres. diglossia The state where two radically different varieties of a language co- exist in a single speech community. In German-speaking Switzerland both High German and Swiss German exist; and in Britain a diglossic situation exists in some parts of Scotland where both Scots and Scottish English are used. digraph A combination of two graphs (as a trigraph is of three graphs) to represent a single graphic unit, as PDE <th> in the as compared with the sequence of these two graphs separately in hotheaded. diphthong A vowel in which there is a noticeable change in quality during the duration of its articulation in any syllable. The diphthong is usually 612 Glossary of linguistic terms transcribed by means of the starting- and finishing-points of articulation. It may have prominence on the first (Jailing diphthong) or the second (rising diphthong) element, though the former is more common in all periods of English. The term diphthongisation refers to the process by which a monophthong becomes a diphthong. direct argument See structural case. dissimilation A phonological process by which two (nearly-)adjacent and similar or identical sounds are made less similar; cf. Lat. peregrinus and PDE pilgrim where the first /r/ is dissimilated to /I/. distal See deictic. distribution There are two important types of distribution: (a) comp- lementary distribution, where the environment in which the two elements may occur consists of two disjoint sets, each associated with only one element; and (b) contrastive distribution where the environment consists of two overlapping sets. In PDE /p/ and /b/ contrast, for they can occur in the same environment, while [1] and [1] are in complementary distribution. dithematic An onomastic term used of a name formed from two Germanic name themes. ditransitive A term referring to verbs which can take two objects. These may be both direct objects (in OE two accusatives) or a direct and an indirect object (in OE an accusative and a dative). The term contrasts with monotransitive verbs, which can take only one object. dual A term used of number category indicating 'two and only two' as opposed to the terms singular and plural. dummy A term referring to a formal element which is semantically empty but required syntactically, e.g. the do in Do you like coffee? dynamic See stative. enclitic See clitic. endocentric A term used of a construction in which one of the elements is functionally equivalent to the construction as a whole, i.e. acts as head. In a noun group such as the tall man the head is man and could stand for the whole group. epenthesis A phonological process by which a segment is inserted between two other segments. PDE empty contains an epenthetic /p/, cf. OE wmtig. epistemic A term referring to the semantics of probability, possibility and 6,3 Glossary of linguistic terms belief. The sentence They must be married'implies the sense {From what is known to me) I conclude that they are married. existential A copula construction which refers to being in existence (e.g. There is a plant on my windowsill) rather than to definition (e.g. The plant is drooping). exocentric A type of construction in which none of the elements is functionally equivalent to the group as a whole. Basic sentences are typically exocentric, for in The man fell neither the man not fell can act as a sentence itself. Cf. endocentric. exophoric reference In discourse, reference may be anaphoric, cataphoric or exophoric, which refers to the world outside the linguistic discourse itself. experiencer The semantic role of the noun group referring to an entity or person affected by the activity or state of the verb, e.g. jane in Jane knew the answer or jane heard the music. extraposition The process of moving a clause from its normal position to one near the end or beginning of another clause. Compare // was obvious that she had taken the book with That she had taken the book was obvious. factitive Of a verb indicating the 'bringing-into-existence' of a state, such as strengthen. finite A term used to describe a verb marked for tense and person/number. A finite clause contains a subject and a finite verb. fit In dialectology a term used of the technique for plotting dialect forms on a map to enable other texts to be fitted into an appropriate point on the map. foot A rhythmic unit of a stressed syllable and any other syllables to its right before the next stress; see chapter 2, section 2.5.1. foregrounding A term used in discourse analysis to refer to the relative prominence of an item, most often a clause. In the sentence While Donna played the piano John sang the first clause is the background and the second is foregrounded. gap A term used in syntax to refer to the absence of a unit in the clause where one might have been expected; thus the man is not repeated in That is the man they arrested yesterday. geminate A term used in phonology to describe a sequence of two identical segments which are each short but which together are interpreted as one long segment. It thus refers to a cluster of two identical vowels or consonants. 614 Glossary of linguistic terms gender There are two types of gender; (a) natural gender refers to the sex of the item; and (b) grammatical gender refers to the inflectional endings of items, particularly nouns, which are arbitrarily classified as masculine, feminine and neuter and which have no reference to natural gender. generic A term used to describe an expression where the whole class of referents is referred to, e.g. Cats are mammals, a cat is a mammal. glide A vocalic sound which occurs as the result of transition between one articulation and the next, as in the /a/ in PDE /biari/ beery. government A term referring to the government of the case forms of nouns or pronouns by verbs or prepositions. gradation The modification of a vowel in ablaut; and grade refers to the particular ablaut form of a vowel associated with a particular tense or tense/number form. grammaticalisation The process whereby a device developed for stylistic or topicalisation purposes or an element of full referential meaning comes to be employed as the regular grammatical exponent of a particular category. In English the change in use of the progressive form of verbs from a stylistic device to an expression of duration is an example of grammaticalisation. grapheme The minimal contrastive unit in the writing system of a language. Thus the grapheme <a> contrasts with the grapheme <b>, but each grapheme may take a variety of forms or allographs so that <a> may appear as < A, a, a, a > . hap ax legomenon A word which occurs only once in the relevant corpus. harmony A term used in phonology to indicate the process by which one segment in a string of segments is influenced by another segment in the same string so that some degree of assimilation takes place between the two. head The central or essential element in a larger unit, e.g. man in the large man. heavy syllable One whose rhyme consists of a short vowel plus two or more consonants or of a long vowel or diphthong (with or without following consonants), e.g. asp, eye. hiatus The abutting of two vowels belonging to adjacent syllables with no intervening consonant: (a) internally in a word as in royal, neon; and (b) between words as in the only, China is. homonymy A term describing the situation in which two distinct sig- nificances are represented by the same word form, either (a) phonologically as in mail I male (homophones), or (b) graphemically as in wind as verb and noun (homographs). 615 Glossary of linguistic terms homophone See homonymy. homorganic A term describing adjacent phonological segments which have the same place of articulation, as in PDE impossible. Its opposite is beterorganic, as in OE cnih±. hortative A term referring to expressions of exhortation and advice, e.g. Let's go. hypercorrection The term used to refer to the production of anomalous forms through the faulty imitation of prestige norms and their extension to inappropriate environments. For example, the dropping of initial /h/ in many dialects leads some speakers to add it to words which do not have it etymologically as in hable 'able' Hamsterdam 'Amsterdam'. hypermetric A term used in poetry to indicate that a line contains one or more stresses than the norm. hypocoristic A pet name, e.g. PDE Li^ie. hyponymy A semantic term referring to the hierarchical structure of meaning whereby the significance of several items is contained within that of a superordinate word. The significance of deer, rabbit, cat and dog may be said to be contained within the superordinate word animal. hypotaxis A term in syntax referring to the sequencing of constituents by means of subordinating conjunctions in contrast to parataxis. In the sentence He went to the cinema after he bought a newspaper, the two clauses are linked by the subordinating conjunction after. idionym A quasi-unique personal name, usually of Germanic origin, adequate for identification without recourse to by-naming, e.g. JEthelweard; by extension, sometimes used as equivalent to baptismal name. Cf. anthroponym. impersonal A construction lacking a subject, such as the archaic Metbinks. indicator A term in dialectology used to refer to those features of a dialect or dialects which best signal differences between one dialect and others. inflectional Pertaining to the marking of grammatical categories like case, number, tense, etc. on linguistic grounds. inherent case A case assigned at deep-structure level which is lexically determined. Its opposite is structural case. insular A term used in onomastics as a portmanteau description (in contrast to continental) of the types of baptismal name or idionym current in pre- Conquest England which are mainly of Old English, Anglo-Scandinavian, Welsh or Cornish origin. 616 Glossary of linguistic terms intensifier A word (usually an adverb) which has a heightening or lowering effect on the meaning of another element, e.g. PDE very. interlanguage A simplified or otherwise special variety of a language used between a fluent and less-fluent speaker of that language. interlinear gloss The translation of a text written usually on a word-for- word basis between the lines of the original with the glosses of each word appearing immediately above the corresponding words in the text. inverse spelling The term used of a graph whose phonetic value has changed over time which is then inserted into an environment where it is representationally 'correct', but historically not justified. When <gh> ceased to represent /x/, it was inserted into forms with no etymological /x/ such as delight < F deliter. isogloss A line on a dialect map separating a regionally distinct feature; a dialect boundary is made up of a bundle of isoglosses. kenning A type of compressed metaphor frequent in OE poetry, e.g. swanrad 'swan road' for the sea. laryngeal In phonetics this refers to a sound whose place of articulation is in the larynx. In Indo-European studies the term refers to a set of sounds which have been hypothesised for Proto-Indo-European. lengthening The phonological process by which a short vowel is converted into a long one. lexeme The minimal distinctive unit in the lexical system and the abstract unit underlying a set of grammatical variants; hence close to popular notions of a word. The forms sing, sings, sang and singing all belong to the lexeme sing; and the forms rose tree, beech tree, tree diagram are lexical units which are related through the lexeme tree. The head words in a dictionary are usually lexemes. lexical form The abstract lexical item underlying various word forms which differ only in inflections. lexical rule This refers to a local rule which identifies the idiosyncratic properties (morphological, syntactic, semantic) of a particular lexical item and the relationships between lexical items. A syntatic or structural rule is a general rule which applies to (a configuration of) syntactic categories irrespective of their (idiosyncratic) properties. See Wasow (1977). lexical unit colligations which share the same lexeme. 617 [...]... L (1983) English Word-formation Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 636 Bibliography Baugh, A C (1935) The chronology of French loan-words in English MLR 50:90-3 (1959) Improvisation in the Middle English romance Proceedings of the American Philological Society 103 : 418-54 Baugh, A C & T Cable (1978) A History of the English Language 3rd edn London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Bean, M C (1983) The Development... Studien 42: 339- 62 Bourcier, G (1981) An Introduction to the History of the English Language, tr and arranged by C Clark Cheltenham: Thornes Breal, M (1964) Semantics: Studies in the Science of Meaning, tr N Cust New York: Dover Breivik, L E (1981) On the interpretation of existential there Language 57: 1 -25 638 Bibliography Breivik, L E., A Hille & S Johansson (eds.) (1989) Essays on English Language. .. Brewer, 21 -41 and 168- 72 (1980b) Review of Reaney 1967 (rptd 1980) Nomina 4: 88-90 (1982a) The early personal names of King's Lynn: an essay in socio-cultural history, Part I: baptismal names Nomina 6: 51—71 (1982b) Review of Jonsjo 1979 ES 63: 168-70 (1983a) The early personal names of King's Lynn: an essay in sociocultural history, Part 2: by-names Nomina 7: 65-89 (1983b) On dating The Battle of Maldon:... Studies English Studies Folia Linguistica Historica Journal of English and Germanic Philology journal of the English Place-Name Society Journal of Linguistics Modern Language Notes Modern Language Review Modern Philology Namn och Bygd Neuphilologische Mitteilungen North-Western European Language Evolution Notes and Queries Publications of the Modern Language Association of America Review of English. .. system of a language Hence phonographic correspondence is the relation between the sounds of a language and the spelling system used to express them phonology The study of the sound systems of languages phonotactic A term in phonology referring to the constraints on the occurrence or sequence of phonemes in a language phrasal verb A verb + particle combination which acts syntactically and semantically... (1965) The linguistic situation in England from the Norman Conquest to the loss of Normandy Philologica Pragensia 8: 145-63 (Rptd Lass 1969.) (19 72) The period of the final decline of French in medieval England (fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries) ZAA 20 : 314-69 (1976) French and English in thirteenth-century England: an investigation into the linguistic situation after the loss of the Duchy of Normandy... syntax the distinction between theme and rheme is similar to the topic-comment contrast The theme constitutes that part of the sentence that presents given information and is the first major constituent of the clause The rheme contains new information and follows the theme; it is communicatively likely to be the most important element topicalisation The process by which particular attention is drawn... Honour of Bertil Sundby Oslo: Novus Brinton, L J (1981) The historical development of aspectual periphrasis in English PhD Thesis University of California (Ann Arbor, MI: University Microfilms.) (1983) Criteria for distinguishing the non-aspectual functions of ME ginnen General Linguistics 23 —4: 23 5—45 (1988) The Development of English Aspectual Systems: Aspectuali^ers and Postverbal Particles Cambridge: ... C B Hale (1964) The Middle English Metrical Romances 2 vols New York: Russell & Russell (First published 1930.) Furnivall, F J (18 82) The Fifty Earliest English Wills of the Court of Probate, London, A.D 1387-1439 (EETS 78.) London: Triibner (1901-3) Robert of Brunne'sHandlyngSynne 2 vols (EETS 119, 123 .) London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Triibner Gairdner, J (1 910) The Paston Letters 1 422 -1509 AD 4 vols... geographical contribution to the she puzzle ES 36: 20 8-17 Dobson, E J (19 62) The affiliations of the manuscripts of Ancrene Wisse In Davis & Wrenn, 128 -63 (1968) English Pronunciation 1500-1700 2nd edn 2 vols Oxford: Clarendon (1976) The Origins of Ancrene Wisse Oxford: Clarendon Dodgson, J McN (1968) Place-names and street-names at Chester, journal of the Chester Archaeological Society 55: 29 -61 (1985a) Some . to one of the PDE modals, with many of the semantic but not the syntactic properties of the PDE forms. 622 Glossary of linguistic terms premodifier In syntax an element which precedes the head. to express them. phonology The study of the sound systems of languages. phonotactic A term in phonology referring to the constraints on the occurrence or sequence of phonemes in a language. phrasal. background of the grammatical structures of a different ('target') language. The result is usually simplification in grammatical complexity of the target language, especially in the area of