analogism

analogism (countable and uncountable, plural analogisms)

From Ancient Greek ἀναλογία (analogía) (from ἀνά (aná) + λόγος (lógos, “speech, reckoning”)) + -ism.

A large part of the modernization process consisted in lexicon building which relied on vocabulary creation using analogism and derivation from classical sources.

2014, Lotfi Sayahi, Diglossia and Language Contact, page 23:

It was long thought that these books represented a genuine debate among Greek grammarians—normally thought to be Pergamene (anti-analogist) and Alexandrian (analogist)—and that a conflict between analogism and anomalism was a dominant feature of Roman grammatical thought in Varro's day.

2018, James E.G. Zetzel, Critics, Compilers, and Commentators, page 42:

(linguistics) The belief that grammar is not arbitrary, but follows rules and patterns.


accent mark

Written Spanish uses acute accent marks very precisely, to show where the stress falls whenever it does not follow the default patterns; this practice is part of the highly phonemic nature of Spanish orthography.

The name of the French painter Paul Cézanne is written with an acute accent mark.

The Italian word è (which means "is") is written with a grave accent mark.

en:diacritical mark for stress or vowel quality

(linguistics, strictly) A diacritical mark or character used in writing to indicate the place of stress (spoken accent), or to indicate the nature or quality of the vowel marked (such as long vowel versus short vowel).

Student: Why does the word Čech have an accent mark on it?
Teacher: That mark is called a háček or caron. It tells the reader that the letter sounds like [ch] as in "church", not like [k] as in "carrot" or [s] as in "celery".

(linguistics, loosely) Any diacritical mark.


agnation

en-noun

agnation (countable and uncountable, plural agnations)


triphone

(phonetics) A triplet of adjacent phones.


mesiodistal

(linguistics) In the description of languages with a four-way distinction for demonstratives, refers to a demonstrative which indicates something near neither the speaker nor the addressee, but not too far off from either one.


gheada

This variety is a non-standard phonological register characterized by gheada [heáða], that is, the fricativization and devoicing of the voiced velar stop: /ɡ/ -> [ɣ] (other variants are [x], [h]; for a review of the phenomenon see for example Alvarez Cáccamo 1989b:261-65).

1990, Berkeley Linguistics Society, Proceedings of the annual meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society, Berkeley Linguistics Society, v.16, page 6

In contrast to the phenomena of open and close vowels, the presence or absence of the gheada is still one of the most prominent phonetic features of present-day Galician.

2007, Jaine Beswick, Regional Nationalism in Spain: Language Use and Ethnic Identity in Galicia, Multilingual Matters, page 141:

In addition to these feelings of inappropriateness, there are two features of the local dialects that still seem to be stigmatized among my informants: the gheada and the Galician pitch pattern.

2008, Mercedes Niño-Murcia, Jason Rothman, Bilingualism and Identity: Spanish at the Crossroads With Other Languages, John Benjamins Publishing Company, page 75:

(phonetics) the lenition of the voiced velar stop in the Galician language.


Black English Vernacular

Synonym of African-American Vernacular English


Black English

Perhaps Black English will yield a new neutral term for wokeness.

2021 November 16, John McWhorter, “‘Woke’ Went the Way of ‘P.C.’ and ‘Liberal’”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:

African-American English
African-American English#English

Any of several varieties of English spoken by or associated with Black people, especially people of African origin or in Africa.

(US) Synonym of African-American English (“AAE”), sometimes specifically African-American Vernacular English (“AAVE”).


underlyingly

en-adv

underlyingly (comparative more underlyingly, superlative most underlyingly)

more underlyingly (comparative)
most underlyingly (superlative)


palatic

(anatomy, linguistics, archaic) A palatal.


palatic

(anatomy, linguistics, archaic) palatal; palatine


palatic

en-adj

palatic (comparative more palatic, superlative most palatic)

more palatic (comparative)
most palatic (superlative)

(Geordie) Syncopic form of paralytic (“very drunk”).


auxiliary language

en-noun

auxiliary language (plural auxiliary languages)

A liturgical language, such as Latin, Sanskrit, or Old Church Slavonic, used in religious services.


bare noun

In "on sale", "sale" is a bare noun.

(linguistics) A noun used without any apparent quantifier or determiner to modify it.


massification

massification (countable and uncountable, plural massifications)

(grammar) Conversion of a count noun to a mass noun.


creolistics

(linguistics) The branch of linguistics concerned with the study of creole languages and literatures.


declinability

(grammar) The quality of being declinable.


indeclinability

(grammar) The quality of being indeclinable.


Abgesang

/ˈɑp.ɡəˌzɑŋ/

Borrowed from German Abgesang; ab- (“down, from”) + Gesang (“song”).

(prosody, poetry, usually capitalized) Repetition of the same word or phrases for emphasis; epistrophe, especially the concluding section.


P&P

principles and parameters
w:principles and parameters

(linguistics) Initialism of principles and parameters.


postnominal

(linguistics) Something which is placed after a noun, as "of mine" in "friend of mine".


oppositive case

A grammatical case expressing contrariety or opposition, corresponding to the English preposition "against".


KWIC

Coined by IBM research engineer Hans Peter Luhn.

(linguistics) Initialism of keyword in context: a list of phrases obtained by searching a corpus, each containing the node (or word of interest) and its surrounding cotext.


wordinitial

a wordinitial consonant cluster

(linguistics) Occurring at the beginning of a word.


prefixoid

From prefix + -oid, coined c. 1966 by Yakov Malkiel.

(linguistics) A wordinitial segment that does not have all characteristics of a prefix.


absolute state

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-absolute state.wav

estado absoluto

in Semitic languages, the condition of a noun that is not grammatically linked to another noun

indeterminate state
indeterminate state#English

determinate state
determinate state#English

(grammar) In Semitic languages, the condition of a noun not being grammatically linked to another noun – where it would use the construct state.

(rare) To sum the indeterminate state and the determinate state in one term.

To denote the only state not construct state as in the binary state system of Ugaritic.

Denotes the indeterminate state in Aramaic, even though it also has a determinate state called emphatic state.

Denotes an infrequent endingless state in Akkadian used for predicative sentences, adverbially used nouns and vocative expressions (in which cases Arabic would use the accusative case), contrasting with the governed state and the construct state.

pronominal state
pronominal state#English

(grammar) In Egyptian, including Coptic, a form of a verb necessitated by its regimen if this does not require the nominal state or pronominal state.

(grammar) In Berber languages, an unmarked form and hence citation form of a noun similar to the absolutive of ergative languages, varying in usage cases per specific language but generally described as used for topicalized subjects of sentences – default word order being VSO –, nominal predicates and direct objects.


exceptional case-marking

(grammar) A phenomenon where the subject of an embedded infinitival verb seems to appear in the superordinate clause, and, if a pronoun, is unexpectedly marked with objective case morphology.


catenative verb

catenative verb (plural catenative verbs)

A verb able to be immediately followed by the full or bare infinitive, or gerund (i.e. non-finite verbs), as in “I beg to differ”, where beg is catenative.


sprachbund

sprachbund (plural sprachbunds or sprachbünde)

sprachbunds (plural)
sprachbünde (plural)

Borrowed from German Sprachbund (literally “language alliance, language association”), from Sprache (“language; way of speaking, speech”) (ultimately from Proto-West Germanic *sprāku (“language; speech”)) + Bund (“alliance”) (from binden (“to bind, to tie up”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *bʰendʰ- (“to bind”)). The German word was coined by Russian linguist Nikolai Trubetzkoy (1890–1938) in a paper he presented to the inaugural International Congress of Linguists in 1928 as a calque of the Russian term языково́й сою́з (jazykovój sojúz, literally “language union”), which he had introduced in a 1923 article.

der

The introduction of the new term Proto-Munda is justified by the fact that, as early as the Vedic period, the Munda languages had departed considerably from the Austro-Asiatic type of language and developed a character of their own brought about by a number of dialectal phonetic changes and the introduction of suffixes in the word-formation. Both phenomena mark the beginning of a process of "Dravidization" of the Munda tongues which has ultimately given them the character of agglutinating languages and has thus contributed to the growth of the Indian linguistic league (Sprachbund).

1948, F[ranciscus] B[ernardus] J[acobus] Kuiper, “Introduction”, in Proto-Munda Words in Sanskrit (Verhandelingen der Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen. Afd. Letterkunde, Nieuwe Reeks [Treatises of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, Department of Literature, New Series]; deel [part] LI, number 3), Amsterdam: Noord-Hollandsche Uitgevers Maatschappij [North-Holland Publishing Society], →OCLC, page 5:

[…] Certainly it is 'nicer' to define a sprachbund by what appear to be exclusively shared features with differentiate it from its neighbors – just as it is 'nicer' to be able to define a dialect by a set of innovations which clearly mark it off from other, related dialects. In the case of dialect continua, it has been known for a long time that this approach is unrealistic and historically inaccurate […]

1988, Jacek Fisiak, editor, Historical Dialectology: Regional and Social (Trends in Linguistics, Studies and Monographs; 37), New York, N.Y.: Mouton de Gruyter, →ISBN, page 308:

The linguist reader will recognize that the Takia/Waskia, Mixe Basque/Gascon, Romansch/Swiss German and Sauris German/Friulian pairs each form a small Sprachbund ('language alliance'). Probably the best-known Sprachbund consists of modern Greek, Albanian, Romanian, and the southern Slav languages Macedonian, Bulgarian, Serbian and Croatian, which through centuries of contact have undergone metatypy to the extent that there are very close semantic and syntactic […]

1997, Malcolm Ross, “Social Networks and Kinds of Speech-Community Event”, in Roger Blench, Matthew Spriggs, editors, Archaeology and Language I: Theoretical and Methodological Orientations (One World Archaeology; 27), London, New York, N.Y.: Routledge, →ISBN, page 243:

Substantial work has been done to define sprachbunds, with the result that there now are a few regions in all major macro-regions of the world that can be defined in terms of language contact. With regard to defining sprachbunds, two different stances can be distinguished. On the one hand it is argued that a definition of sprachbunds should highlight the fact that they are the result of language contact, that is, of historical processes; […] On the other hand, sprachbunds are defined exclusively in terms of linguistic parameters without reference to the historical forces that gave rise to them.

2005, Bernd Heine, Tania Kuteva, “On Linguistic Areas”, in Language Contact and Grammatical Change (Cambridge Approaches to Language Contact), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, section 5.1 (Types of Linguistic Areas), page 173:

The research program took shape after the Pragian structuralists made public their definition of the concept of Sprachbund. Since then various hypotheses have been put forward as to the subdivision of the continent into a number of distinct areas which are commonly termed Sprachbünde, linguistic areas or contact superposition zones[…].

2013, Thomas Stolz, “Contemporary Europe”, in Competing Comparative Constructions in Europe (Studia Typologica; 13), [Berlin]: Akademie Verlag, →ISBN, section 5.3.4 (The Internal Geolinguisics of Europe), page 196:

(linguistics) A group of languages sharing a number of areal features (similar grammar, vocabulary, etc.) which are primarily due to language contact rather than cognation.

International Congress of Linguists
Nikolai Trubetzkoy

spraakbond

group of languages sharing areal features primarily due to language contact


selfname

"Oh, Elements," she finally managed to say, sitting back against the seat cushion of the pilot's chair, "is that truly your selfname?" "James, actually."

But first of all came Lystra with her selfname.

2000, Joan Slonczewski, A Door Into Ocean:

A proper name; a name for one's own self, as opposed to one's family; one's real name. (proper name)


Tyrrhenian

(linguistics) Of the languages of the Tyrrhenian family: Etruscan, Raetic or Lemnian.


subjunctivity

(grammar, rare) The property of being in the subjunctive mood.


polysemically

en-adv

polysemically (comparative more polysemically, superlative most polysemically)

more polysemically (comparative)
most polysemically (superlative)

Even though some names or words polysemically carry sexual meanings, this does not automatically mean that every usage of them in literary texts, even those of a pornographic nature, has a sexual meaning, either explicitly or punningly.

2011, Patrick Spedding, James Lambert, “Fanny Hill, Lord Fanny, and the Myth of Metonymy”, in Studies in Philology, volume 108, number 1, page 113:

(semantics) In a polysemic manner; with multiple meanings.


urlanguage

It is the urlanguage that sets up the rules of syntax that determine the formal constructions every language must incorporate if it ... The urlanguage is also the ultimate authority that governs the inclusion of designator expressions in any context.

1982, Jack Kaminsky, Essays in linguistic ontology:

Is there an ur-language? This question has been raised in a notoriously fallacious argument first promulgated by Fodor (1979).

1997, George Wolf, Nigel Love, Linguistics Inside Out:

Obviously we have here a further reason for exploring our relationship with our animal friends: it is a way of understanding the fundamentals of our own language, of discovering that ur-language we share with other parts of nature than [...]

2006, Frederick Turner, Natural Religion:

What innate ideas did he have? Did he know of God and Creation? What was his language—the urlanguage that gave rise to all the languages of the world, the language all men brought with them [...]

2010, T. Coraghessan Boyle, Wild Child: Stories:

(linguistics) A basic or original language; protolanguage.


Ur-Germanic

If now these prefixes are to be connected, as it seems they should be, they point to an urgermanic vowel sound differing but little, if any, in degree of openness from urgermanic e.

1896, Frank Hamilton Fowler, The negatives of the Indo-European languages:

In Germanic the distinction between perfectives and imperfectives is a survival of what was perhaps a vital distinction in Ur-germanic.

1917, University of North Carolina (1793-1962). Philological Club, Studies in philology:

OE. changes unstressed 'i' into 'e' and drops '-n' in Uroe.; the oblique cases in OE. are: micile throughout, the Urgermanic forms were: acc. [...]

1939, Niels Bøgholm, English speech from an historical point of view:

We are immediately confronted with a compound triple disjunction: 1) -*s and -*z fell together in Ur-Germanic as nondistinctive variants of a single phoneme ; or 2) they fell together in Ur-Germanic as a single sound [...]

1941, Douglas Chrétien, Indo-European final-*s in Germanic:

This practice of divided sovereignty over land, which survived into the twentieth century as the Almen of Upper Germany, seemed also to Biicher to respond to “an Ur-Germanic instinct,” [...]

2005, Heath Pearson, Origins of Law and Economics:

They stood in relation to these various tribes as an Ur-Germanic people of remarkable size and prowess.

2010, John D. Niles, Homo Narrans: The Poetics and Anthropology of Oral Literature:

Before the early 1930s, pamphlets and journals hardly ever celebrated incineration as an ur-Germanic tradition.

2011, Alon Confino, Paul Betts, Dirk Schumann, Between Mass Death and Individual Loss:

(linguistics) Hypothetical prehistoric ancestor language of all Germanic languages, including English; Proto-Germanic.

The category of Proto-Germanic on Wiktionary


unarticled

(grammar) Used without an article (part of speech defining or limiting a noun).


upspeak

en-verb

upspeak (third-person singular simple present upspeaks, present participle upspeaking, simple past upspoke, past participle upspoken)

upspeaks (present singular third-person)
upspeaking (participle present)
upspoke (past)
upspoken (participle past)

(linguistics, transitive, intransitive) To speak with upspeak; to uptalk.


upspeak

[...] the nurse answers in upspeak. “You can work on it only if you're supervised.” Even the Oil of Olay moisturizer is confiscated. “It's in a glass jar?” Upspeak again.

2012, Elizabeth Flock, But Inside I'm Screaming:

(linguistics) A manner of speaking in which the intonation of one's voice rises at the end of a statement, as if expressing uncertainty or asking a question; uptalk.


modal adverb

(grammar) An adverb that qualifies a predicate with respect to way in which it is true.


diacope

Latin, from Ancient Greek διακοπή (diakopḗ, “gash, cleft, rupture”), from διά (diá, “through, across”) + κοπή (kopḗ, “cutting”)


stativity

(grammar) The property of being stative.


hyperthesis

/haɪˈpɜːθɪsɪs/

/hɪˈpɜːθɪsɪs/

/həˈpɜːθɪsɪs/

(linguistics, phonology) A form of metathesis in which non-contiguous sounds are switched.


yodless

In other contexts, yodless forms made the Roubaix-Tourcoing distinctive from their French and Lille equivalents [kaʀti], [piʀ] and [di] quartier ‘quarter’, ‘neighbourhood’, Pierre ‘Peter’, Dieu ‘God’, cf. [kaʀtje], [pjɛʀ], [djø].

2002, Tim Pooley, “The Depicardization of the Vernaculars of the Lille Conurbation”, in Mari C. Jones et al., editors, Language Change, Mouton de Gruyter, →ISBN, page 37:

The younger the speaker is, the more yodless is the pronunciation, while the more educated the speaker is, the more yod is used (or retained) in this particular phonological environment.

2004, Jan Tent, France Mugler, “Fiji English: Phonology”, in Edgar W. Schneider et al., editors, A Handbook of Varieties of English, volume 1, Mouton de Gruyter, →ISBN, page 776:

Hence yod not only does not strengthen word-initially; it also often disappears, yielding yod-ful and yodless variants in the daughter languages, sometimes even in the same language (cf. Cz už - juž).

2008, László Kristó, “Slavonic”, in Joaquim Brandão de Carvalho et al., editors, Lenition and Fortition, Mouton de Gruyter, →ISBN, page 312:

(phonetics) Lacking a palatal approximant.


yod coalescence

Some English dialects with /dj/ and /tj/ within a morpheme have gradient amounts of affrication, from [dj] in careful speech to extreme “yod coalescence” approximating [dʒ][…].

1995, James M. Scobbie, “What Do We Do When Phonology is Powerful Enough to Imitate Phonetics? Comments on Zsiga”, in Bruce Connell, Amalia Arvaniti, editors, Phonology and Phonetic Evidence, Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, page 306:

In words such as nature this process is long complete; but there are many other words where this ‘yod coalescence’ is still variable.

2006, J. C. Wells, “British English Pronunciation Preferences: A Changing Scene”, in Kingsley Bolton, Braj B. Kachru, editors, World Englishes, Routledge, →ISBN, page 236:

In the sequence would you, the female speaker uses yod coalescence: The alveolar plosive /d/ and the palatal approximant, /j/, merge to form the affricate [dʒ].

2011, Paul Skandera, Peter Burleigh, A Manual of English Phonetics and Phonology, 2nd edition, Narr, →ISBN, page 149:

(phonology) A process in English phonology whereby the clusters [dj], [tj], [sj], and [zj] become [dʒ], [tʃ], [ʃ], and [ʒ], respectively, through mutual assimilation.


destinative

(grammar) In, marked by or pertaining to the destinative case.


destinative

(grammar) The destinative case, a case found in some languages which either marks an object or person as destined for a particular other object, person or end, or marks a destination.


typologist

A linguist who specializes in linguistic typology.


voiceable

a voiceable initial, voiceable vowels and consonants


contemptive

en-adj

contemptive (comparative more contemptive, superlative most contemptive)

more contemptive (comparative)
most contemptive (superlative)

One of the most striking features of the vocabulary of Nishnaabemwin is the frequency that contemptive endings appear on basic (LEXICAL) noun forms, in other words, on noun stems that never occur without the contemptive suffix and which do not have salient contemptive force.

2001, J. Randolph Valentine, Nishnaabemwin Reference Grammar:

(linguistics) Of or pertaining to, or creating a word form denoting the negative attitude of the speaker.


contemptive

(linguistics) A word form expressing the negative attitude of the speaker.


cognancy

(linguistics, of one word, with regard to another word) Cognacy.


cofocus

In general, the expression in focus is a predicate, which applies to something which is defined by the cofocus.

1987, Imre Ruzsa, Anna Szabolcsi, Proceedings of the '87 Debrecen Symposium on Logic and Language:

Not all cofoci are presuppositions; sometimes the cofocus is new information "accommodated" to the common ground which is introduced as though it were presupposed[…]

2000, Andrew M. Devine, Laurence D. Stephens, Discontinuous Syntax: Hyperbaton in Greek, page 52:

(linguistics) An element in a clause, sentence, etc. that acts as the focus, or main element, in combination with another such element.


antiagreement

(linguistics) Failure to exhibit the expected agreement (with person, gender, etc.)


perfectivity

(grammar) The state of being in perfective aspect or the imperfective aspect


paragogic

paragogic (comparative more paragogic, superlative most paragogic)

more paragogic (comparative)
most paragogic (superlative)

In the Semitic languages, paragogic letters are added to the ordinary forms of words to express additional emphasis or a change in the meaning.

(phonology) Of, pertaining to, or constituting, a paragoge; added to the end of, or serving to lengthen, a word.


caritive

From Latin careo (“I lack, am without”).

(grammar) Of or relating to the caritive case.

(grammar) Of words or endings that express a lack of something, for example English homeless/-less or unsalted/un-, Finnish koditon, suolaton, -ton.


subjecthood

We are especially concerned here with the question of whether certain kinds of properties associated with subjecthood are acquired prior to other kinds of properties.

1980 December, Peter Cole, Wayne Harbert, Gabriella Hermon, S. N. Sridhar, “The Acquisition of Subjecthood”, in Language, volume 56, number 4, pages 719–743:

One of the best-known examples of this method of argumentation applied to problems of universal grammar is the analysis of ergativity and subjecthood in Anderson (1976), a paper notable for its attention to data from a large number of languages and its continuing importance.

1991, William Croft, “Syntactic Methodology and Universal Grammar”, in Syntactic Categories and Grammatical Relations, →ISBN, page 11:

(linguistics) The condition or state of a word or expression, such as a noun phrase, being the subject of a sentence.


preglottalize

en-verb

preglottalize (third-person singular simple present preglottalizes, present participle preglottalizing, simple past and past participle preglottalized)

preglottalizes (present singular third-person)
preglottalizing (participle present)
preglottalized (participle past)
preglottalized (past)

(transitive, phonology) To precede (a sound) by glottalization.


syndetical

From syndetic + -al. Equivalent to syndeton + -ical.

(grammar, mathematics and library science, uncommon) Synonym of syndetic.


syndetically

From syndetic + -ally. Equivalent to syndeton + -ic + -ally.

(grammar, mathematics and library science) In a syndetic way, employing syndeton, using a conjunction or crossreferences.


FANBOYS

Acronym of For, And, Nor, But, Or, Yet, So

The risk is greater with subordinating conjunctions (see “Starting a Sentence with Because”), but the FANBOYS are sometimes considered guilty by association: […]

2008 July 8, Mignon Fogarty, Grammar Girl's Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing, New York: Macmillan, →ISBN, →OL, page 80:

These FANBOYS help create compound sentences, and when they serve this role, a comma comes before their use.

2009 September 24, Mel Friedman, Rena Grasso, Carol Hunter, Laura Meiselman, The Best Test Preparation for the PRAXIS II ParaPro Assessment 0755 and 1755, Piscataway: Research & Education Association, →ISBN, →OL, page 161:

Avoid putting a comma immediately after any of the FANBOYS.

2011 November 24, Larry Beason, Mark Lester, A Commonsense Guide to Grammar and Usage, 6th edition, Macmillan, →ISBN, →OL, page 192:

(mnemonic) Acronym used to remember the coordinating conjunctions for, and, nor, but, or, yet, and so.


T-V distinction

en-noun

T-V distinction (plural T-V distinctions)

From Latin tū (“thou, singular you”) and vōs (“ye, plural you”).

(sociolinguistics) The distinction between a formal and an informal second-person pronoun in some languages.


Helleno-Armenian

Indo-European studies
Indo-European studies

(Indo-European studies) a proposed branch within the Indo-European language family, of which the Hellenic and Armenian branches are sub-branches.


Italo-Celtic

(Indo-European studies) A proposed branch within the Indo-European language family, of which the Italic and Celtic branches are sub-branches.


Graeco-Aryan

(Indo-European studies) a proposed branch within the Indo-European language family, of which the Hellenic and Indo-Iranian branches are sub-branches.


Daco-Thracian

(Indo-European studies) a proposed branch within the Indo-European language family formed by the Dacian and Thracian languages.


Thraco-Illyrian

(Indo-European studies) a proposed branch within the Indo-European language family, of which the Thraco-Dacian and Illyrian branches are sub-branches.


Indo-Hittite

(Indo-European studies) A hypothetical language family where the Anatolian languages and the Indo-European languages are separate branches.


Caland system

Named after Dutch Indologist Willem Caland.

named-after

(Indo-European studies) A system which describes how certain Proto-Indo-European words are derived from one another.


Paleo-Balkan

(Indo-European studies) Being one of the ancient Indo-European languages of the Balkans which are of uncertain classification.


centumization

From centum + -ization or centumize + -ation. Doublet of satemization.

[footnote:] For instance, if one reconstructs satəmization, the merger of *K and *Kʷ, as an innovation that defines a clade (approx. Thraco-Armeno-Daco-Albano-Balto-Slavo-Indo-Iranian), then the other remaining Indo-European branches must independently undergo centumization as they branch off at higher nodes. Each of these individually centumizing higher clades (Anatolian, Tocharian, Italo-Celtic, and Germanic) represents undesirable homoplastic innovations.

2022 December 14, John Clayton, “Labiovelar loss and the rounding of syllabic liquids in Indo-Iranian”, in Indo-European Linguistics, →DOI, page 46:

(Indo-European studies) The sound change by which palatovelars became plain velars in centum languages.


satemization

From satem + -ization or satemize + -ation. Doublet of centumization.

(Indo-European studies) The sound change by which palatovelars became fricatives and affricates in satem languages.


legisign

A Rhematic Indexical Legisign [e.g., a demonstrative pronoun] is any general type or law, however established, which requires each instance of it to be really affected by its Object in such a manner as merely to draw attention to that Object. Each Replica of it will be a Rhematic Indexical Sinsign of a peculiar kind. The Interpretant of a Rhematic Indexical Legisign represents it as an Iconic Legisign; and so it is, in a measure – but in a very small measure.

1985, Charles S[anders] Peirce, “Logic as Semiotic: The Theory of Signs”, in Robert E. Innis, editor, Semiotics: An Introductory Anthology, Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press, →ISBN, page 20:

(Peircean semiotics) A sign that consists in a general idea, norm, or law.


sinsign

Rhematic Indexical Sinsign: As an object of raw experience, a burst of unplanned hollering is a rhematic indexical sinsign: it directs attention to the object which caused the presence of the sign […].

1995, Victorino Tejera, Literature, Criticism, and the Theory of Signs [Semiotic Crossroads; 7], Amsterdam, Philadelphia, Pa.: John Benjamins Publishing Company, →ISBN, page 137:

(Peircean semiotics) A sign that consists in a reaction/resistance, an actual singular thing or occurrence.


possessivity

(grammar) The quality of being possessive.


antiverbal

en-adj

antiverbal (comparative more antiverbal, superlative most antiverbal)

more antiverbal (comparative)
most antiverbal (superlative)

Though in very different ways, Wolfe, Capote, Mailer, and Didion each define their subjects as somehow beyond words — antiverbal or nonverbal, threatening or sublime, overpowering and intense or private and intuitive […]

1987, Wayne (Chris) Anderson, Style as Argument: Contemporary American Nonfiction (page 5)

Othello, Horatio, and Brutus strike me as notable exemplars of laconicism, but in Hotspur's case Shakespeare creates an antiverbal bias that is not so much philosophical as it is bound up in gender stereotype.

1989, Ronald L. Dotterer, Shakespeare: Text, Subtext, and Context, page 206:

(literature, semiotics) Opposing or avoiding the use of speech or words.

antiverbal

opposing or avoiding the use of speech or words


uvularize

en-verb

uvularize (third-person singular simple present uvularizes, present participle uvularizing, simple past and past participle uvularized)

uvularizes (present singular third-person)
uvularizing (participle present)
uvularized (participle past)
uvularized (past)


ecstasis

The insertion of the i by poetic ecstasis furnishes the syllable necessary to complete the number of feet, […]

1811, Peter Wilson, Introduction to Greek Prosody, page 160:


PEA

(linguistics) Initialism of Proto-Eastern Algonquian, the proto-language of the Eastern Algonquian languages.


empractical

en-adj

empractical (comparative more empractical, superlative most empractical)

more empractical (comparative)
most empractical (superlative)

From em- + practical? Coined by Karl Bühler.

A surgeon performing an operation may make empractical utterances to her assistant to request tools, such as "scalpel".

(linguistics) Of or relating to a form of communication that is incidental to some practical activity, characterized by fragmentary utterances and more silence than a conversation.


clefting

(linguistics) The formation of a cleft sentence.


downtone

en-verb

downtone (third-person singular simple present downtones, present participle downtoning, simple past and past participle downtoned)

downtones (present singular third-person)
downtoning (participle present)
downtoned (participle past)
downtoned (past)

(linguistics, transitive) To tone down; to make less emphatic or significant; to downplay.


downtoner

(linguistics) An element of language that tones something down.


Verner's law

Named after Danish linguist Karl Verner (1846–1896).

named-after

(Indo-European studies) A sound law describing the voicing of voiceless fricatives in early Proto-Germanic, due to placement of the accent on a word.


sound law

Then, to oversimplify, if there are similarities in sound and meaning between two words that do not obey the sound laws that have been established, we conclude that they have resulted from borrowing.

1877, Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, page 118:

In conclusion, we present the sound laws of Old Icelandic in the chronological order which represents the results of this dissertation.

1940, Ainsley Maxwell Carlton, A Relative Chronology of Old Icelandic Sound Laws, Leland Stanford Junior University, page 114:

For reasons that will become clear shortly, this limitation of sound laws to a specific time is an important trait.

2000, Andrew L. Sihler, Language History, John Benjamins Publishing Company, page 50:

(phonology) A rule that describes historical sound change (the change in pronunciation of a given sound or cluster of sounds) in the development of a language.

հնչյունական օրենք

rule that describes historical sound change in a language


superstock

(linguistics) A broad grouping of languages; a phylum.


dechticaetiative

Dubious. Etymologically, the first morpheme of the term may come from Ancient Greek δέχομαι (dékhomai, “to take, receive”); the second is obscure, but it is remotely possible it derives from Ancient Greek καίτοι (kaítoi, “further, indeed”). The term was first introduced by Dr. Edward L. Blansitt, Jr. A more current term with the same signification is secundative.

der

Most dechticaetiative languages are found in Africa.

(linguistics, of a language) In which the indirect objects of ditransitive verbs are treated like the direct objects of monotransitive verbs.


dialectism

It was the scribe of y who replaced certain dialectisms and less usual forms by the common types, e.g. ...

1972, Williem Frederik Bakker, Arnold F. van Gemert, Willem Johan Aerts, Studia Byzantina Et Neohellenica Neerlandica, →ISBN, page 87:

Starting with Jungmann, the opinion that before the National Revival the Czech language was in decay (invaded by dialectisms, inappropriate neologisms, overwhelming loans from German, and so on) then spread ...

1993, Jan Chloupek, J. Nekvapil, Studies in Functional Stylistics, John Benjamins Publishing, →ISBN, page 92:

... the formal normative variety of the language as it is used today in formal writing by educated native speakers. As a result, we have eschewed dialectisms and regionalisms. The English variety employed in the book is formal British English, ...

2013, Ronak Husni, Daniel L. Newman, A to Z of Arabic - English - Arabic Translation, Saqi, →ISBN:

(linguistics) Alternative form of dialecticism.


semotactics

(linguistics) The modification of the meaning of a word by interaction with the surrounding words


oligosemic

/ˌɒlɪɡəʊˈsiːmɪk/

First attested in 1986: formed as oligosem(y) + -ic. Compare monosemic and polysemic.

For quotations using this term, see Citations:oligosemic.

(linguistics, rare) Of or exhibiting oligosemy.


oligosemy

/ˈɒlɪɡəʊˌsiːmi/

/ɒlɪˈɡɒˌsɪmi/

From oligo- (“few”) + -semy (the second element in monosemy and polysemy).

(linguistics, especially of a term whose range of meanings has been semotactically restricted) The quality or state of having a few meanings, as opposed to having a single meaning or many meanings.


paucality

(chiefly grammar, rare) The state of being marked to denote, or the fact or condition of being, few-to-several in number; fewness-to-severality in number.


paragrammatical

en-adj

paragrammatical (comparative more paragrammatical, superlative most paragrammatical)

more paragrammatical (comparative)
most paragrammatical (superlative)

The third left-hemisphere-damaged signer had many grammatical errors; in fact, he was paragrammatical.

1991, Norman A. Krasnegor, Biological and behavioral determinants of language development, page 380:

There is no denying that books incorporating exercises of 'false syntax' may in the hands of the right person have fostered an awareness of style. However, the paragrammatical approach was probably more effective as a method of explaining the concepts of English grammar.

1991, Bertil Sundby, Anne Kari Bjørge, Kari E. Haugland, A Dictionary of English Normative Grammar, 1700-1800, page 3:

(linguistics) Relating to, or employing, anomalous grammar.


deaccent

en-verb

deaccent (third-person singular simple present deaccents, present participle deaccenting, simple past and past participle deaccented)

deaccents (present singular third-person)
deaccenting (participle present)
deaccented (participle past)
deaccented (past)

Suprasegmentally, there is a tendency to de-accent information which is repeated, a prominent stressing of demonstratives these and this, and modals and auxiliaries such as should and will, plus a rise-fall intonation that gives a ‘lilting’ quality.

2019, Li Huang, James Lambert, “Another Arrow for the Quiver: A New Methodology for Multilingual Researchers”, in Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, →DOI, page 10:

(transitive, phonetics) To remove the accent or stress from (a syllable).


synecphonesis

en-noun

synecphonesis (usually uncountable, plural synecphoneses)

From Ancient Greek συνεκφώνησις (sunekphṓnēsis), from συν- (sun-, “together”) + ἐκφώνησις (ekphṓnēsis, “pronunciation”).

uder

συνεκφώνησις

(grammar) A contraction of two syllables into one; synizesis.


choreus

From Latin choreus, from Ancient Greek χορεῖος (khoreîos), related to χορός (khorós, “choir, chorus”).


rection

Latin rectio, from regere (“to rule or govern”).

rection to a place

1832, Josiah Willard Gibbs Sr., Manual Hebrew and English Lexicon:

(grammar, archaic) regimen; government; the rules governing the syntax, rules of agreement of a language.


poverty of the stimulus

Coined by Noam Chomsky in 1980, though he had argued for the idea some years earlier.

(linguistics) The idea that human language cannot be learned by young children with what information they are given, unless they already have an innate knowledge of language or universal grammar.


predicatid

In the subclassification of predicatids into activity and non-activity predicatids, the do it predicatids, as activity predicatids, contrast with the do so and so ...do predicatids, as non-activity predicatids.

1968, Janua linguarum: Series maior, volume 23, page 70:

(grammar) A portion of a predicate that lacks time indication.


nominalizable

(linguistics) Capable of being nominalized.


tsotsitaal

en-noun

tsotsitaal (countable and uncountable, plural tsotsitaals)

From tsotsi (“South African street gangster”) + Afrikaans taal (“language”).

(linguistics) Any of a variety of mixed languages spoken mainly in the townships of South Africa.


imageability

imageability (countable and uncountable, plural imageabilities)

(linguistics) A property of a word indicating how easily a person can form an associated mental image.


sublexical

(linguistics) Referring to constituent parts of a word.

Further, a workable transcription will note sublexical elements such as breathing noise and laughter.

2008, Gerd Antos, Eija Ventola, Handbook of Interpersonal Communication, page 35:

(linguistics) At a level lower than the lexicon.


pseudoword

In Experiment 1, pseudowords made up of Italian derivational suffixes of various frequencies and meaningless pseudoroots were contrasted to pseudowords in which the same pseudoroots were combined with control orthographically legal final sequences.

2011, R. Harald Baayen, Robert Schreuder, Morphological Structure in Language Processing, page 186:

(linguistics) A unit of speech or text that respects the phonotactic restrictions of a language, but is not part of the lexicon; a non-word whose nonexistence is merely an accidental gap.


pseudocleft

Given that Malagasy has wh-in-situ questions, the pseudocleft analysis is simply an extension of this strategy, in which the wh-phrase is in-situ as a predicate.

2006, Hans-Martin Gärtner, Paul S. Law, Joachim Sabel, Clause Structure And Adjuncts in Austronesian Languages, page 201:

(linguistics) Resembling or relating to a cleft sentence.


cleft sentence

1978, Per-Kristian Halvorsen, The Syntax and Semantics of Cleft Constructions, Department of Linguistics, University of Texas at Austin, page 28,
Quirk et al (1972) say about the cleft sentence that it is "...so called because it divides a single clause into two separate sections, each with its own verb".

Following Bolinger (1972, 1977) and Gundel (1977), I assume that the introductory it of cleft sentences is referential[…].

1984, Ann Borkin, Problems in Form and Function, Ablex Publishing Corporation, page 120:

Similar analyses of cleft sentences have been repeated in the linguistic literature ever since.

2007, Joachim Crass, Ronny Meyer, editors, Deictics, Copula and Focus in the Ethiopian Convergence Area, page 170:

(linguistics) A complex sentence whose meaning could be expressed by a simple sentence, that has a dependent clause in front of the main clause, and that typically stresses a particular constituent.

phrase clivée

complex sentence stressing a particular constituent


morphon

From Ancient Greek μορφῶν (morphôn), present participle of the verb μορφάω (morpháō, “form”).


introflection

introflection (countable and uncountable, plural introflections)

(linguistics) A style of word formation in which the root is modified and which does not involve stringing morphemes together.


diatopic

(chiefly phonetics) Occurring over or changing with space; geographic.

The variant forms of textual tradition, relevant on the level of the diachronic and diatopic study of the text, were irrelevant on the level of the single manuscript.

1989, William Veder, Texts of Closed Tradition – The Key to the Manuscript Heritage of Old Rus’:

(chiefly phonetics) Of, pertaining to or concerned with changes that occur over space.


PPN

(linguistics) Abbreviation of Proto-Pama-Nyungan.

(linguistics) Abbreviation of Proto-Polynesian.


syntaxeme

(linguistics) A basic semantic-syntactical element of a language


transformational grammar

transformational grammar (countable and uncountable, plural transformational grammars)

phrase structure grammar
phrase structure grammar

(linguistics) A generative grammar, especially of a natural language, developed in the Chomskyan tradition of phrase structure grammars (as opposed to dependency grammars), and involving the use of defined operations called transformations to produce new sentences from existing ones.


universal grinder

universal grinder (plural universal grinders)

Compound of universal + grinder; first used in print in 1975 by Francis Jeffry Pelletier (see quote below) after the suggestion of philosopher David Lewis.

Consider a machine, the "universal grinder". [...] The reader has doubtless guessed by now the purpose of our universal grinder: Take an object corresponding to any (apparent) count noun he wishes (e.g. 'man'), put the object in one end of the grinder and ask what is on the floor (answer: 'There is man all over the floor')

1979, Francis Jeffry Pelletier, “Non-singular reference”, in Mass Terms: Some Philosophical Problems, Reidel, →ISBN, pages 5–6:

(linguistics) A mechanism whereby countable nouns are made uncountable.


antipassive voice

(linguistics) A verb voice found in some languages that omits or demotes the direct object of a transitive verb.

voz antipassiva

a verb voice that omits or demotes the direct object of a transitive verb


antipassive

(linguistics) Relating to the antipassive voice


postvelar

(phonetics) Having an articulation intermediate between velar and uvular.


prevelar

(phonetics) Having an articulation intermediate between palatal and velar.


metaphony

(phonology) A sound change in which a vowel's pronunciation is affected by another.


parathesis

parathesis (countable and uncountable, plural paratheses)

From Ancient Greek παράθεσις (paráthesis, “putting beside”).

uder

Both parathesis and suntaxis are constructions but they are never treated as constituents within larger constructions.

2007, Keith Allan, The Western Classical Tradition in Linguistics, page 102:

(grammar) The placing of two or more nouns in the same case; apposition.


betacism

en-noun

betacism (usually uncountable, plural betacisms)

From beta + -cism (phenomenon related to a specific phoneme).

q

Betacism is a fairly common phenomenon: it has taken place in Greek, Hebrew, Spanish, and some Portuguese dialects, among others.

(phonology) A sound change in which [b] (the voiced bilabial plosive) shifts to [v] (the voiced labiodental fricative).


Academicism

(classical studies, sometimes capitalized) The doctrines of Plato's academy; specifically the skeptical doctrines of the later academy stating that nothing can be known; a tenet of the Academic philosophy; state of being Academic.


alveopalatal

(phonetics) Of or relating to those consonants that are intermediate in articulation between the coronal and dorsal consonants.


alveopalatal

(phonetics) Any consonant that is intermediate in articulation between the coronal and dorsal consonants.

Alveolopalatal

any consonant that is intermediate in articulation between the coronal and dorsal consonants


psilosis

Borrowed from Ancient Greek ψίλωσις (psílōsis).

(phonology) The sound change by which Greek lost the consonant sound /h/ during antiquity, h-dropping.


biaspectual

(grammar) Of verbs: having two grammatical aspects: perfective and imperfective.

kaksiaspektinen

of verbs: having two grammatical aspects


Hokan

Loosely based on the word for "two" in the various Hokan languages.

(linguistics) A hypothetical grouping of a dozen small language families spoken in California, Arizona, and Mexico.


pidginize

en-verb

pidginize (third-person singular simple present pidginizes, present participle pidginizing, simple past and past participle pidginized)

pidginizes (present singular third-person)
pidginizing (participle present)
pidginized (participle past)
pidginized (past)

(linguistics, transitive) To convert or adapt into a pidgin language.


nareal

(phonetics) Characterized by airflow which is exclusively through the nostrils.


pidginization

en-noun

pidginization (countable and uncountable, plural pidginizations)

(linguistics) The development of a pidgin language.


oligosynthesis

(linguistics) The synthetic combining of a relatively small number of morphemes to form compound words.


denasal

en-adj

denasal (comparative more denasal, superlative most denasal)

more denasal (comparative)
most denasal (superlative)

(linguistics) Having, or relating to, a quality of the voice caused by blocked nasal passages.


Osco-Umbrian

Osco-Umbrian (comparative more Osco-Umbrian, superlative most Osco-Umbrian)

more Osco-Umbrian (comparative)
most Osco-Umbrian (superlative)

(linguistics) Of or relating to a group of languages of the Italic family of Indo-European languages, spoken in ancient times in central and southern Italy before Latin replaced them.


evidentiality

en-noun

evidentiality (countable and uncountable, plural evidentialities)

(linguistics) The encoding into a language of the source of information being communicated, so as to distinguish (for example) hearsay from something actually witnessed.


debitive

(linguistics) Of or pertaining to the mood of a verb that expresses need or obligation (like English must, have to, should).


debitive

(linguistics) This mood, or a verb in this mood.


writing system

(linguistics) A system for writing one or more languages; a particular alphabetic, syllabic, logographic, or other scheme. For example, the Latin alphabet or the Cyrillic alphabet.

пи́сменост

(linguistics, specifically) The basic type of a system for writing languages. For example, alphabetic writing or logographic writing.

書寫系統

basic type of system for writing languages


second palatalization

(Slavic linguistics) A sound change occurring in Proto-Slavic, which caused palatalization of velar consonants under certain circumstances, resulting in the hushing sounds c /ts/, s /s/ or š /ʃ/, and (d)z /(d)z/.


first palatalization

(Indo-European studies) A sound change occurring in Proto-Slavic, which caused palatalization of velar consonants under certain circumstances, resulting in the hushing sounds č /tʃ/, š /ʃ/ and ž /ʒ/.


Ukrainianism

Ukrainianism (countable and uncountable, plural Ukrainianisms)

the presence of Ukrainianisms in Russian

(linguistics) A word or phrase characteristic of Ukrainians.

украіні́зм

a word or phrase characteristic of Ukrainians


archiphoneme

(phonology) A unit representing two or more underlying phonemes, where the distinction between them has been neutralized under certain conditions.


classical language

classical language (plural classical languages)

(literature, linguistics) An ancient language that has an independent tradition that arose mostly on its own, and has a large and rich body of ancient literature.

古典語言

ancient language with a rich literary tradition


allofam

From allo- + fam (“abbreviation of family”).

prefix

abbreviation of <i class="Latn mention" lang="en">family</i>

(usually in Sino-Tibetan linguistics) a linguistic form (attested or reconstructed word) which belongs to a particular word family.


Sprachraum

Unadapted borrowing from German Sprachraum.

ubor

The Arabic Sprachraum is roughly co-extensive with a geographical continuum stretching from the Arabian peninsula and the lands adjoining the Fertile Crescent to Morocco and from S.E. Anatolia to Sudan.

a. 2011, Alexander Borg, Towards a history and typology of color categorization in colloquial Arabic in 2011, Robert E. Maclaury, Galina V. Paramei, Don Dedrick, Anthropology of Color, John Benjamins Publishing Company, page 263

The networked world is typically envisioned as a globe-spanning English Sprachraum.

2011, Srdjan Vucetic, The Anglosphere: A Genealogy of a Racialized Identity in International Relations, Stanford University Press, page 147:

[…]; in addition, there is an area along the southeastern border of the Dutch Sprachraum that exhibited the same peculiarity (ibid. pp. 12–13).

2013, Don Ringe, Joseph F. Eska, Historical Linguistics: Toward a Twenty-First Century Reintegration, Cambridge University Press, pages 100–101:

(linguistics) Language area, language zone; geographical region where a language is spoken


stressable

(linguistics) Capable of being stressed, or emphasized in speech.


parasitic gap

(grammar) A construction wherein the dropping of an argument is dependent on a covarying argument having been fronted in a local context, as in "Which book did she review without reading?".


untensed

The relevant point, though, is that there is a clear distinction between untensed and tensed clauses as far as the parasitic gap phenomenon is concerned[…]

1993, William J. Ashby, Linguistic Perspectives on the Romance Languages, page 251:


fricatization

(phonetics) The process of making or becoming fricative or a fricative.


fricatized

en-adj

fricatized (comparative more fricatized, superlative most fricatized)

more fricatized (comparative)
most fricatized (superlative)

(phonetics) Having undergone fricatization.


dative sickness

(grammar) The use of a dative object where an accusative would traditionally be used.


U-RP

Received Pronunciation
Received Pronunciation

(linguistics) The form of Received Pronunciation used by the upper classes.


Yinglish

An informal language blending elements of English and Yiddish.


premodification

en-noun

premodification (countable and uncountable, plural premodifications)


postmodification

(grammar) modification by a postmodifier


pronunciation dictionary

pronunciation dictionary (plural pronunciation dictionaries)

International Phonetic Alphabet
International Phonetic Alphabet

A dictionary that provides pronunciation of words, usually in the International Phonetic Alphabet.

uitspraakwoordeboek

dictionary that provides pronunciations of words


punctiliar

en-adj

punctiliar (comparative more punctiliar, superlative most punctiliar)

more punctiliar (comparative)
most punctiliar (superlative)

durative

of or pertaining to an unextended point of time [+ subsenses]

/ˌpʌŋkˈtɪlɪə/

Formed as punctili(o) + -ar, initially as an alternative translation (instead of punctual) for the German punktuell.

(grammar) Of or pertaining to an unextended point of time:

(of an action) Occurring at a definite and particular point in time.

(of verbal aspect or tense) Relating to a punctiliar action or event.


punctiliar

/ˌpʌŋkˈtɪlɪə/

First two duratives to express our practice of judging and measuring, then two punctiliars (aorists) to state God’s reciprocations.

1943, Richard C. H. Lenski, The Interpretation of St. Matthew’s Gospel 1–14, Augsburg Fortress, published 2008, →ISBN, page 289:

Many researchers observe similar generalizations: that children seem unwilling to mark activity verbs like walk or unbounded punctiliars like jump with an -ed ending, even though this is a tense marker in the adult language that applies to all types of events.

1996, University of Maryland Working Papers in Linguistics: UMD WPL, IV-VI, page 122:

(grammar) A verb denoting a punctiliar action or activity.

punctual

grammar: verb denoting a punctiliar action


Beothuk

(linguistics) The extinct language of these people.


downrank

en-verb

downrank (third-person singular simple present downranks, present participle downranking, simple past and past participle downranked)

downranks (present singular third-person)
downranking (participle present)
downranked (participle past)
downranked (past)

(transitive, chiefly linguistics) To lower in rank.


sinogram

(linguistics) Any character used in Chinese writing; hanzi.


creaky voice

(linguistics) A special kind of phonation in which the arytenoid cartilages in the larynx are drawn together.


monolectic

en-adj

monolectic (comparative more monolectic, superlative most monolectic)

more monolectic (comparative)
most monolectic (superlative)

A polylectic term is a multi-word term, as opposed to a monolectic term which is a one-word term.

(grammar) Of or relating to a term consisting of one word; one-worded, singleworded.


v-perfect

(linguistics) A perfect stem of a Latin verb which has been formed by adding a v or u to the end of the present stem.


s-perfect

carpsi

texi

(linguistics) A perfect stem of a Latin verb which has been formed by adding an s to the end of the present stem.


s-aorist

(linguistics) An aorist stem of an Old Latin verb which has been formed by adding an s to the end of the present stem; the ancestor of the Classical s-perfect.


separable prefix

en-noun

separable prefix (plural separable prefixes)

(linguistics) A prefix that can be detached from the verb it attaches to in several instances.

trennbare Vorsilbe

a prefix that can be detached from the verb


phthongal

From Ancient Greek φθόγγος (phthóngos, “sound, voice”).

uder

(phonetics) Formed into, or characterized by, voice; vocalized.


circumflexed

(linguistics, of a written word) Having a circumflex accent.

(linguistics, of a pronounced word) Exhibiting a language-specific type of pitch accent or tone characterized by a circumflex accent mark in the language's transcription or orthography.


lexicogrammar

en-noun

lexicogrammar (countable and uncountable, plural lexicogrammars)

From lexico- + grammar, coined by Michael Halliday.

(linguistics) The continuity between grammar and lexis.


iambic tetrameter

A poetic meter consisting of lines with four iambic feet each, meaning the even syllable is dominant.


hexagraph

(linguistics) A specific sequence of six letters, especially one used collectively to represent a single phoneme.


UR

underlying representation
w:underlying representation

(phonology) Initialism of underlying representation.


synesis

synesis (usually uncountable, plural syneses)

Ancient Greek σύνεσις (súnesis, “unification, meeting, intelligence”).

uder

(grammar) A grammatical construction in which a word takes the gender or number not of the word with which it should regularly agree, but of some other implied word, as in: "If the band are popular, they will play next month."


wanderword

From wander + word, a calque of German Wanderwort.

Considering the mileage it has achieved as a horizon wanderword in divers shapes representable as sV(l)mV(n)-, the Latin salmo (salmonis) cited by Pliny and Ausonius is vexing as regards its etymology, a quality it shares with many other Roman and Greek [...]

1985, A. Richard Diebold, The evolution of Indo-European nomenclature for salmonid fish:

It is perhaps, therefore, a late 'wander-word' of the southeast of the IE world, Semitic and Sumerian.

1997, James P. Mallory, Douglas Q. Adams, Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture:

In this general context, Mallory's dismissal (1989, 150) of this “comparison that simply will not go away” as a mere “wander word” clearly illustrates his ideological position.

2006, Martin Bernal, Black Athena. Volume III. The Linguistic Evidence, New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, page 605

Like the static Bangla she describes in the extract above — and like the traditional mother — Mukherjee's wanderwords usually stay at home, in narrative strands set in India, their local colour harmoniously interwoven with her fiction's literary English.

2009, Jopi Nyman, Post-national enquiries:

(linguistics) Synonym of Wanderwort (“a loanword that has spread to many different languages, often through trade or the adoption of foreign cultural practices”)


intertonic

(phonetics) A sound occurring between stressed syllables; as the /har/ in philharmonic

(phonetics) A sound occurring between a stressed syllable and the beginning or end of a word; as the o in Deborah.


habitual aspect

en-noun

habitual aspect (plural habitual aspects)

(grammar) A feature of the verb which specifies an action as occurring habitually, usually, ordinarily, or customarily


Middle Egyptian

(linguistics, history) The form of the Egyptian language used between 2000 BCE and 1300 BCE.

Earlier Egyptian

Middle Egyptian [Late Middle Egyptian, Neo-Middle Egyptian]


Brahmi

(linguistics) A script once used in south and central Asia.


you understood

(grammar) The unstated subject of a command sentence, where it is assumed the subject is the person to whom the command is directed.


infima species

Every infima species of the adaptation can be related unambiguously to a[n] infima species of the standard.

1993, Willem Hirs, “XV: The Use of Terminological Principles and Methods in Medicine”, in Helmi B. Sonneveld, Kurt Loening, editors, Terminology: Applications in Interdisciplinary Communication, page 239:

Combining Leibniz's view about species differentiation with his view that completed individuals constitute infima species, [DM 9; N 326] yields a promising speculation as to why he might hold that any change in property of our Adam would be a different person.

1998, R. O. Savage, Real Alternatives, Leibniz's Metaphysics of Choice, page 95:

So two things are pivotal in the Categories account of primary ousiai: the idea that the things that are ontologically fundamental are basic subjects, and the idea that the ontologically basic entities are instances or members of their infimae species.

2008, Michael J. Loux, Primary Ousia: An Essay on Aristotle's Metaphysics Z and H, page 4:

But when Pratt gives illustrations of his claim, he selects different infimae species under the genus 'material substance'.

2009, James Porter Moreland, The Recalcitrant Imago Dei, page 124:

(logic, philosophy, semantics) The narrowest of species; one that that is not a genus to anything else.


dual number

This is particularly the case with regard to the pronouns of the dual number, which form one of the peculiarities of the language.

1840, George Grey, A Vocabulary of the Dialects of South Western Australia, 2nd edition, T. & W. Boone, page xi:

Eteocles and Polyneices are enemy brothers, that is, they are alike in spite of the difference erected by being on opposite sides of the Theban battlements.¹ By uniting them with the dual number in the description of their deaths, Sophocles has the elders speak of them as indistinguishable in their hatred, spear work, and deaths.

1998, William Blake Tyrrell, Larry J. Bennett, Recapturing Sophocles' Antigone, Rowman & Littlefield, page 43:

In most languages, singular and plural are used to indicate number. Slovene, however, has an additional ‘dual’ number, which is used when referring to two of anything. This dual number existed in many languages at one stage in their development, but has been lost; in Slovene, though, […]

2006, Andrea Albrette, Teach Yourself Slovene, McGraw-Hill, page 19:

Classical Arabic has a fully functional dual number, which requires dual agreement in verbs, adjectives and pronouns.

2009, Giuliano Lancioni, “Formulaic models and formulaicity in Classical and Modern Standard Arabic”, in Roberta Corrigan, Edith A. Moravcsik, Hamid Ouali, Kathleen M. Wheatley, editors, Formulaic Language, Volume 1: Distribution and historical change, John Benjamins Publishing Company, page 225:

(grammar) A grammatical number denoting a quantity of exactly two.


scopal

(chiefly linguistics) Relating to scope.


postdeterminer

(grammar) A term (or phrase) that follows a determiner in a noun phrase and modifies the head noun.


N.

(grammar) Abbreviation of nominative case.


open syllable

(linguistics) A syllable that has no coda after its nucleus, and which hence ends in a vowel.


Kulturwort

Borrowed from German Kulturwort, from Kultur (“culture”) + Wort (“word”).

(linguistics) A word borrowed among many languages denoting a cross-cultural concept.


honorific transposition

honorific transposition (countable and uncountable, plural honorific transpositions)

(linguistics, Egyptology) A shift in the sign order of a compound word or common phrase, to make certain religiously significant terms (e.g. nswt, nṯr, rꜥ) appear at the front of the word or phrase.


Chuanqiandian

(linguistics) Relating to the West Hmongic branch of the Miao languages.


head-final

(linguistics) Having the head (primary morpheme) at the end of a phrase.


head-initial

(linguistics) Having the head (primary morpheme) at the beginning of a phrase.


Sanskritize

en-verb

Sanskritize (third-person singular simple present Sanskritizes, present participle Sanskritizing, simple past and past participle Sanskritized)

Sanskritizes (present singular third-person)
Sanskritizing (participle present)
Sanskritized (participle past)
Sanskritized (past)

From Sanskrit + -ize (suffix forming verbs indicating the making of things denoted by the words it is affixed to).

suffix

"In India, gao, gauri, govinda, have relation to Kine." The 1st and 3rd have, but the other (meaning white, fair), none whatever, though the only one to his [Edward Moor's] purpose (and that but in sound), which is to Sanskritize Cuarius, a local epithet of Neptune as worshipped at Cierium in Thessaly!

1837 September, Cinsurensis [pseudonym], “Review. Oriental Fragments, by the Author of the Hindu Pantheon. London, 1834. [book review]”, in The Calcutta Christian Observer, volume VI, number 64, Calcutta, West Bengal: […] Thacker & Co. […], →OCLC, page 496:

One feels further inclined to derive the Sanskrit amśa, a portion, from the aforesaid pañchu, añju, as a Sanskritising of a popular word.

1875, Robert Caldwell, quoting Hermann Gundert, “Part IV. The Numerals.”, in A Comparative Grammar of the Dravidian or South-Indian Family of Languages, 2nd edition, London: Trübner & Co., […], →OCLC, page 233:

Taking the old form of the name, ‘Bâdâvi’, which we meet with as far back as Śaka 622 (a.d. 700–1), the interchange of letters,—‘vá’ with ‘bá’; ‘tá’ with ‘dá’; and ‘pi’ with ‘vi’,—is natural enough, whether we take ‘Bâdâvi’ as a Prâkṛit corruption of the Sanskṛit ‘Vâtâpi’, or whether we take ‘Vâtâpi’ as a name already known in Sanskṛit literature and therefore used as the nearest approach towards Sanskṛitizing a Dravidian name.

1876 March, J[ohn] F[aithfull] Fleet, “Sanskṛit and Old Canarese Inscriptions”, in Ja[me]s Burgess, editor, The Indian Antiquary, a Journal of Oriental Research […], volume V, Bombay, Maharashtra: […] Education Society’s Press, […]; London: Trübner & Co.; […], →OCLC, section no. XIII, page 68:

The New Testament was translated in 1818 into this Dialect in the Nágari Character, and much Sanskritised.

1878, Robert N[eedham] Cust, “Aryan Family”, in A Sketch of the Modern Languages of the East Indies. […] (Trübner’s Oriental Series; IV), London: Trübner & Co., […], →OCLC, page 60:

Both imaginary words are no doubt the result of an unhappy attempt to Sanskritise a Prâkrit nippalâva by scribes unacquainted with the Sanskrit palâva (Pâli palâpa).

1884, “Skilfulness”, in H[endrik] Kern, transl., edited by F[riedrich] Max Müller, The Saddharma-Pu[ṇḍ]arîka or The Lotus of the True Law (The Sacred Books of the East; XXI), Oxford, Oxfordshire: Clarendon Press, →OCLC, footnote 1, page 39:

Sometimes Prakrit words were wrongly Sanskritised. Reference may be made in this connection to utkṛṣṭi derived from Prakrit ukkuṭṭhi (Sanskrit utkrośa) meaning 'wailing'. Similar is the case with ḍheṅku-kaḍḍhaka and nīla-ḍumphaka which appear to have been imperfectly Sanskritised.

1965, D. C. Sircar [i.e., Dineshchandra Sircar], “Technical Expressions”, in Indian Epigraphy, Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass Publishers, published 1996, →ISBN, page 426:

The Avacūrī Sanskritises the first verse in this verse as Sudayavacchakathā and it seems to be Svayambḥū's epic on Śūdraka [...].

2004, A[nthony] K[ennedy] Warder, “Epic and Drama in the Time of Vastupāla”, in Indian Kāvya Literature: Volume VII: The Wheel of Time: Part II, Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass Publishers, →ISBN, paragraph 6758, page 539:

Note that this work, in contrast to the lhan thabs, sanskritizes Rin chen dpal more properly as "Ratna shri".

2009, Elliot Sperling, “Tibetan Buddhism, Perceived and Imagined, along the Ming-Era Sino-Tibetan Frontier”, in Matthew T. Kapstein, editor, Buddhism between Tibet and China (Studies in Indian and Tibetan Buddhism), Somerville, Mass.: Wisdom Publications, →ISBN, part II (Missions from the Frontiers), footnote 18, page 175:

(transitive, linguistics) To render a non-Sanskrit text, word, etc., in a form characteristic of Sanskrit morphology or phonology.

Phạn hóa

to render a non-Sanskrit text, etc., in a form characteristic of Sanskrit morphology or phonology

The period when Sanskrit began to spread itself over India cannot be determined any more than the era of the immigration of the people who spoke it. We can only determine the following points: [...] (2) to the north, the Sanskrit or its dialects prevailed as far as the Himalaya and the Indian Caucasus; (3) to the east, in the time of Aśoka, as far as the region of the Brahmaputra, though this region was not entirely Sanskritized; [...]

1860, J[ohn] Muir, “The Languages of Northern India: Their History and Relations”, in Original Sanskrit Texts on the Origin and History of the People of India, Their Religion and Institutions. […], part second (The Trans-Himalayan Origin of the Hindus, […]), London, Edinburgh: Williams and Norgate, […], →OCLC, section VIII, page 146:

The Tamils and Hindus use a dialect full of Sanskrit words; and the modern Sinhalese with a view to beautify language, do not assimilate sounds, and shorten expressions, but Sanskritize our ancient simple language.

1863, James D’Awlis, “Introduction”, in Kachchàyana [i.e., Kātyāyana], An Introduction to Kachchàyana’s Grammar of the Pàli Language; […], Colombo, London: Williams and Norgate, […], →OCLC, page cx:

Of late years there has, however, been a strong tendency to Sanskritise the written Bengali, so much so that the Bengali of our school books had begun to differ widely from the language spoken and understood by an intelligent but unlettered man from the streets.

1872, “The Department of Education”, in Report on the Administration of Bengal: 1871–72, Calcutta, West Bengal: […] Bengal Secretariat Press, →OCLC, part I (The General Report), page 249:

Literary Bengali of prose, during the greater part of the 19th century, was thus a doubly artificial language; and, with its forms belonging to Middle Bengali, and its vocabulary highly Sanskritised, it could only be compared to a 'Modern English' with a Chaucerian grammar and a super-Johnsonian vocabulary, if such a thing could be conceived.

1926, Suniti Kumar Chatterji, The Origin and Development of the Bengali Language, Calcutta, West Bengal: Calcutta University Press, →OCLC, page 134:

Since Hindi became the official language of the Indian Union, the processes started at the beginning of the century to "Sanskritize" and "sanitize" it have intensified in the sense that the words and expressions of Persian, Arabic, and Urdu origin have been, and are still being, removed and substituted by new words. The decision to intensively "Sanskritize" Hindi, in spite of the explicit directive of the constitution that Hindi should draw on other Indian languages as well in addition to borrowing primarily from Sanskrit, has led to undesirable consequences for Hindi and Urdu today—linguistically, socially, and politically.

2007, Rama K. Agnihotri, “Identity and Multilinguality: The Case of India”, in Amy B. M. Tsui, James W. Tollefson, editors, Language Policy, Culture, and Identity in Asian Contexts, New York, N.Y., Abingdon, Oxfordshire: Routledge, published 2015, →ISBN, part III (Language Policy and Language Politics: The Role of English), page 193:

(transitive, linguistics) To influence a non-Sanskrit language by Sanskritic vocabulary.


Wergaia

(linguistics) An indigenous Australian language group in the Wimmera region of northwestern Victoria.


tatpuruṣa

Borrowed from Sanskrit तत्पुरुष (tatpuruṣa), itself an example of tatpuruṣa.

(Sanskrit grammar, lexicography) A dependent determinative compound, i.e. a compound XY meaning a type of Y which is related to X in a way corresponding to one of the grammatical cases of X.


archaicism

en-noun

archaicism (countable and uncountable, plural archaicisms)

(linguistics) Alternative form of archaism


parasynonym

(linguistics) A word or phrase that shares similar meanings with another term in some contexts, but not all; a close synonym.


chronolect

From chrono- (“time”) + -lect (“[language] variety”).

confix

Koine and Byzantine are chronolects of Greek.

Taking lect in the sense of ‘variety’ (and not ‘social variety’), I have coined spatiolect ‘spatial variety’, chronolect ‘chronological variety’, communolect ‘variety of a community (however defined)’, ecolect ‘variety of an economic class’, ethnolect ‘variety of an ethnic group’, religiolect ‘variety of a religious group’, sexlect ‘variety of one of the sexes or of people with a certain sexual orientation’, urbolect ‘urban variety’, and rurolect ‘rural variety’.

1981, Leuvense Bĳdragen, volume LXX, Martinus Nĳhoff Publishers, page 52:

(linguistics, sociolinguistics) A specific variety of a language at a given time in its history of development.


-lect

From the terminal element of dialect, thus representing the Ancient Greek element -λεκτος (-lektos), ultimately from λέγω (légō, “I say or speak”).


quasimodal

(linguistics) Having certain modal features.


nomen instrumenti

en-noun

nomen instrumenti (plural nomina instrumenti)

From Latin nomen + (genitive of) instrumentum.

(grammar) A noun denoting an instrument or tool.


nomen acti

(grammar) A noun denoting a result of a dynamic action.


nomen loci

nomen loci (plural nomina locorum or nomina loci)

nomina locorum (plural)
nomina loci (plural)


nomen vasis

(Arabic grammar) a noun denoting a vessel


nomen deminutivum

nomen deminutivum (plural nomina deminutiva)


Saussurean

en-adj

Saussurean (comparative more Saussurean, superlative most Saussurean)

more Saussurean (comparative)
most Saussurean (superlative)

(linguistics) Of or pertaining to, characteristic of, associated with, or suggestive of Ferdinand de Saussure or his works.

saussurovský

relating o Ferdinand de Saussure or his works


nomen appellativum

en-noun

nomen appellativum (plural nomina appellativa)

But a name which belongs to several things of one kind is called a common name (nomen appellativum); as flumen, flood; rex, king; homo, man.

1825, George Walker (translator, editor), I. J. G. Scheller (German author), A copious Latin grammar. Translated from the German, with alterations, notes and additions. In two volumes. Vol. I., London, p. 38

Not only because 'omnipotence' as a single property is found in the creed, but because 'omnipotence' as a single property is found in the creed, but because it is more appropriate and revealing perhaps than 'absolute causality' (Schleiermacher) or 'infinity' (Pannenberg appealing to Gregory of Nyssa) which for reasons internal to theology makes it possible to engage with the study of religions and philosophy of religion; and might make concrete a provisional paraphrase of the word 'God' understood as a nomen appellativum, not least as it is used in the term 'all-determining reality'.

2002, Oswald Bayer, “Hermeneutical Theology. In: Petr Pokorný”, in Jan Roskovec, editor, Philosophical Hermeneutics and Biblical Exegesis: Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament 153, Mohr Siebeck, page 112f:


categorial grammar

categorial grammar (plural categorial grammars)

(linguistics) A type of formal grammar of natural language syntax.


birth name

Her birth name was Elizabeth, but everyone called her Lizzie.

In California the credit card companies must issue a credit card in a person's birth name or married name, whichever the customer prefers.

A name chosen for a child at birth, as opposed to a different name used subsequently.


deaspirate

en-verb

deaspirate (third-person singular simple present deaspirates, present participle deaspirating, simple past and past participle deaspirated)

deaspirates (present singular third-person)
deaspirating (participle present)
deaspirated (participle past)
deaspirated (past)

(transitive, phonetics) To change the pronunciation of a consonant so that it is no longer aspirated.


full-grade

From full + grade, as in gradation (“apophony”). Possibly after German Vollstufe.

(Indo-European linguistics) Synonym of e-grade


linguism

Discrimination based on a person's language.


arrhizotonic

(linguistics, of an inflected form) whose stressed syllable is in the suffix


rhizotonic

(linguistics, of an inflected form) Having the stressed syllable within the root of the word.


discontinuative

In narratives, discontinuative predicate focus is used when there is a topic shift, or when two referents are contrasted.

2010, Ines Fiedler, Anne Schwarz, The Expression of Information Structure:


r-dropping

(phonology) The omission of the sound of a letter "r" after a vowel.


labiodentalization

(phonetics) A change to a sound that makes it labiodental.


prefinal

a prefinal consonant

(linguistics) Immediately before the last.


prefinal

(linguistics) The consonant immediately before the last.


semimodal

(grammar) Having only some of the characteristics of the major modal verbs.


semimodal

(grammar) A verb having only some of the characteristics of the major modal verbs.


wug word

From wug, a made-up word used in the so-called wug test to investigate the acquisition of the plural form in English-speaking children. Coined in the 1950s by Dr. Jean Berko Gleason.


trajector

(linguistics, in a verbal phrase) A subject or object that moves (through space or time)


Paleosiberian

(linguistics) Of or relating to a disparate group of linguistic isolates and a few small language families spoken in parts of northeastern Siberia and the Russian Far East.


iambelegus

(prosody) A verse consisting of an iambic dimeter and half an elegiac pentameter.


derivationalism

(linguistics) The hypothesis that the mind operates by performing sequential processing steps on an initial input.


freq.

(grammar) Abbreviation of frequentative.


stressedness

(linguistics, of a syllable, etc.) Quality of being stressed.


etymological argument

en-noun

etymological argument (plural etymological arguments)

But it goes without saying that this etymological argument in and of itself has no significance, since a word taken from a dead language may resultantly assume a meaning independent of its etymology.

1877, Vladimir Sergeyevich Solovyov, translated by Valerie Z. Nollan, The Philosophical Principles of Integral Knowledge, Eerdmans, published 2008, →ISBN, page 58:

Nothing need be said about the etymological argument except perhaps that it was characteristic of Stoic philosophers to think such an argument could be used with force, because they believed that language is not conventional, but natural.

1970, Josiah B. Gould, The Philosophy of Chrysippus, →ISBN, page 148:

And if we look to post-Platonic texts, etymological argument for philosophical positions seems to become common practice.

1998, Rachel Barney, “Socrates Agonistes: The Case of the Cratylus Etymologies”, in Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy: Volume XVI, →ISBN, page 68:

Aristotle also throws in a dubious etymological argument: this is why it has the name ‘money’ (nomisma)—because it exists not by nature but by law (nomos) and it is in our power to change it and make it useless. (Nicomachean Ethics 1133a30-31)

2005, Roy Harris, The Semantics of Science, →ISBN, page 19:

In support of this supposed brotherhood between ready-to-hand and present-at-hand, Bernasconi offers the fashionable but shaky etymological argument that both terms contain the word “hand,” the organ which is traditionally regarded as the instrument of production.

2013, Graham Harman, Tool-Being: Heidegger and the Metaphysics of Objects, →ISBN, page 111:

(philosophy, linguistics) Explanation and analysis—often considered controversial—of one or more concepts or linguistic terms by means of an exposition of their linguistic origins.


paleolinguistics

The study of the distant human past by linguistic means.

paleolinguïstiek

The study of prehistoric languages using linguistic evidence alone to try to reconstruct them.


archaeolinguistics

The study of the distant human past using archaeological and linguistic evidence together to reconstruct aspects of past cultures.


a potiori

Learned borrowing from Latin denominatio a potiori (“naming from the stronger”).

learned borrowing

(grammar) The use of the more generic category (for agreement) with combinations of words from two or more selective categories (such as gender). For example Each boy or girl took his book., or in French Le manteau et la robe sont verts, mais les chaussures ne sont pas vertes. (The (masculine) coat and the (feminine) dress are (masculine plural) green, but the (feminine plural) shoes are not (feminine plural) green.)


allocher

From allo- + chereme, by analogy with allophone.

(linguistics) In a sign language, any of two or more alternative hand signs for a chereme.


prerhotic

While /ɛ/ and /ɪ/ lost their distinctiveness in pre-rhotic, tautosyllabic positions, the basic distinction back ~ front was maintained in forms such as the following: fern [fɛɹn], General IrE [fərn]; turn [tʌɹn], General IrE [tərn].

1986, Raymond Hickey, “Possible phonological parallels between Irish and Irish English”, in English World-Wide, VII, № 1, page 9, § 1.6.2:

1993 Summer, Ralph H. Emerson, “The Distribution of Eighteenth-Century Prerhotic O-Phonemes in Walker’s Critical Pronouncing Dictionary” in American Speech LXVIII, № 2, pages 115–138

We turn now to the prerhotic context in (15)–(17).

2001, James Harris, “Spanish Negative in-: Morphology, Phonology, Semantics”, chapter 5 in Ken Hale: A Life in Language, ed. Michael J. Kenstowicz, MIT Press (hbk) (pbk), page 179

(linguistics, rare) Occurring before the letter ⟨r⟩ or before any one of the sounds that letter tends to represent (e.g., [r], [ɽ], [ɹ], [ɻ], [ʀ], [ʁ], etc.).


word-formational

(linguistics) of or pertaining to word formation; morphological


nomen abstractum

en-noun

nomen abstractum (plural nomina abstracta)


nomen concretum

nomen concretum (plural nomina concreta)


gSign

(linguistics) A gestural sign; a unit of sign language.


Sapirian

en-adj

Sapirian (comparative more Sapirian, superlative most Sapirian)

more Sapirian (comparative)
most Sapirian (superlative)

Relating to Edward Sapir (1884–1939), influential American anthropologist-linguist.


syntactocentrism

(linguistics) A focus on the role of syntax in language.


quantitative metathesis

en-noun

quantitative metathesis (countable and uncountable, plural quantitative metatheses)

(prosody) A form of metathesis or transposition involving quantity or vowel length, by which two neighboring vowels – one long, one short – switch their lengths, so that the long one becomes short, and the short one becomes long.


ghayn

(linguistics) The Cyrillic letter Ғ in various Central Asian languages.

The Hebrew 'Ayn has, it is true, in many cases — some scholars say always — the sound of the Arabic ghayn […]

1872, Richard Francis Burton et al., Unexplored Syria:


Southern drawl

(phonetics) The diphthongisation or triphthongisation of the vowels /æ/, /ɛ/ and /ɪ/ into [æj(ə)], [ɛj(ə)] and [ɪj(ə)], occurring in English spoken in the Southern United States.


specific language impairment

specific language impairment (plural specific language impairments)

(linguistics) A disorder where a person's language skills are retarded or abnormally poor for unknown reasons.


SLI

specific language impairment
specific language impairment#English

(linguistics) Initialism of specific language impairment.


Broca's aphasia

(medicine, pathology) A disorder where a sufferer is unable to use fluent grammar when speaking or writing, and utterances are almost always ungrammatical.

Broca se afasie

a disorder where a suffer is unable to use fluent grammar


addental

an addental lisp


partword

The speech of infants often contains partwords.

(linguistics) A partial word; an utterance consisting of only part of a word.


simulative

(grammar) A grammatical case expressing similarity.


batonic

From baton + -ic, suggesting the baton used to conduct an orchestra.

batonic gestures in sign language

(linguistics) Not representing anything specific; non-representational.


subregister

(linguistics) A secondary or subsidiary register (style of language).


registerially

Finally, in order to achieve this knowledge, it is essential to develop a means of registerially specifying texts, spoken and written, in terms of their social, historical and discursive functions and their linguistic structure.

1995, Helen Leckie-Tarry, Language and Context: A Functional Linguistic Theory of Register, page 5:

As a semiotic for reasoning, logic is registerially quite constrained: it operates under a number of connexional assumptions about valid reasoning.

1999, Michael Alexander Kirkwood Halliday, Construing Experience Through Meaning: A Language-based Approach to Cognition, page 37:

To explore the first question, we have compared the DaSciTex corpus with the registerially mixed FLOB corpus.

2010, Stefan Thomas Gries, Corpus-linguistic Applications: Current Studies, New Directions, page 235:

(linguistics) In terms of, or by means of, the register of language.


underextend

en-verb

underextend (third-person singular simple present underextends, present participle underextending, simple past and past participle underextended)

underextends (present singular third-person)
underextending (participle present)
underextended (participle past)
underextended (past)

(linguistics, transitive) To apply (a term) to too few referents, by underextension.


underextension

en-noun

underextension (countable and uncountable, plural underextensions)

(linguistics) Application of a term to too few referents, as for example when a child uses cat to refer only to the family pet.


bitext

From bi- + text, coined by Brian Harris in 1987 as bi-text.

Another way of putting it is to say that a bi-text is not two texts but a single text in two dimensions, each of which is a language.

1988, Brian Harris, “Bi-text, a new concept intranslation theory”, in Language Monthly, number 54, pages 8–10:

Once a bitext is available, it can be converted into a traditional translation memory, which usually involves eliminating duplicate translation units, some degree of normalization of the segments, and combining unordered sets of translation units from a number of source and target texts into an indexed database.

2014, “Bitext”, in Sin-Wai Chan, editor, Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Technology, Routledge, →ISBN, page 412:

(translation studies) A merged document composed of both source- and target-language versions of a given text.


desubstantival

From de- (“from”) + substantival (“substantive”).

prefix

(grammar) Deriving from a noun; denominal, denominative.


baseword

(linguistics) A word used as a base, to whose stem affixes are added, forming new words.

kata dasar

a word to which affixes can be added to form new words


a-stem

(linguistics) A word, especially a noun in Indo-European linguistics, whose stem ends in /a/.


morphophonemic

(linguistics) Relating to morphophonemes or morphophonemics.

morphophonémique

relating to morphophonemes or morphophonemics


overregularize

en-verb

overregularize (third-person singular simple present overregularizes, present participle overregularizing, simple past and past participle overregularized)

overregularizes (present singular third-person)
overregularizing (participle present)
overregularized (participle past)
overregularized (past)

A child familiar with past tenses formed with "-ed" overregularizes by saying "goed" instead of "went".

(linguistics, intransitive) To apply (a rule of language) too widely.


morphophoneme

(linguistics) One of the units of which the underlying representations of morphemes are composed.

morfofoneemi

underlying phonemic structure of a morpheme


undergeneralize

undergeneralize (third-person singular simple present undergeneralizes, present participle undergeneralizing, simple past and past participle undergeneralized)

undergeneralizes (present singular third-person)
undergeneralizing (participle present)
undergeneralized (participle past)
undergeneralized (past)

(linguistics) To use a word or phrase to refer to a smaller set of entities than it properly describes.


codeswitching

1998, RELC Journal, Volumes 29-30, SEAMEO Regional Language Centre, page 190,
Hendrik Boeschoten discusses the questions of codeswitching and language change and the possibility of a codeswitching norm.

2004, Michelle Hall Kells, Valerie M. Balester, Victor Villanueva, Latino/a Discourses, Boynton/Cook Publishers, Heinemann, page 27,
What these beliefs fail to account for is the fact that codeswitching is a universal phenomenon of language contact, a mechanism of language shift as well as language change (Myers-Scotton 210).

We deal only with the clause, because it is only within the clause that the language varieties involved in codeswitching are in contact.

2006, Carol Myers-Scotton, Multiple Voices, Wiley, page 241:


prelexical

Of particular relevance is the category of prelexical comment, which comprises the non-lexical utterance of standard phonemes accompanied by strong visual or gestural indicators of attentional focus, such as pointing, touching, or intent gaze.

2001, D. Clarke, Perspectives on Practice and Meaning in Mathematics and Science Classrooms, page 234:


i-mutation

(linguistics) A type of sound change in which a vowel's place of articulation is raised (becomes more close) under the influence of a following /i/, /j/ or similar sound.

i-Umlaut

type of sound change in which a vowel is raised by /i/ after


Sanskritized

en-adj

Sanskritized (comparative more Sanskritized, superlative most Sanskritized)

more Sanskritized (comparative)
most Sanskritized (superlative)

(American spelling, Oxford British English, linguistics) Of a non-Sanskrit text, word, etc.: rendered in a form characteristic of Sanskrit morphology or phonology.


desubst.

(grammar) Abbreviation of desubstantival.


dem.

(grammar) Abbreviation of demonstrative.


rel.

cluichigedar = 3rd sg. pres. rel. of cluichigidir
Cluichigedar is [the] third-person singular present relative [form] of cluichigidir.


word formation

en-noun

word formation (countable and uncountable, plural word formations)

(linguistics) The formation of new words by the processes of derivation and composition.


deadjectival

(grammar) A word derived from an adjective.


indet.

(grammar) Abbreviation of indeterminate.


misgender

en-verb

misgender (third-person singular simple present misgenders, present participle misgendering, simple past and past participle misgendered)

misgenders (present singular third-person)
misgendering (participle present)
misgendered (participle past)
misgendered (past)

Coordinate term: misnumber

Leonie was always, in fact, the first to point out a misconjugated verb, a misgendered noun, […]

2017, Rebecca Schuman, Schadenfreude, A Love Story:

Our first demonstration at the Canadian border—where we’d planned to test rumors about PWAs being denied entry into Canada by announcing we all had AIDS—fizzled when our bus entered the country without incident, save the late realization that our bilingual T-shirts had misgendered the virus—it's “le SIDA,” not “la SIDA”—causing a frantic scramble for sharpies and eyebrow pencils to correct the offending vowel.

2022, Ron Goldberg, “Storming the Ivory Tower”, in Boy with the Bullhorn: A Memoir and History of ACT UP New York, Fordham University Press, →ISBN:

Next is a list of misgendered words between the two languages:
Similar words with different genders […]

2022, John Whitlam, Agripino S. Silveira, Modern Brazilian Portuguese Grammar: A Practical Guide:

(transitive, grammar) To use the wrong grammatical gender with a word.


voicedness

(phonetics, phonology) The state or property of being uttered in a voiced manner.

zöngésség

the state or property of being uttered in a voiced manner


dentialveolar

(phonetics) Articulated with a flat tongue against the alveolar ridge and upper teeth.


dentialveolar

(phonetics) A speech sound that is articulated with a flat tongue against the alveolar ridge and upper teeth.


voice onset time

en-noun

voice onset time (plural voice onset times)

(phonetics) The amount of time that passes between the release of a stop consonant and the onset of voicing.


copredication

copredication (countable and uncountable, plural copredications)

(grammar) The act of making two (sometimes incompatible) things the subject/predicate of a proposition.


supralocalization

(linguistics) The replacement of local regional words or phrases with those having a wider currency.


historic present

historic present (plural historic presents)


historical present

(grammar) The present tense as used when referring to real past events, to add immediacy to what is being said or written.

In most dialects, the historical present is used quite freely to convey the sense of more vivid narrative, to retell dreams, plots, tell jokes, etc.

1972, William Labov, Language in the Inner City: Studies in the Black English, page 47:

Cross-linguistically, the historical present tends to be used to increase vividness by substituting the perspective of the ongoing speech situation for that of the narrative.

2001, Daniel E. Collins, Reanimated Voices: Speech reporting in a historical-pragmatic perspective, page 91:

Mr. Rothstein comes in," Scher said, "it must have been about none o'clock. Every night he comes in here [Scher, like so many Broadway habitués, spoke most often in the historical present, rather than the past, tense. Damon Runyon faithfully reproduced this patois.] Regular as clockwork he comes in here.

2016, Leo Katcher, The Big Bankroll: The Life And Times Of Arnold Rothstein:

(grammar) The present tense as used when writing a fictional narrative.


dialectometry

(linguistics) The study of the regional distribution of dialects.


advergence

Coined by evolutionary biologists L. P. Brower and J. van Z. Brower in 1972 for the paper "Parallelism, convergence, divergence, and the new concept of advergence in the evolution of mimicry" on the pattern of convergence, substituting ad- for con- to emphasize the one-sidedness of the approach. Borrowed into linguistics by Peter Auer in 1998. By surface analysis, ad- + verge + -ence, from Latin vergere (“to turn, incline”), from Proto-Italic *wergō, from Proto-Indo-European *h₂wérg-e-ti, from *h₂werg- (“to turn”).

surf

The main process in regiolect formation is dialect-to-standard advergence, but there are two caveats to this statement.

2005, Nicole Delbecque, Johan van der Auwera, Dirk Geeraerts, Perspectives on Variation, page 25:

Horizontal convergence that causes divergence in a part of a formerly uniform dialect area can be, and often is, accompanied by vertical convergence, i.e., by advergence to the standard language.

2010, Peter Auer, Jürgen Erich Schmidt, Theories and Methods, page 290:

(linguistics) The evolution of a dialect to resemble the standard language more closely.


universal grammar

en-noun

universal grammar (plural universal grammars)

At this point, let's gather together various loose ends, and try and paint a
 simple picture of the overall model of grammar which we are moving towards.
 We might suppose that Universal Grammar makes available a set of category-
neutral pairs of rule-schemas such as those numbered (i) and (ii) in (168–170)
 above. The members of each pair of rule-schemas differ only in respect of the
 relative ordering of constituents. The task of the child acquiring the grammar
 of a particular language is thus to determine which ordering options are
 selected in the language he is acquiring. For example, the child has to deter-
mine whether a given language is a head-first language incorporating rule-
schema (168) (i), or a head-last language incorporating schema (168) (ii): in
 other words, the child has to ‘setʼ the relevant word-order parameter for Com-
plements, Specifiers, Adjuncts, and so forth. The picture is complicated by the
 fact that some languages permit more than one ordering option: for example,
 as we have already seen, English selects the head-first and specifier-first orders
 as the unmarked option, but also selects the ‘mirror imageʼ orders as a marked option.

1988, Andrew Radford, chapter 5, in Transformational grammar: a first course, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, page 276:

(linguistics) A hypothetical innate abstract system in the human brain that underlies the grammar of all human languages.

普遍文法

hypothetical system in the brain that underlies the grammar of all languages


moderative

(grammar) Expressing the idea of a little, now and then, etc.


Case

The basic principle governing case is:
(20) The Case filter:
A lexicalized NP must bear a Case feature in S-structure.
‘Case’ with a capital C is here understood not as morphologically marked case, but as an abstract feature which will be present even in languages such as Swahili or Chinese which lack case marking on NPs (it is usually assumed however, that Case will be congruent with morphological case where the latter is present).

1988, Frederick J. Newmeyer, Linguistic Theory: Foundations:

When we have clitic doubling constructions (with both a full NP and a clitic), the NP needs a dummy Case marker in order to get Case, as its “normal” Case is absorbed by the clitic, otherwise it will be ruled out by the Case Filter. It must be stressed that ‘Case’ here is abstract Case (written with capital C), a licensing requirement making arguments visible for θ-marking, and not morphological case.

1993, Anders Holmberg, Urpo Nikanne, Case and Other Functional Categories in Finnish Syntax:

(grammar) abstract feature of a noun phrase that determines its function in a sentence, such as a grammatical case and a position.


Mamean

(linguistics) Of or relating to a language family, part of the Eastern Mayan language group, including the Mam languages.


Ixilan

(linguistics) Of or relating to a Mamean language family including the languages Ixil and Awakatek.


dentality

(phonology) The quality of being dental.


underspecification

underspecification (countable and uncountable, plural underspecifications)

(linguistics) A phenomenon in which certain features are omitted in underlying representations.

alulszabottság

linguistics: a phenomenon in which certain features are omitted in underlying representations


adverbializer

(grammar) A morpheme, particle, etc. that converts a word into an adverb.

adverbializador

morpheme that converts a word into an adverb


adprep

Phrasal verbs are combinations of a verb and a primary, invariable adverb, the latter including the heads of reduced prepositional phrases but excluding adpreps.

2000, Claudia Claridge, Multi-word Verbs in Early Modern English: A Corpus-based Study:

(grammar) A word that functions both as an adverb and as a preposition.


postcreole

There is a postcreole situation when the creole has lost most of its speakers, as in Louisiana[…]

2010, Concise Encyclopedia of Languages of the World, page 870:

(linguistics) After a creole; after decreolization has taken place.


postcreole

(linguistics) A creole language after decreolization has taken place.


sight-translate

en-verb

sight-translate (third-person singular simple present sight-translates, present participle sight-translating, simple past and past participle sight-translated)

sight-translates (present singular third-person)
sight-translating (participle present)
sight-translated (participle past)
sight-translated (past)

(translation studies) To translate a written document out loud.


exophoric

en-adj

exophoric (comparative more exophoric, superlative most exophoric)

more exophoric (comparative)
most exophoric (superlative)

(linguistics) Relating to, or exhibiting, exophora.


tris legomenon

From Ancient Greek τρίς λεγόμενον (trís legómenon, “(something) said only three times”), from τρίς (trís, “three times”) and λεγόμενον (legómenon), passive participle of λέγω (légō).

uder

τρίς λεγόμενον

(linguistics) A word occurring only three times in a given corpus.


allophony

(phonology) Variation in the phonetic realizations of a phoneme; the state of a phoneme having multiple allophones.

allofonia

variation in the phonetic realizations of a phoneme


particularizer

(grammar) A word or phrase that focuses attention on part of something, such as mainly, especially, or primarily.


Paleohispanic

Iberian Peninsula
Iberian Peninsula#English

(linguistics, archaeology) Of or relating to the native peoples, languages and scripts of the Iberian Peninsula before its conquest by the Romans.


Mixean

(linguistics) Of or relating to a primary branch of the Mixe-Zoquean language family of southern Mexico.


Mixe-Zoque

(linguistics) Of or relating to a language family whose living members are spoken in and around the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, Mexico.