pseudopassive

Consider the English pseudo-passive in (4). (4) This bed has not been slept in for many years

1991, Reineke Bok-Bennema, Case and Agreement in Inuit, Berlin: Foris, page 97

(grammar) A construction where the object of a preposition has been promoted to the role of subject, as in The problem was talked about.

Consider now the pseudo-passive, Er werd gefloten "There was whistling." Here, just as in the true passive, the morphology asserts high participant not focussed.

1976, Robert Kirsner, “On the subjectless 'pseudo-passive' in Standard Dutch and the semantics of background agents”, in Charles N. Li, editor, Subject and Topic, New York: Academic Press, →OCLC, page 391

(grammar) A construction that removes the subject from an intransitive verb, as in the Dutch sentence Er wordt gefloten ("[Someone] whistled").


pseudopassive

A kind of ‘pseudo-passive’ construction is possible, though, with intransitive verbs having a prepositional phrase complement.

1971, Manindra K. Verma, The Structure of the Noun Phrase in English and Hindi, Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, →OCLC, page 157

(grammar) Of or related to the pseudopassive.


adjectivization

en-noun

adjectivization (countable and uncountable, plural adjectivizations)

(grammar) The process or result of adjectivizing; conversion into an adjective.


accreditive

(grammar) A speech act that gives permission or approval.


tritransitive

(grammar) Of or relating to a class of verbs which take three objects.


complementize

en-verb

complementize (third-person singular simple present complementizes, present participle complementizing, simple past and past participle complementized)

complementizes (present singular third-person)
complementizing (participle present)
complementized (participle past)
complementized (past)

(transitive, grammar) To convert into a complement.


subjective case

en-noun

subjective case (plural subjective cases)

(grammar) The form of a noun or pronoun used as the subject of a finite verb. In the active_voice this is the agent, in the passive_voice the subject is the receiver of the action. In both cases the subject is the thing subjected to what is said about it, it is the “topic of the statement”.


predicative adverbial

predicative adverbial (plural predicative adverbials)

(grammar) An adverbial that is congruent with the subject of the sentence, present for example in Finnish.


thematic role

(grammar) A function of the arguments of a verb, which maps them bijectively to a set (which depends lexically on the verb) called the “theta grid”.


accusativus cum infinitivo

accusativus cum infinitivo (usually uncountable, plural accusativi cum infinitivis)

Learned borrowing from Latin accūsātīvus cum īnfīnītīvō (literally “accusative [case] with infinitive [mood]”).

lbor

accusative 􂀿case􂁀 with infinitive 􂀿mood􂁀

A historico-typological analysis of Greek and Latin infinitival structures, and that of Greek and Latin accusativi cum infinitivis, and nominativi cum infinitivis does not only mean the clearer understanding of the syntactical system of the languages concerned, but it can also elucidate the emergence and the development of these structures.

1972, Annales Universitatis Scientiarum Budapestinensis de Rolando Eötvös Nominatae: Sectio Classica, volume I, Eötvös Loránd Tudományegyetem, page 9

Thus we must differentiate between the accusativi cum infinitivis after the two groups of verbs already on account of this, although this has not been thought necessary by anybody so far.

In all these occurrences, after the clause ἔδοξεν tῲ dήμῳ (lʿ m ṣdnm tm), we find a nominal clause without a verbal subject; in these instances the accusativi cum infinitivis which give the detailed content of the decree are to be seen […]

1982, Haiim B. Rosén, East and West: Selected Writings in Linguistics, part one: General and Indo-European Linguistics, Munich: Wilhelm Fink Verlag (10) (13), page 427

Not only are all the verbs in the infinitive, since these sentences are, from a syntactical point of view, accusativi cum infinitivis, but also the continuation of the sentence comes in the words ʿ ṭrt ḥrṣ after a long parenthesis; both of these constructions are completely foreign to the nature of Semitic paratactic syntax.

subordinate clause
subordinate clause#English

(grammar) A syntactic construction, very common in Classical Latin, in which the subject of a subordinate clause is declined for the accusative case and the verb is conjugated for the infinitive mood, used chiefly to express indirect statements.

þolfall með nafnhætti

accusative–infinitive construction used to express indirect statements


theta role

Such an analysis would provide a natural way of accounting for the fact that (inter alia) transitive Objects and their ergative Subject counterparts are assigned the same theta-roles, and hence are subject to the same Selection Restrictions. For example, in (160) below:
(160) (a) John might drown the kittens/his wife/??his goldfish/?!his frying-pan/!his birth
(160) (b) The kittens/his wife/??his goldfish/?!his frying-pan/!his birth might drown
the italicised transitive Object in (160) (a) has the same theta role ( = that of THEME or PATIENT (i.e. victim!) of drown) as the italicised ergative Subject in (160) (b), and accordingly is subject to the same Selection Restrictions.

1988, Andrew Radford, chapter 8, in Transformational grammar: a first course, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, page 447

transformational grammar
transformational grammar

(grammar, especially transformational grammar) Abbreviation of thematic role.


ezafe

Etymology tree
Arabic إِضَافَة (ʔiḍāfa)bor.
Iranian Persian اِضافِه (ezâfe)bor.
English ezafe
Borrowed from Iranian Persian اِضافِه (ezâfe), from Classical Persian اِضَافَه (izāfa), from Arabic إِضَافَة (ʔiḍāfa). Doublet of idafa.

der

Arabic إِضَافَة (ʔiḍāfa)

ʾiḍāfa ʾiḍāfa

A grammatical particle found in some Iranian and Iranian-influenced languages which links two words together; it consists of the unstressed vowel -e / -ye (Persian, Bengali, Hindi-Urdu), -i / -yi (Classical Persian, Kurdish, Urdu, Ottoman Turkish), or -ı (Ottoman Turkish) between the words it connects, and often approximately corresponds in usage to the English preposition "of", similar to but not to be confused with Arabic ʾiḍāfa.


syndesis

en-noun

syndesis (usually uncountable, plural syndeses)

Initially in cytology from German Syndesis, coined by Valentin Häcker in 1904 from Ancient Greek σύνδεσις (súndesis, “binding, joining”), from συνδεῖν (sundeîn, “to join, to bind”) + -σῐς (-sis, “-sis: forming nouns”), from σῠν- (sun-, “together”) + δεῖν (deîn, “to bind, to tie”). Equivalent to syn- + -desis.

der

(grammar, rhetoric) Synonym of syndeton, the use of conjunctions or syndetic constructions.


seriative

(grammar) Of or relating to the verb subaspect that denotes one after another, an interconnected series of successive separate and distinct actions.


seriative

(grammar) A verb subaspect that denotes one after another, an interconnected series of successive separate and distinct actions.


saturative

/sæˈtjʊəɹətɪv/

/sæˈt͡ʃʊɹətɪv/

/ˈsæt͡ʃəɹətɪv/

(grammar, in languages such as Russian) That is brought to full satisfaction


gsg

(grammar) Abbreviation of genitive singular.


common gender

en-noun

common gender (countable and uncountable, plural common genders)

(grammar) In some languages (e.g. Latin, Lithuanian), a gender applied to a noun that can be either masculine or feminine.

genus commune

gender applied to a noun that is either masculine or feminine in grammatically gendered languages


perispome

(Ancient Greek grammar, of a word) Having a perispomene on the last syllable.


perispome

(Ancient Greek grammar) A word with a perispomene on its last syllable; a perispomenon.


perispome

en-verb

perispome (third-person singular simple present perispomes, present participle perispoming, simple past and past participle perispomed)

perispomes (present singular third-person)
perispoming (participle present)
perispomed (participle past)
perispomed (past)

(transitive, Ancient Greek grammar) To place a perispomene on the last syllable of (a word).


ʾiḍāfa

Transliteration of Arabic إضافَة (ʔiḍāfa). Doublet of ezafe.

translit

The possessive or genitive construction in Arabic

إِضَافَة

the possessive or genitive construction in Arabic


crudeform

From crude (“pertaining to the uninflected stem of a word”) + form.

compound

(grammar, rare) Alternative form of crude form


crude form

crude (“pertaining to the uninflected stem of a word”) + form

(grammar, rare) the uninflected form or stem of a word


zu-infinitive

abgeben → abzugeben

vorbereiten → vorzubereiten

(grammar) a German infinitive form created by adding or infixing the particle zu and used in subordinate clauses


monograde

(grammar) Belonging to a certain conjugation class of verbs in Old Japanese.


movable nu

(grammar) The letter nu placed on the end of some grammatical forms in Attic or Ionic Greek, to avoid two vowels in a row (hiatus) or to create a long syllable in poetic meter.


construct state

en-noun

construct state (plural construct states)

Coordinate term: governed state

(grammar) A noun form associated especially with Afroasiatic languages, but occurring also in Iranian and others; used in construing a nominal with another, particularly for the object of a genitive.

إِضَافَة

a noun form, associated with the genitive


autology

autology (countable and uncountable, plural autologies)

/ɔːˈtɒləd͡ʒɪ/

Holly, the noun for the thorny-leaved shrub of the holiday season requires two Vs. While we righteously call holy the divine autology of spelling, we should compassionately refrain from calling holey (containing holes) an infernal autology.

1984, J. Frank Summers, Wholly, holey, holy: an adult American spelling book

Autology, the reflexive "naming" or "mention" of an expression, differs qualitatively from other modes of reference in which expressions are "used." This, however, does not mean that autology is marginalized as a form of "metalinguistic" discourse, restricted to language about language. Autology is unique to language: it is not found in nonhuman semiotic systems.

1998, Earl R. Anderson, A Grammar of Iconism, page 25

Because autology doesn't genuinely apply to meanings, it cannot function in the intensional treatment of words.

1998, Garvin Rampersad, The end of existence: membership and metaphysics, page 72

(grammar) The property of a word or phrase which describes itself.


non-reflexive

In grammar, some verbs can be both reflexive and non-reflexive.


partitive dative

partitive dative (countable and uncountable, plural partitive datives)

(grammar, uncountable) the dative case which represents the whole or set of which the head of a partitive phrase is a portion or subset

(grammar, countable) a use or instance of such a dative case


partitive ablative

partitive ablative (countable and uncountable, plural partitive ablatives)

(grammar, uncountable) The ablative case which represents the whole or set of which the head of a partitive phrase is a portion or subset.

(grammar, countable) A use or instance of such an ablative case.


double copula

(grammar) The use of two successive copulas when only one is necessary, as in "My point is, is that..."


potential mood

(grammar) The grammatical mood expressing possibility and potential.


dependency grammar

dependency grammar (countable and uncountable, plural dependency grammars)

(grammar) Any of a class of grammars based on the dependency relation (as opposed to the constituency relation), in which words are interconnected by directed links, and the (finite) verb is regarded as the centre of clause structure.


R-expression

(grammar) A referential expression, such as "John" or "the dog": one that, unlike pronouns and anaphora, independently refers to, i.e., picks out, an entity in the world.


prehodiernal

(grammar) Relating to past time earlier than today.


indirective

(grammar) Relating to a construct in some languages that indicates whether there is evidence for a given statement, without specifying the source of knowledge (i.e. whether it is from hearsay, inference, or perception).


crastinal

From Latin crāstinus (“of or belonging to tomorrow”), from crās (“tomorrow”).

der

(grammar, rare) Relating to tomorrow, the following day.


reportative

(grammar) Of or relating to such a construct.


passive participle

en-noun

passive participle (plural passive participles)

(grammar) A participle indicating an ongoing or completed action or state in the passive voice, where a noun modified by the participle is taken to represent the patient of the action denoted by the verb.

اِسْم مَفْعُول m (ism mafʕūl, literally “name of the thing that is done”)


active participle

active participle (plural active participles)

(grammar) A participle indicating an ongoing or completed action or state in the active voice, where a noun modified by the participle is taken to represent the agent of the action denoted by the verb.


improper noun

(grammar) noun that describes something general (rather than that which is purely unique)


description word

description word (plural description words)

They learn not just nouns, but description words (adjectives), action words (verbs), and others.

2006, Tanya Remer Altmann, The Wonder Years: Helping Your Baby and Young Child Successfully Negotiate Major Developmental Milestones (e-book edition without page numbers)

Adjectives, or description words, are another way to turn a standard role or activity into something special.

2010, Julie Gray, Get That Job With The Right CV: Teach Yourself, Hodder Education (part of Hachette UK), in the series Teach Yourself (e-book edition without page numbers)

Both can be used interchangably but Palá cannot be used with adjectives (description words)

2010, Paul Werny, English Filipino Work book, 2nd edition, Median press, p.99

It includes vocabulary related to home, people, action words, description words, pronouns, prepositions, and question words.

2011/2015, Joan N. Kaderavek, Language Disorders in Children: Fundamental Concepts of Assessment and Intervention. Second Edition, Pearson, p.222

Adjective: description word that modifies a noun

2013, Alison Amend, Adam Robinson, Cracking the SAT Literature Subject Test, 2013-2014 Edition, Princeton Review, page 43


self-standing

From self- + standing. Compare Dutch zelfstandig (“independent”), German selbstständig (“independent, self-reliant”).

cog

a self-standing word

(grammar) Lacking affixes; being a stem.


ephelcystic

Learned borrowing from Ancient Greek ἐφελκυστικός (ephelkustikós).

lbor

ἐφελκυστικός

(grammar) Being or relating to the movable nu.


noun substantive

en-noun

noun substantive (plural nouns substantive)

From Middle English noun substantyf, a calque of Latin nōmen substantīvum.

Q. What is a Noun? A. The Name of a Thing. Q. How many Sorts of Nouns are there? [...] A. A Noun Substantive, and a Noun Adjective.

1753, Thomas Martin, An Explanation of the Accidence and Grammar To the End of the Syntax in which The Grounds of each Rule in the Syntax are laid down in the plainest Manner. Compiled By way of Question and Answer, For the Use of Schools., London, page 1

A Noun is a word which serves to name and distinguish some thing; [...]. There are two sorts of nouns; one is called a noun substantive, and the other a noun adjective.

1786, Signor Veneroni, The Complete Italian Master; Containing The best and easiest Rules for attaining that Language, London, page 6

(grammar, obsolete) A word that can be used to refer to a person, animal, place, thing, phenomenon, substance, quality, or idea; one of the basic parts of speech in many languages, including English.


ornative

The languages are ordered according to increasing number of sentences in which a comitative-like construction represents the ornative.

2008, Thomas Stolz, Sonja Kettler, Cornelia Stroh, Aina Urdze, Split Possession: An areal-linguistic study of the alienability correlation and related phenomena in the languages of Europe, John Benjamins Publishing, page 412

(grammar) A noun case that means "endowed with" or "supplied with".


ornative

(grammar) Belonging or relating to such a case.

ornatiivinen

Belonging or relating to the ornative case


conjunctive mode

conjunctive mode (plural conjunctive modes)


subjunctive mode

subjunctive mode (plural subjunctive modes)


action word

(grammar) A word that indicates an action, event or state.


motivative

en-adj

motivative (comparative more motivative, superlative most motivative)

more motivative (comparative)
most motivative (superlative)

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


motivative

(grammar) The motivative case, a case found in some languages (for example Basque) which marks the meaning "because of".


echo subject

(grammar) A verb that has the same subject as the preceding verb.


adjectival pronoun

en-noun

adjectival pronoun (plural adjectival pronouns)

This section will present the declensions of the demonstrative, interrogative/relative, and possessive categories. These pronouns can be termed adjectival on the basis of the fact that they substitute for adjectives. However, most adjectival pronouns have a declension that differs from that of adjectives in an essential property: […]

2002, Ronald F. Feldstein, Steven L. Franks, Polish, Lincom Europa, page 68

Meus and tuus are called adjectival pronouns […]

2014, N. M. Gwynne, Gwynne's Latin: The Ultimate Introduction to Latin Including the Latin in Everyday English, Random House (ebook without page numbers; the italic words were originally bold)

(grammar) A pronoun that accompanies a noun, such as our in English.


pronoun demonstrative

pronoun demonstrative (plural pronouns demonstrative)

Of Pronouns Demonstrative, which are, ce, cet, cette, ces, || ceci, cela, || celui, cèlle, ceûx, cèlles, || celui-ci, cèlle-ci, ceûx-ci, cèlles-ci, || celui-là, cella-là, ceûx-la, cèlles-la, || ce que, ce qui.

1779, Lewis Chambaud, A Grammar of the French Tongue, with a Prefatory Discourse, Containing an Essay On the Proper Method for Teaching and Learning that Language. The Seventh Edition, Revised and Corrected, London, p.122

There are seven sorts of Pronouns: … 4. Les Pronoms démonstratifs, Pronouns demonstrative. …
Of Pronouns Demonstrative. These pronouns are called demonstrative, because they distinguish, in a precise manner, the person or things to which they are applied.

1800, N. Wanostrocht, A grammar of the French language, with pracitcal exercises. The seventh edition: With considerable additions and improvements., London, p.55 and p.70

Pronouns demonstrative, this, that, these, are so called, as they serve to show or demonstrate any person, or the thing spoken of;

1805, F. Bottarelli, The New Italian, English and French Pocket-Dictionary. Vol. I. Containing the Italian before the English and the French., London, p. xvii

These pronouns demonstrative, hic, iste, ille, are distinguished thus: hic points to the nearest to me; iste to him who is by you; ille to him who is distant from both of us: When hic and ille are referred to two things or persons placed before; hic is generally referred to the latter, ille to the former:

1827, James Duncan, A Short Latin Grammar: Forming Part of a Popular System of Classical Instruction, on the plan recommended by Mr. Locke, London: John Taylor, page 63

Of Pronouns Demonstrative. The pronouns demonstrative are as follow: This, that, these, tose. They are called pronouns demonstrative, because they serve to point out or demonstrate any thing or person: as, this book, that man, that woman, &c.

1827, Signor Veneroni, A. Ronna, The Complete Italian Master: Containing the best and easiest rules for attaining that language. To which are added, an introduction to Italian versification; extracts from the Italian poets; &c. &c. The whole properly accented, to facilitate the pronunciation of learners. A new edition, carefully revised, corrected, and improved, London, page 70

On the Pronouns Demonstrative, Relative, and Interrogative. The pronouns demonstrative are in German Dieser, diese, diesz, or dieses, This; and Jener, jene, jenes, That.

1840, D. Boileau, The Nature and Genius of the German Language Displayed, in a more extended review of its grammatical forms than is to be found in any grammar extant; and elucidated by quotations from the best writers. New edition., London, page 64

demonstrative pronoun
demonstrative pronoun#English

(grammar) Alternative form of demonstrative pronoun


noun substantive proper

noun substantive proper (plural nouns substantive proper)

Q. What is a Noun Substantive Proper? A. That which is proper to the thing which it betokeneth. Q. Give an Example of a Noun Substantive Proper. A. Eduardus is my proper Name.

1730, Charles Hoole, The Common Accidence Examined and Explained by Short Questions and Answers According to the very Words of the Book, Conducing very much to the Ease of the Teacher, and Benefit of the Learner, London, lib.I. p.4

The Name of any Thing or Being, or any Word in English, which will admit of a, an or the, before it, so as without any other Word to make Sense, is a Noun Substantive; if it is common to all of that Kind, it is a Noun Substantive Common; as Homo a Man, Angelus an Angel; but if it is proper to one, or to some of that Kind, it is a Noun Substantive proper, as Joannes, Gabriel.

1759, a Clergyman, Who hath taught Grammar for twenty Years past: A Short Grammar, or Rudiments, of the Latin Tongue., London, page 4

Whether is lignorum a noun substantive proper, or a noun substantive common? Lignorum is a noun substantive common because it is common to more sticks than one.

1876, Henry Barnard, English Pedagogy - Old and New: or, Education, the School and the Teacher, in English Literature. Second Series, Brown & Gross, Hartfort, p.252 (at books.google)

A noun substantive proper is the name of some particular person, place, or thing: as Thomas is my proper name.

1780, Thomas Huntley, A grammar of the Latin Tongue …, p.7 (at books.google)

(grammar, archaic) Synonym of proper noun


mandative

en-adj

mandative (comparative more mandative, superlative most mandative)

more mandative (comparative)
most mandative (superlative)

the mandative subjunctive

(grammar, not comparable) Noting the imperative use of the subjunctive, as in "I insist that he leave immediately".


noun numeral

M. How many fold is a Noun Numeral? S. Two fold, Cardinal, and Ordinal.

1728, John Entick, Speculum Latinum: or, Latin made easy to Scholars by an English Grammar only, London, page 9

Nouns numeral, which serve to distinguish the numbers; and are either cardinal, or ordinal. The cardinal number is the fountain of the other, and expresses or joins units together; as, un, deux, trois, quatre, &c. one, two, three, four, &c. The ordinal number is derived from the cardinal, and shews the order and rank of every thing; as, premier, first; deuximie, or second, second; troisieme, third, &c.

1795, A. Boyer, The Complete French Master, for Ladies and Gentlemen. A New Edition, Brussels, page 58

(grammar) A noun that represents a number


trial number

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


duale tantum

From Latin duāle tantum (“dual as such; dual only”), from duāle + tantum.

bor

The second -c- refers to icgaʹkwal “eel” (duale tantum), a form used alongside of igaʹkwal (masc.).

1909, Edward Sapir, Wishram Texts, page 4, footnote 1

The only natural-pair noun consistently preferring the dual over the plural, ὄσσε, virtually a duale tantum, refers to the eyes not as mere sense-organs but as ‘windows of the soul’.

1989, Frans Plank, “On Humboldt on the Dual” in Linguistic Categorization, eds. R. Corrigan, F.R. Eckman, and M.P. Noonan, § 2.5, 309

Generally singularia tantum are the most common; we find instances with just the plural or with dual and plural but lacking the singular; dualia tantum are quite rare.

2000, Greville G. Corbett, Number, chapter v, § 5.8.2, 175

(grammar) A noun (or specific sense of a noun) that can only occur in the dual, and which lacks forms for singular, plural, and any other number.

Dualetantum

grammar: noun that can only occur in the dual


bigrade

(grammar) Belonging to a certain conjugation class of verbs in Old Japanese.


habituative

The habituative and progressive do not co-occur with the perfective. You may choose either the habituative or the progressive or both, but if the progressive is chosen the predicator following must be a verb and not a verbal adjective.

1988, Alan R. Thomas, Methods in Dialectology: Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference ...

(grammar) verb form expressing habitual action or condition


incessive

en-adj

incessive (comparative more incessive, superlative most incessive)

more incessive (comparative)
most incessive (superlative)

From Latin incessus + -ive, from Latin incesso + -ive.

The Hungarian 'incessive' -ban/-ben (e.g., ha'z-ban “in the house”, ke'z-ben “in the hand”) arose from the postposition benn; today it appears in a non-case form only in adverbial usage with possessive suffixes (e.g., bennem “in me”, benned “in you”).

1990, Henning Andersen, E.F.K. Koerner, Historical Linguistics 1987

In this too the loc. marker is identical with Acc. marker. Besides, various spatial relations of the loc. case, such as surfacessive (on, upon, etc.) incessive (in, inside of, within), possessive (with-in the possession ol), etc., are expressed with various sets of . - postpositions in different speeches under consideration (For their details see respective volumes of the 'Studies in T.H.L.' 1988-92).

1994, D. D. Sharma, Studies in Tibeto-Himalayan languages - Volume 4, page 110

Indeed, in terms of semantic nuances, Igbo cases are more in line with the Fino-Ugric cases which express spatio-temporal relations thus: Interior: Incessive; talose; 'in the house'

2016, E. Nolue Emenanjo, A Grammar of Contemporary Igbo: Constituents, Features and Processes

The presence of the feature progression means that the activity denoted by the primary verb is understood as a succession of events indicated by this verb either directed towards a goal (pre-terminative) or directed from a point with its goal unspecified (post" inceptive). In this sense the pre-terminative succession can be confused with the incessive process (the explicator ) of a state of an event denoted by a verb.

In Thao, however, triplication does not express plurality but rather some sort of aspectual modification (continuative or incessive).

2005, Bernhard Hurch, Studies on Reduplication, page 591

As a further example of unclear cases, the so-called incessive – a fast recurrence of some typical properties - is included under the iterative by Rathmann (2005), but subsumed under the habitual by Wilbur (1987).

2017, Josep Quer, SignGram Blueprint: A Guide to Sign Language Grammar Writing


pluractionality

(grammar) A grammatical device indicating that a verb's action or participants is/are plural.


uncount

For example, the term abuse would require at least one definition for the uncount usage ‘invective, insulting language’, and another for the count usage ‘an item of invective, an insult’.

2014, James Lambert, “Diachronic stability in Indian English lexis”, in World Englishes, page 118


infinitive marker

en-noun

infinitive marker (plural infinitive markers)

In English, to is the infinitive marker.

(grammar) A word or affix attached to the stem of a verb in order to form the full infinitive.


diversative

(grammar) Of or relating to a grammatical aspect relating to an action that occurs "here and there", among an unspecified group of targets or locations.


cursivity

I do not say it of the first of all Didot designs that were cut by Waflard for the Imprimerie Royale in 1775, but I confess that the 'maigre' (fig. 23) presents to my eye the best example there has been of a regular formal italic, an italic in which cursivity has been almost entirely removed.

1926, The Fleuron: A Journal of Typography, number 5, page 115

The earliest extant texts of Japanese origin which exhibit a degree of cursivity are, like their Chinese counterparts, on wooden tablets, though in this case dating from the late seventh and early eighth centuries; the next earliest cursivized texts are perhaps the Shōsōin phonogram texts A and B (ca.762).

2000, Christopher Seeley, A History of Writing in Japan, page 61


adpositionhood

(grammar) The property of being an adposition.


casus rectus

Learned borrowing from Latin cāsus rēctus (literally “straight case”).

lbor

(grammar, dated) The nominative case, sometimes grouped with the vocative case, as a single morphological case contrasted with the oblique case.


natural gender

en-noun

natural gender (countable and uncountable, plural natural genders)

(grammar) The gender that a noun, etc. would be expected to have, based on attributes of the referent, such as physical sex.

Sexus

gender based on attributes of the referent


Suffixaufnahme

From German Suffixaufnahme (literally “suffix absorption”).

bor

(grammar) The phenomenon where a genitive noun agrees grammatically with its head noun.


karmadharaya

Borrowed from Sanskrit कर्मधारय (karmadhāraya).

(Sanskrit grammar, lexicography) A form of tatpuruṣa in which the relation of the first member to the last is appositional, attributive, or adverbial, e.g. uluka-yatu (owl + demon) for a demon in the shape of an owl. Most typically this involves an adjective which modifies a following substantive.


subgender

Although German, Polish and Russian all have a three-way gender system consisting of masculine, feminine and neuter nouns, only Polish and Russian have additional subgenders based on animacy and/or personhood.

2015 December 19, “Age Effects in L2 Grammar Processing as Revealed by ERPs and How (Not) to Study Them”, in PLOS ONE, →DOI

(grammar) A sublevel of grammatical gender.


anuvrtti

(grammar) In the Paninian grammar of Sanskrit, the "carrying over" of earlier-described rules into subsequent contexts, without explicitly restating those rules.


reflexivization

en-noun

reflexivization (usually uncountable, plural reflexivizations)


reflexivizable

(grammar) Capable of being made reflexive.


reflexivize

en-verb

reflexivize (third-person singular simple present reflexivizes, present participle reflexivizing, simple past and past participle reflexivized)

reflexivizes (present singular third-person)
reflexivizing (participle present)
reflexivized (participle past)
reflexivized (past)

(transitive, grammar) To make reflexive.


direct case

19. Cases of Nouns are six: Nominative, Genitive, Dative, Accusative, Vocative, and Ablative. As in the Latin and Greek languages, these cases are derived from the Nominative by certain rules of inflection; the Nominative being the root of all the other cases, is termed the direct case, the others are called oblique cases.

1817, Peter Edmund Laurent, An introduction to the study of German grammar; with practical exercises., London, page 13

(grammar) A noun case which covers the nominative and possibly other cases such as vocative and/or accusative (the precise definition depends on the case system in question; the term is used especially in simple systems with two or three cases)

suora sija

noun case covering the nominative and possibly other cases

(grammar, obsolete) A synonym for the nominative case, based on the definition by Peter Edmund Laurent [https://books.google.ca/books?id=66NWAAAAcAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q=direct&f=false [1]]


necessitative

(grammar) Being or relating to a grammatical form that indicates necessity.


necessitative

(grammar) A grammatical form that indicates necessity.


zero article

(grammar) The non-appearance of an article before a noun.


aspectualizer

(grammar) A constituent of a phrase that specifies the aspect of a verb phrase.


itive

From Latin itus (“gone”), perfect passive participle of eō (“to go”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *h₁ey- (“to go”) + -ive.

The itive aspectizers express a totalizing of the action.

1993, George van Driem, A Grammar of Dumi, page 210

[…] in other words, the itive verb here signals narrative dissonance, with all the attendant effects […]

2003, Roberta Facchinetti, Frank Palmer, Manfred Krug, Modality in Contemporary English, page 121


andative

(grammar) Indicating motion away from something.


andative

However, most of the andatives and venitives in our database do not have future as a use. Bernd Heine (p.c.) reports that andative and venitive are usually derivational in African languages and occur in different types of constructions than movement-futures (see also Heine and Reh, 1984:142).

1991, Elizabeth Closs Traugott, Approaches to Grammaticalization, volume 2, page 49

(grammar) A grammatical word, particle, or inflection that indicates motion away from something; or, the indication so provided.


malefactive

(linguistics) A term or sentence element that serves a malefactive role or that is inflected for the malefactive case.


dvigu

(Sanskrit grammar, lexicography) A form of tatpuruṣa in which the modifying member is a number.


subjunctivize

subjunctivize (third-person singular simple present subjunctivizes, present participle subjunctivizing, simple past and past participle subjunctivized)

subjunctivizes (present singular third-person)
subjunctivizing (participle present)
subjunctivized (participle past)
subjunctivized (past)

(grammar, transitive) To convert to a subjunctive form.


degree of comparison

en-noun

degree of comparison (plural degrees of comparison)

The degrees of comparison of good are good (positive), better (comparative) and best (superlative).

The word red is an adjective, in the dogmatical or positive degree of comparison.

1820, James Brown, An American Grammar, page 43

There are commonly reckoned three degrees of comparison, namely: the positive, comparative and superlative; though, strictly speaking, there are but two degrees, the positive being merely the state of the adjective itself.

1833, Joseph Hervey Hull, English Grammar, by Lectures, page 55

Among the degrees of comparison, some have enumerated equality; as when we say, "It is as sweet as honey."

1851, Goold Brown, edited by Samuel U. Berrian, The Grammar of English Grammars, 10th edition, page 285

The degrees of comparison possible are: positive (big), comparative (bigger), superlative (biggest), and elative (very big).

2007, Rodney J. Decker, Koine Greek Reader: Selections from the New Testament, Septuagint, and Early Christian Writers, page 205

(linguistics, grammar) A form of an adjective that indicates a different degree of the attribute the adjective denotes; like the positive, comparative and superlative forms.


semiauxiliary

(grammar) Of a verb: functioning rather like an auxiliary verb, but not considered to be a full member of that class.


semiauxiliary

(grammar) A verb that functions rather like an auxiliary verb but is not considered to be a full member of that class.


indirect transitive

French indirect transitive verbs, i.e. verbs which take an indirect object, cannot be passive.

1999, Monique L'Huillier, Advanced French Grammar, page 245

It is common, not only for perception verbs but also for verbs that convey a metaphorically directional action with partially affected objects (especially animate objects), to display canonical indirect transitive constructions.

2008, Mark Donohue, Søren Wichmann, The Typology of Semantic Alignment, page 209

Overall children's performance on direct transitive event (e.g. girl crumpling a paper) was not significantly different from their performance on the indirect transitive event (e.g. man putting powder in a liquid that changes its color).

2008, Hindi-speaking Two-year-old Children's Development of Verb Constructions

(grammar, of a verb) Taking an indirect object.


transnumeral

From trans- (“beyond”) + numeral (“relating to number”).

affix

(grammar) Ambiguous as to whether it refers to one thing (singular) or more than one (dual or plural).


nonhead

(grammar) Any grammatical element that is not a head.


causativize

en-verb

causativize (third-person singular simple present causativizes, present participle causativizing, simple past and past participle causativized)

causativizes (present singular third-person)
causativizing (participle present)
causativized (participle past)
causativized (past)

(transitive, intransitive, grammar) To make or become causative.


Narten present

Named after the Indo-Iranianist Johanna Narten, who posited its existence in 1968.

(grammar) A proposed inflectional class of the Proto-Indo-European verb, characterized by accent on the root in all of the person-number forms.


articleless

Mandarin, Korean, and almost all of the Slavic languages are articleless.

A striking feature of English is the use of abstract nouns as articleless referring expressions, indicating that many abstract things are seen as inherently unique.

2007, Günter Radden, Cognitive English Grammar, page 102


coreferent

Syntactic constraints included recognizing structures such as appositive constructions and i-within-i filter, which prevents parent noun phrases in a parse tree from being coreferent with any of children.

2016 March 3, “Bio-SCoRes: A Smorgasbord Architecture for Coreference Resolution in Biomedical Text”, in PLOS ONE, →DOI


personless

(grammar) Without a grammatical person, not inflected for person.


endoactive

‘Endoactive’ is similar to the 'middle voice' in some IE languages: the action was conceived as operating in or on the subject; in the exoactive, the verbal action was directed outward from the subject (R.L. Palmer, The Latin Language, 1987: 262).

2007, Axel Schuessler, ABC Etymological Dictionary of Old Chinese, Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, page 39

(grammar) Being or relating to a kind of verb where an action operates in or on the subject, similar to the middle voice.


exoactive

'Endoactive' is similar to the 'middle voice' in some IE languages: the action was conceived as operating in or on the subject; in the exoactive, the verbal action was directed outward from the subject (R.L. Palmer, The Latin Language, 1987: 262).

(grammar) Being or relating to a kind of verb whose action is directed outward from the subject.


surfacism

(grammar) In transformational grammar, the belief that deep and surface structures are similar.


aniṭ

Borrowed from Sanskrit अनिट् (aniṭ, “without i”).

Indo-European studies
Indo-European studies

(Sanskrit grammar, Indo-European studies) of a root, not seṭ, not having a final i sound


seṭ

Borrowed from Sanskrit सेट् (seṭ, “with i”).

(Sanskrit grammar, Indo-European studies) of a root, having a final i sound in certain forms, originating from a final laryngeal in Proto-Indo-European


ACD

en-noun

ACD (countable and uncountable, plural ACDs)

antecedent-contained deletion
antecedent-contained deletion#English

(grammar) Initialism of antecedent-contained deletion.


syndeticity

From syndetic + -ity. Equivalent to syndeton + -icity.

The state or quality of being syndetic, particularly

(grammar) The use of syndeton, the state or quality of using a conjunction or equivalent conjunctive structure.


predicate noun

Harner pointed out that "Colwell was almost entirely concerned with the question whether anarthrous predicate nouns were definite or indefinite, and he did not discuss at any length the problem of their qualitative significance."

1996, Daniel B. Wallace, Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics

(grammar) A noun used in the predicate of a sentence with a copulative verb or a factitive verb and that refers to the subject of the copulative verb or the direct object of the factitive verb. For example "He is a fireman" or "They made him chief".


exopassive

Exopassive verbs are viewed as directed towards the passive subject: 'to be beaten' naitake, 'to be fed' naimusa, 'to be given something' naitula.

2002 February 10, Kala Tunu, “Tunu verbal system LONG”, in Conlang Mailing List, retrieved 2016-09-14

(grammar, rare) Being or relating to the passive voice of certain verbs.

(of a verb) Affecting the subject of the passive voice construction.

An ‘exopassive’ of a transitive verb, according to Schuessler, may be a noun meaning "the thing that has been verb-ed", so that since *suk means ‘to lodge’, *sukh means ‘what is lodged in’—or, we may say, ‘a lodge’ (Schuessler 2007: 45).

2011, Christopher Cullen, “Translating 宿 *sukh/xiu and 舍 *lhah/she—'lunar lodges', or just plain 'lodges'?”, in East Asian Science, Technology, and Medicine, volume 33, page 88

(of a noun) Derived from a transitive verb, indicating the object affected.


exopassive

[For endopassives,] unlike exopassives, the hypothetical subject of the simplex is grammatically and semantically not available

2007, Axel Schuessler, ABC Etymological Dictionary of Old Chinese, Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, page 48

(grammar, rare) A verb with passive form, indicating the state of or action toward the subject of the passive voice construction.


endopassive

Endopassives are: (a) introvert (not extrovert); (b) passive in the sense that the subject of the endopassive word was the object of the simplex [...] (c) unlike exopassives, the hypothetical subject of the simplex is grammatically and semantically not available

(grammar, rare) A verb with the form of a passive voice construction, but indicating the state of, or an action toward something other than its subject.


endopassive

(grammar, of verbs, rare) Having passive form while predicating about something other than the subject of the passive voice construction.

4.6 Voicing of the initial consonant: endopassive derivation

(grammar, rare) Being or relating to an endopassive.


ligative

(grammar) Serving to connect separate elements.


intradirective

(grammar) Being an intransitive verb in which the subject both actively performs and undergoes the action.


squinting modifier

squinting modifier (plural squinting modifiers)

A squinting modifier makes the meaning ambiguous and is, therefore, an error.

1983, Marylu Mattson, Sophia Leshing, Elaine Levi, Help Yourself: A Guide to Writing and Rewriting, page 251

Do not try to fix a squinting modifier by inserting a comma to make your readers pause.

1998, Jill Meryl Levy, Take Command of Your Writing, page 228

For example: “Running on concrete surfaces quickly leads to knee damage.” Owing to the squinting modifier "quickly," this sentence could meant that running at a high rate of speed on concrete surfaces leads to knee damage, or that running on concrete surfaces will very soon lead to knee damage.

2014, Rachelle Smith, Dominic Marulllo, Ken Springer, CLEP: College Composition

(grammar) A modifier that could apply to either the clause that precedes it or the clause that follows it; an instance of amphiboly.


tolerative

(grammar) Relating to a grammatical case, similar to the passive, that indicates something is being allowed or tolerated.


quotatively

a morpheme that can be used quotatively


aktionsart

aktionsart (countable and uncountable, plural aktionsarten or aktionsart or aktionsarts)

aktionsarten (plural)
aktionsart (plural)
aktionsarts (plural)

From German Aktionsart, from Aktion (“action”) + Art (“kind, sort”). Attested in English from the 19th century.

For quotations using this term, see Citations:Aktionsart.

(grammar) A property of verbs and other predicates indicating internal temporal nature; lexical aspect.

a predicate that does not change over time

a predicate that changes over time and has a natural endpoint

a predicate that changes over time and has no natural endpoint


principal part

prīncipālis pars

grammar, obsolete: most fundamental or indispensable part of speech

For the underſtanding of this, we muſt conceive the order of Nature. For whatſoever we find in the whole World, are either Things, Actions, or Circumſtances: The Things are known before their Actions, and Actions firſt to be conſidered, before the Circumſtances.
Hence it is that the Speech that is ordained of God in Man, to declare the Conceits of his Mind to others hath properly three principal parts, viz. Nouns to name things, Verbs to ſhew Actions, and Adverbs to note Circumſtances.

1677, John Clarke, The Second Praxis Dialogical of the Latine Syntax, Tranſlated Grammatically into Engliſh, for the uſe and benefit of Grammar Schools. (pages 189–246), in Dux Grammaticus Tyronem Scholaſticum. Ad rectam Orthographiam, Syntaxin, & Proſodiam Dirigens., seventh edition (overall work in Latin and English), London: Edward Thomas, The Rules of Conſtruction., pages 239–240

(obsolete) Any one of however many parts of speech regarded as the most fundamental or indispensable.

The principal parts of a ſentence are words, without which abſolutely no ſentence can be made. And are both a ſubſtantive ſignifying that, which doeth, ſuffereth, or is, and a verb ſignifying to do, to ſuffer, or to be.

1678, “A. B. Philo-Muſ.”, Rudiments of the Latine Grammar, London: Dorman Newman, Of SYNTAX., page 33

The leſs principal parts of a ſentence are words, which more fill up a ſentence, already made up of the principal parts. And are both adjectives and ſubſtantives.

Nouns and Verbs are the two principal Parts of Speech, les Noms & les Verbes ſont les deux principales Parties d’Oraiſon.

1687, Guy Miege, The Great French Dictionary, The Second Part, London: printed by John Redmayne for Thomas Basset, s.v. “Verb”

Holonym: part of speech

Holonyms: declension, conjugation

In the Verbs, I have made ſeveral Alterations from the common Form, which I hope will be found much for the eaſe and advantage of the Learner; for I have not only made them more Perſpicuous as to their ſeveral Kinds, Moods, and Tenſes, but I have alſo ſet down a Scheme of Formation, in which the Changes made of the principal Parts, i. e. Preſent, Perfect-Tenſe and firſt Supine, are diſtinguiſh’d by a ſmaller Letter, and after them the four Conjugations at length, according to the ſame Method.

1714, Thomas Sheridan, An Eaſy Introduction of Grammar in Engliſh. For the Underſtanding of the Latin Tongue. Compil’d not only for the Eaſe and Encouragement of Youth, but alſo for their Moral Improvement; having the Syntaxis Examples gather’d from the Choiceſt Pieces of the beſt Authors. To which is added, A Compendious Method of Variation, and Elegant Diſpoſition of Latin., Dublin: Printed by Daniel Tompson in Cole’s-Alley, Castle-Street, for the Author., The Preface., page vi

There are Three Principal Parts of a Verb, from which the reſt are Form’d, the Preſent-Tenſe, Perfect-Tenſe, and the Firſt Supine.

ibidem, An Introduction to the Eight Parts of Speech., Of a Verb., page 63

In every complete Verb there are commonly four PRINCIPAL PARTS, viz. The Preſent of the Indicative in O, the Preterite or Perfect in I, the firſt Supine in UM, and the Preſent of the Infinitive in RE. The firſt (which is therefore called the THEME or Root of the Verb) gives Origin to the whole Verb either mediately or immediately. The Preterite, the firſt Supine, and the Preſent of the Infinitive come from it immediately, and all the reſt from them; except the Future of the Indicative in am, and the Preſent of the Subjunctive in em, which by this Scheme are alſo formed immediately from the Preſent in O.

1714, Thomas Ruddiman, The Rudiments of the Latin Tongue, or A plain and eaſy Introduction to Latin Grammar; Wherein the Principles of the Language are Methodically digeſted both in Engliſh and Latin: with Uſeful Notes and Obſervations, explaining the Terms of Grammar, and further improving its Rules. (overall work in English and Latin), Edinburgh: Robert Freebairn, part II: De Dictionibus. Of Woꝛds., chapter iii: De Verbo. Of Verb., page 50

The Principal Parts [of a verb] are the present infinitive, the imperfect indicative first person, and the passive participle.

1870, March, Comp. Gram. Ags. Lang., page 78

Any of the forms of a word which contain its stem(s) in the simplest form, or such a form that, when taken with all the other principal parts (showing various inflections), allows the entire paradigm to be derived.

szótári alak

grammar: word-form containing the simplest form of a stem and/or from which the paradigm is derivable


intersective

(grammar) Of a modifier: such that its content does not interact with that of the modified noun. For example, in the phrase "ugly dog", "ugly" is intersective because the fact that the dog is ugly is independent of the fact that it is a dog. If you were to determine that it was a pet, then you could conclude that it is an ugly pet (that is, "ugly" applies to "pet", independent of whether the pet is a dog).


aorist tense

aorist tense (countable and uncountable, plural aorist tenses)

(grammar) A grammatical category in some languages expressing perfective aspect and past tense of verbs; the aorist.

Of the Aorist Tense, as of the Perfect, there are two distinct forms: the older form, commonly called the Second Aorist; and the more recent, commonly called the First Aorist

1857, Joseph Gouge Greenwood, The Elements of Greek Grammar, London: Walton, →OCLC, page 94

Simple past time is expressed by the aorist tense! The aorist tense describes the past action as a total event viewed in its entirety.

2002, Erwin Penner, A Guide to New Testament Greek, Toronto: Clements, page 42

(grammar, especially) A set of verb forms in Ancient Greek featuring the grammatical category.


extrapose

en-verb

extrapose (third-person singular simple present extraposes, present participle extraposing, simple past and past participle extraposed)

extraposes (present singular third-person)
extraposing (participle present)
extraposed (participle past)
extraposed (past)

(grammar, transitive) To move (an element of a phrase) by extraposition.


exhaustify

exhaustify (third-person singular simple present exhaustifies, present participle exhaustifying, simple past and past participle exhaustified)

exhaustifies (present singular third-person)
exhaustifying (participle present)
exhaustified (participle past)
exhaustified (past)

(grammar) To make exhaustive (include all possibilities)


functionhood

He did not distill the essential idea of functionhood: that to each x in the domain there corresponds a unique y in the range.

1999, William Dunham, Euler: The Master of Us All, The Mathematical Association of America, published 1999, page 17

(mathematics, logic, grammar) The state or quality of being a function.


cognate accusative

en-noun

cognate accusative (plural cognate accusatives)

Calque of Latin accūsātīvus cognātus (“a cognate accusative”).

calque

These accusatives cognate are to be translated into English.

1856, John Day Collis, “Division III. Exercises on the Commonest Rules of Greek Syntax.”, in Praxis Græca. A Series of Elementary, Progressive, and Miscellaneous Questions and Exercises on Greek Grammar, part II (Syntax), London: Longman, Brown, Green, Longmans, & Roberts, →OCLC, exercise LXXVIII, paragraph 11, page 214

The extent of action of the verb may be expressed by a substantive of the same meaning as the verb, accompanied (usually) by an oblique adjectival predicate. (Cognate accusative.)

1874, Henry John Roby, “Use of the Accusative Case”, in A Grammar of the Latin Language from Plautus to Suetonius … In Two Parts, part II (Containing Book IV. Syntax. Also Prepositions &c.), London: Macmillan & Co., →OCLC, paragraph 1100, page 40

What is often termed the cognate accusative (or objective) (as in ‘to run a race,’ ‘to die a happy death’) should more properly be classed among the adverbial adjuncts. [Footnote: The cognate objective sometimes appears in a metaphorical shape, as in “to look daggers at a person”; “To rain fire and brimstone.” The vague pronoun it is freely used in this construction, as, “We shall have to rough it”; “Go it, boys,” &c.]

1876, C[harles] P[eter] Mason, “Syntax”, in English Grammar Including the Principles of Grammatical Analysis, 21st edition, London: George Bell & Sons, →OCLC; 21st Canadian copyright edition, Toronto, Ont.: Adam Miller & Co., 1877, →OCLC, section 372, subsection 4, page 148

(grammar) An object of kindred sense or derivation; specifically, that which may adverbially follow an intransitive verb (for example, the word death in “to die the death”).

A Farewell to Arms
Charles Scribner's Sons
Dream a Little Dream of Me
Ernest Hemingway
Fabian Andre
Gus Kahn
Wilbur Schwandt
William Shakespeare


preterite tense

en-noun

preterite tense (plural preterite tenses)

The relation between tense and time in English, however, is by no means straightforward, as we saw in Ch. 1, §3, and it is important to be aware that preterite tense does not always signal past time.

2005, Rodney Huddleston, Geoffrey Pullum, A Student's Introduction to English Grammar, page 30

There are two past tense aspects and forms in Spanish: the preterite and the imperfect. This chapter provides a clear explanation of the preterite tense.

2011, Jill Rodriguez, Ken Stewart, CliffsNotes Spanish 1 Quick Review, page 118

(grammar) A verb tense indicating action in the past and marked by verb inflection; the preterite.


first-person dual

first-person dual (plural first-person duals)

(grammar) The dual of the first-person form of a verb or pronoun, which in some languages can either be inclusive ("you and I") or exclusive ("he and I"). In other languages, there is no distinction.


third-person dual

third-person dual (plural third-person duals)

(grammar) A variety of third-person verb form used when the subject of a sentence is exactly two people other than the speaker or the audience, used in some languages, such as Greek.


second-person dual

second-person dual (plural second-person duals)

(grammar) A variety of second-person verb form used when the subject of a sentence is exactly two people including the audience, used in some languages, such as Greek and Hawaiian.

(grammar) The pronoun associated with this form.

possessive adjective
possessive adjective

(grammar) The possessive adjective associated with this form.


altrilocal

(grammar) Indicating altrilocality, i.e. the occurrence of an event in a location other than that of the speaker.


admirativity

(grammar) The quality of being admirative.


iminutive

What is not common, however, in German dialects is the existence of an intensive diminutive (or, as it sometimes is called, an iminutive) having the shape -ele.

1984, A Faber, RD King, “Yiddish and the settlement of Ashkenazic Jewry”, in Mankind quarterly, volume 24, page 393

Faber and King note that Yiddish and Bavarian both have an "intensive diminutive," i.e., a second degree of diminution (iminutive); thus, StY štot 'city,' štetl 'market town', štetɘlɘ 'little market town [endearing].'

2005, Neil G. Jacobs, Yiddish: A Linguistic Introduction

The main point in the diminutive and iminutive system is, however, not only that elements of two dialectally different subsystems of German have fused in the German component.

2008, Max Weinreich, History of the Yiddish Language

In addition to the diminutive, Yiddish has an 'iminutive', which is used to indicate that something is even smaller (as well as cuter, more lovable, or possibly more inferior) than a diminutive noun.

(grammar, rare) In Yiddish, a second-degree or more intensive diminutive form.


phrasal prepositional verb

phrasal prepositional verb (plural phrasal prepositional verbs)

(grammar) A multi-word verb, consisting of a verb followed by an adverbial particle and a preposition, that has idiomatic meaning.


inducive

(rare) Tending to induce, inducing something, or relating to the inducing of something.


negatival

(chiefly grammar) Of or relating to a negative, especially to a word that indicates negation


consecutio temporum

/ˌkɒnsəˈkjuːʃiəʊ ˌtɛmˈpɔːɹəm/

Borrowed from Latin cōnsecūtiō temporum (“sequence of tenses”).

bor

The consecutio temporum is constituted by the connections between clauses and their verb forms.[…]The connections that have been determined with respect to the consecutio temporum depend on the assumption that there are larger groups of clauses in the text than combinations of main and subordinate clause only.

1988, L. J. de Regt, A Parametric Model for Syntactic Studies of a Textual Corpus, Van Gorcum, page 50

The problem as expressed by the informant, then, is to explain the difference in consecutio temporum between the second and the last sentence (highlighted in bold in (14)). The consecutio temporum in the second sentence stresses the contrast, the meeting of two different actions.

1993, Language and Linguistics in Melanesia: Journal of the Linguistic Society of Papua New Guinea, Volume 24, Issue 2, page 209

This analysis involves the Latin rules for consecutio temporum and deviations from these rules. The Latin rules concerning consecutio temporum are not strictly followed in non-direct speech and thought representation, as many grammars observe.

2017, Suzanne M. Adema, Speech and Thought in Latin War Narratives, BRILL, page 40

(linguistics, grammar) A set of grammatical rules of a particular language, governing the agreement between the tenses of verbs in related clauses or sentences; agreement between tenses of verbs in accordance with said set of rules.


relevance conditional

en-noun

relevance conditional (plural relevance conditionals)

To be more precise, the speaker of a relevance conditional assumes a mutual understanding on the parts of the speaker and the addressee[s] that the actualization of P is a sufficient condition for the relevance of the Q-utterance.

2001, Renaat Declerck, Susan Reed, Conditionals: A Comprehensive Empirical Analysis, page 425

For example, relevance conditionals are constructions in conditional shape that do not seem to express a clear conditional meaning at first glance. This has led semanticists to introduce analyses of relevance conditionals that capture many of their properties but are very specific to this construction.

2013, Tatjana Scheffler, Two-dimensional Semantics: Clausal Adjuncts and Complements, Walter de Gruyter, page 124

A known grammatical marker of relevance conditionals is their resistance to linking their antecedent and consequent clauses with 'then': consider the mild oddity of 'If you want biscuits then there are some on the table.'[…]This peculiarity of relevance conditionals is straightforwardly explained by the ellipsis theory, according to which the consequent clause doesn't in general express a real (logical) consequent; 'There are some biscuits on the table' is just asserted as true.

2016, Stephen Finlay, Confusion of Tongues: A Theory of Normative Language, Oxford University Press, page 71

(logic, grammar) A subordinate clause, usually introduced by if, that asserts the relevance of the clause to the main clause of the sentence, but not that it entails the main clause; a construction involving such a clause.


verboid

From verb + -oid, introduced by Danish linguist Otto Jespersen in 1937.

(grammar) Any of various grammatical entities that resemble verbs in some way.


external sandhi

(phonology, grammar) Sandhi that occurs between two words.


internal sandhi

(phonology, grammar) Sandhi that occurs at morpheme boundaries inside of a word.


determinate state

status emphaticus
status emphaticus#English

(grammar) A noun form occurring in Afroasiatic languages, when the noun does bear a determiner (by contrast, in Aramaic there is an emphatic state or status emphaticus as a state of determination by the noun alone)


indeterminate state

indeterminate state (plural indeterminate states)

determinate state
determinate state#English

(grammar) A noun form occurring in Afroasiatic languages, when the noun does not bear a determiner – where it would use the determinate state –, nor governs a noun – where it would use the construct state.


postpostively

(grammar) In a postpositive manner; placed after the word or phrase being modified.


adjective verb

(in Egyptian grammar) a type of intransitive stative verb used to express a quality or entrance into a quality


posthodiernal

As an example of a language which has an opposition between hodiernal and posthodiernal future, where the hodiernal future is distinct from the present tense(s), we may mention Aghem (Bantu, Hyman 1979).

1984, Brian Butterworth, Bernard Comrie, Östen Dahl, Explanations for Language Universals, Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG, page 113

Posthodiernal na- does not appear in my narrative corpus outside of the quoted speech of characters.

2015, Doris L. Payne, Shahar Shirtz, Beyond Aspect: The expression of discourse functions in African languages, John Benjamins Publishing Company, page 170

Hodiernal future tense: I will love her sometime today.
Posthodiernal conditional perfect tense: I would have loved her sometime after today.
Hesternal past tense: I loved her early today.
Prehesternal past tense: I loved her earlier today.

2016, Joseph Cherian, Idiotic English and Idiomatic English: The Professional’s Guide to Using English Intelligently, Influentially, and Internationally, WestBow Press

(grammar) Relating to future time later than today.


prehesternal

There are two past tenses, a hodiernal-hesternal tense used to refer to 'today' and 'yesterday', and a prehesternal tense used to refer to 'before yesterday', as in the following examples:

It refers specifically to yesterday past and, contrary to the hodiernal tense particle, can never be extended to prehesternal use. It can, in addition, occur concurrently with only the hesternal adverb, zààméǹg 'yesterday'. This particle must appear when hesternal reference is intended, with or without the adverb, zààméǹg 'yesterday'. The prehesternal verbal particle, dáá, is also quite specific in that it can never be used to mark hodiernal and hesternal tenses.

2018, Augustine Agwuele, Adams Bodomo, The Routledge Handbook of African Linguistics, Routledge

In contrast, no instances of PP occurred in either the today or yesterday contexts, and prehesternal contexts are highly disfavored (.36). Although low in frequency, the prehesternal factor serves as evidence to argue that in Southern Arizona Spanish, situations are temporally anchored to past time reference points located with respect to utterance time. In this study, indeterminate contexts were determined on lack of temporal anchoring, which is left unspecified by the interlocutor ...

2018, Jonathan E. MacDonald, Contemporary Trends in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics: Selected papers from the Hispanic Linguistic Symposium 2015, John Benjamins Publishing Company, page 184

(grammar) Relating to past time earlier than yesterday.


adjuncthood

(grammar) The condition of being an adjunct.


nunate

en-verb

nunate (third-person singular simple present nunates, present participle nunating, simple past and past participle nunated)

nunates (present singular third-person)
nunating (participle present)
nunated (participle past)
nunated (past)

You can only nunate the name in the case of the nominative and the genitive,[…]

1995, Kees Versteegh, C. H. M. Versteegh, The Explanation of Linguistic Causes: Az-Za?????'s Theory of Grammar : Introduction, Translation, Commentary, John Benjamins Publishing, page 169

(grammar, transitive) To add nunation to (a word).


participialization

(grammar) The process of participializing.


oblique subject

en-noun

oblique subject (plural oblique subjects)


nounship

(grammar) The quality of a word or phrase behaving as a noun.


sufformative

This sufformative draws the accent to itself, causing reduction of the preceding vowel to šᵉwâ.

2000, Edwin C. Hostetter, An Elementary Grammar of Biblical Hebrew, page 69

(grammar) In Biblical Hebrew, an inflectional ending or suffix.


paulo-post-future

(grammar, archaic) The future perfect tense.


intrative

-pura is an intrative suffix in the Quechua language.

(grammar, rare) Of or relating to a grammatical case with the sense "among" or "amidst".


absolutival

(grammar) Of or relating to the absolutive grammatical case.


dummy pronoun

(grammar) A pronoun used to fulfill a syntactic role rather than one with a specific referent. For example, the "it" in "It's raining".


pronominalization

pronominalization (countable and uncountable, plural pronominalizations)

(grammar) The process of pronominalizing.


pronominalizer

Colloquial Malay also uses yang as a relativizer and (pro)nominalizer, but also accepts punya as a pronominalizer (e.g. (Yang) mahal punya untuk abang “The expensive one is for elder brother”).

2004, Olga Fischer, Up and down the Cline: The Nature of Grammaticalization, page 165

(grammar) A word or construct that pronominalizes.


dissective

en-adj

dissective (comparative more dissective, superlative most dissective)

more dissective (comparative)
most dissective (superlative)

(grammar) Referring to a number of individual or separate things rather than a mass (e.g. snowflakes rather than snow).


cliticize

en-verb

cliticize (third-person singular simple present cliticizes, present participle cliticizing, simple past and past participle cliticized)

cliticizes (present singular third-person)
cliticizing (participle present)
cliticized (participle past)
cliticized (past)

(transitive, intransitive, grammar) To make or become clitic.


locative absolute

en-noun

locative absolute (plural locatives absolute or locative absolutes)

locatives absolute (plural)
locative absolutes (plural)

(grammar) an independent phrase in a sentence conveying additional circumstances in the locative case; present:


accusative absolute

accusative absolute (plural accusatives absolute or accusative absolutes)

accusatives absolute (plural)
accusative absolutes (plural)

genitive absolute
genitive absolute#English

nominative absolute
nominative absolute#English

(grammar) an independent phrase in a sentence conveying additional circumstances in the accusative case; present:

in Ancient Greek, less frequent than the genitive absolute but more than the nominative absolute

Middle High German
Middle High German#English


dative absolute

dative absolute (plural datives absolute or dative absolutes)

datives absolute (plural)
dative absolutes (plural)

(grammar) an independent phrase in a sentence conveying additional circumstances in the dative case; present:

it has been continued by Modern English but at some point became the nominative absolute

in Middle Dutch less frequently than the genitive absolute

Old Church Slavonic
Old Church Slavonic#English

in Old East Slavic and due to Old Church Slavonic influence in Russian as late as the 18th century


genitive absolute

genitive absolute (plural genitives absolute or genitive absolutes)

genitives absolute (plural)
genitive absolutes (plural)

accusative absolute
accusative absolute#English

(grammar) an independent phrase in a sentence conveying additional circumstances in the genitive case; present in many Indo-European languages, such as:

in Ancient Greek, more frequent than the accusative absolute and the nominative absolute

locative absolute
locative absolute#English

in Sanskrit later to the locative absolute

in Middle Dutch, early modern Dutch and (vestigially) modern Dutch


Modistae

(grammar, historical) The members of a school of grammarian philosophy known as modism or speculative grammar, active in northern France, Germany, England, and Denmark in the 13th and 14th centuries. They believed in a tripartite theory of "modes" of meaning in language, relating to being, understanding, and signifying.


voluntative

(grammar) A grammatical construct expressing a wish to do something, similar in meaning to let's in English.


subjectival

(grammar) Of or pertaining to the subject of a sentence.


predicatival

(grammar) Of or pertaining to the predicate of a sentence.


objectival

(grammar) Of or pertaining to the object of a sentence.


multiplicative number

multiplicative number (plural multiplicative numbers)

(grammar) A numeral that expresses how many times some event happens.


submorphemic

(grammar) At a lower level than that of morphemes


submorpheme

(grammar) A unit of language smaller than a morpheme.


proper article

(grammar) An article that indicates proper nouns.


hypocorrect

en-adj

hypocorrect (comparative more hypocorrect, superlative most hypocorrect)

more hypocorrect (comparative)
most hypocorrect (superlative)

They produce hypocorrect forms in an effort to speak nonstandard black English.

1988, Linguistic Society of America, Meeting Handbook, page 5

Despite being second dialect learners, hypocorrect speakers are reinforcing linguistic divergence.

1999, John Baugh, Out of the Mouths of Slaves

This example also shows the combination of a hypocorrect construction with a “high” stylistic figure, that is, paronomasia (or figura etymologica—mafʿūl muțlaq).

2013, Jonathan Owens, The Oxford Handbook of Arabic Linguistics, page 180

(grammar) Not completely correct; nonstandard.


gerundival

The whole is concluded by the addition of the noun suffix gna, which itself carries a gerundival force.

1941, Journal of the Polynesian Society - Volume 50, page 10

Nominal declensions, verbal case endings, gerundival constructions, in short, the full range of grammatical alterations—for which Sanskrit has a particular genius and meticulous order—announce language itself as a field of alterity.

2014, Dan Lusthaus, Buddhist Phenomenology

The process of 'gerundival attraction' is a sort of conjuring trick whereby a gerund is turned into a gerundive.

2017, John Taylor, Latin Beyond GCSE, page 76

(grammar) Pertaining to the gerundive form of a word.


verb form

(grammar) A specific instance or form of a verb, as opposed to the entire verb taken in the abstract.


subgrammatical

subgrammatical (comparative more subgrammatical, superlative most subgrammatical)

more subgrammatical (comparative)
most subgrammatical (superlative)

Using substandard grammar; less than grammatically correct.


junctive

For junction, translation shifts are calculated in two steps because there is no straightforward equivalence between Chinese and English junctives.

2014, Maeve Olohan, Myriam Salama-Carr, Science in Translation, page 356

The junctive is not part of either of the two nuclei that it joins together. Just as the mortar that binds two bricks is not part of either, or as the coupling that unites two railcars appears external to both, a junctive remains outside of the two nuclei it unites.

2015, Lucien Tesnière, Elements of Structural Syntax, page 329

(grammar) An element of syntax that serves as a junction.


precategorial

(grammar) Not assigned a part of speech.


precategorial

(grammar) A word or phrase that is not assigned a part of speech.


ordinal numeral

en-noun

ordinal numeral (plural ordinal numerals)

(grammar) A word used to represent an ordinal number.

řadová číslovka

grammar: word used to represent a cardinal number


reciprocalizer

(grammar) That which makes something reciprocal.


reflexivizer

(grammar) That which makes something reflexive.


reciprocalize

en-verb

reciprocalize (third-person singular simple present reciprocalizes, present participle reciprocalizing, simple past and past participle reciprocalized)

reciprocalizes (present singular third-person)
reciprocalizing (participle present)
reciprocalized (participle past)
reciprocalized (past)

(grammar, transitive) To make reciprocal.


reciprocalization

en-noun

reciprocalization (usually uncountable, plural reciprocalizations)

Depending on where reciprocalization applies (syntax vs. lexicon), the relevant reciprocal verbs are claimed to exhibit specific properties, in particular: (i) syntactic reciprocals are fully productive whereas lexical reciprocals have only limited productivity; […]

2008, Ekkehard König, Volker Gast, Reciprocals and Reflexives: Theoretical and Typological Explorations

(grammar) The process of reciprocalizing.


partial object

(grammar) In some languages, e.g. in Finnish, an object that indicates incomplete action, as opposed to total object that indicates completed action.


total object

(grammar) In some languages, e.g. in Finnish, an object that indicates completed action, as opposed to partial object that indicates incomplete action.


prenoun

(grammar) A particle which precedes a noun, typically used in the Algonquin languages.


impersonal passive

impersonal passive (plural impersonal passives)

(grammar) A construction that removes the subject from an intransitive verb, as in the Dutch sentence Er wordt gefloten ("[Someone] whistled"). Also known as pseudopassive.


casitive

(obsolete, grammar) Having grammatical case


rebracket

en-verb

rebracket (third-person singular simple present rebrackets, present participle rebracketing, simple past and past participle rebracketed)

rebrackets (present singular third-person)
rebracketing (participle present)
rebracketed (participle past)
rebracketed (past)

Back-formation from rebracketing. By surface analysis, re- + bracket.

In Middle English, a naperon was rebracketed to an aperon.

(grammar, transitive) To cause to undergo rebracketing.


declense

declense (third-person singular simple present declenses, present participle declensing, simple past and past participle declensed)

declenses (present singular third-person)
declensing (participle present)
declensed (participle past)
declensed (past)

In moorish vulgar Arabic there is no true declensing because the final sings are suppressed; See page 13 N°- 30, one form alone being vulgarly used for all the cases in determinate as well as indeterminate nouns.

1900, José Lerchundi, Rudiments of the Arabic-Vulgar of Morocco

I reckon that Lichtenstein had found a Latin genitive abdimi ('of Abdim') but thought it was in the nominative case, not yet declensed in the genitive, and that the person's name was Abdimi, so he applied yet again a Latin genitival suffix.

2014, Nachum Dershowitz, Language, Culture, Computation: Computational Linguistics and Linguistics: Essays Dedicated to Yaacov Choueka on the Occasion of His 75 Birthday

(grammar, rare) To decline (to inflect for case and number).


lexical aspect

Within the framework of a distinction between grammatical and lexical aspect, the category grammatical aspect, which is usually realized in the morphology of the verb, includes the imperfective and the perfective aspect, whereas the lexical aspect concerns the situation types (Aktionsarten) of the verb, i.e. it is inherent to the semantics of the verb.

2014, Barbara Meisterernst, Tense and Aspect in Han Period Chinese, page 15

(grammar) A property of verbs and other predicates indicating internal temporal nature; aktionsart.

Aktionsart

a property of verbs and other predicates indicating internal temporal nature; aktionsart


multivalenced

en-adj

multivalenced (comparative more multivalenced, superlative most multivalenced)

more multivalenced (comparative)
most multivalenced (superlative)

A clause type S is basic with respect to argument mapping in a language L if (a) the predicate of S is morphosyntactically in the unmarked voice, and (b) the predicate of S selects an agent (and a patient, if the predicate is multivalenced).

2008, Joachim Jacobs, Arnim von Stechow, Wolfgang Sternefeld, Syntax, page 1076

In employing the multivalenced verb broncher, the narrator layers this clause with three meanings: the preferred tripod would not stumble or encounter difficulties or complain about its task; rather, it would stand still by the hearth and hold the pot.

2012, Julia V. Douthwaite, The Frankenstein of 1790 and Other Lost Chapters from Revolutionary France, page 76

In this type of linking, the patient of a multivalenced predicate is coded by the same case as the subject of a monovalenced predicate and differently from the agent of a multivalenced predicate.

2015, Tibor Kiss, Artemis Alexiadou, Syntax - Theory and Analysis - Volume 1, page 229

(grammar) Binding to different parts of speech

Synonym of multivalent
Binding to different parts of speech


grammatical aspect

en-noun

grammatical aspect (plural grammatical aspects)

While lexical aspect presents information about the inherent lexical properties of the verb and verb phrase, grammatical aspect, on the other hand, signals the boundaries of an event.

2010, Miren Hodgson, Telicity and the Syntax-Semantics of the Object and Subject, page 11

(grammar, semantics) The aspect of a verb phrase (verb group) or other predicate – its temporal structure or relationship to the time of use – marked through any of various grammatical elements, as distinguished from lexical aspect.


supramorphemic

(grammar) At a higher level than that of morphemes


de-volitive

(grammar) Being derived from a volitive form, from a word or morph expressing a wish (usually in relation to future markers or auxiliaries).


ergative-absolutive

(grammar) Being or relating to a language where the single argument (subject) of an intransitive verb behaves like the object of a transitive verb, and differently from the agent of a transitive verb.


postlexical

(grammar) Following application of a lexical rule


multiplicative numeral

multiplicative numeral (plural multiplicative numerals)

multiplicative number
multiplicative number#English

(grammar) Synonym of multiplicative number


mixed conditional

mixed conditional (plural mixed conditionals)

"If you had crashed the car, you might be in trouble" involves a mixed conditional.

(language education, grammar) Any of various conditional structures containing an "if" clause and a main clause and that is not the zero, first, second, or third conditional.


neutropassive

It will terrify linguists among ourselves to be told that this Slav language which the Germans despise as barbarous , which has scarcely any literature , and which is spoken by very few men of high education — possesses, in addition to our ordinary verbs, also verbs “neutropassive," "inchoative," "durative," "momentaneous," and "iterative"; an aorist, like greek, and a preterite aorist of its own; a subjunctive pluperfect, and in declension seven cases, including a "sociative" case, and a "locative."

1894, Henry William Wolff, Odd Bits of History, page 149

The oldest example yet to emerge is a fragment in Venetian dialect, dating from the end of the Duecento; here the pupil focused on syntactical topics central to the secondary curriculum such as impersonal verbs, verbs of cost, deponent verbs, passive verbs with the ablative, neutropassive verbs, participles and comparatives.

2007, Robert Black, Humanism and Education in Medieval and Renaissance Italy, page 113

The neutropassive extension, discussed above, is sometimes called the stative extension. This is because verbs in the neutropassive form often indicate states resulting from some action, rather than the action itself.

2014, Lutz Marten, Donovan Lee Mcgrath, Colloquial Swahili

(grammar) The past perfect tense of a neuter (intransitive) verb which is formed by a passive participle.


gerundization

gerundization (usually uncountable, plural gerundizations)


gerundize

en-verb

gerundize (third-person singular simple present gerundizes, present participle gerundizing, simple past and past participle gerundized)

gerundizes (present singular third-person)
gerundizing (participle present)
gerundized (participle past)
gerundized (past)

(grammar, transitive) To convert into a gerund.


introductory subject

en-noun

introductory subject (plural introductory subjects)


preparatory subject

preparatory subject (plural preparatory subjects)


dummy subject

In the expression "It's raining", the word "it" is a dummy subject.

(grammar) A word (in English, it or there) used as the subject of a sentence when the real subject is placed after the main verb, or when the subject is indefinite.

loos onderwerp

grammatical subject carrying no meaning of its own


grammarise

en-verb

grammarise (third-person singular simple present grammarises, present participle grammarising, simple past and past participle grammarised)

grammarises (present singular third-person)
grammarising (participle present)
grammarised (participle past)
grammarised (past)

Is it possible to grammarise these words, vivisect them, to understand their Oriental allusion, and to escape their immediate and mortal application to ourselves?

1889, Joseph Parker, The People's Bible: Discourses Upon Holy Scripture

This he did with no little grief, and so all attempt to lexiconise and grammarise the Hausa language was thrown back for many years, during which a knowledge of it would have been of material use in various British operations on the West Coast of Africa

1909, Sir Francis Galton, Memories of My Life, page 173

Aspirations to 'grammarise' the comprehensives were again evident from the remarks of Education Committee members.

2017, David Crook, Ken Fogelman, Alan C. Kerckhoff, Going Comprehensive in England and Wales


pref

Alternative form: pref.


ubhayapada

From the phrasal pseudo-word Sanskrit उभयपद (ubhayapada). (MW does not treat it as a word, but as the origin of the Sanskrit word उभयपदिन् (ubhayapadin).)

(grammar) Using forms from both the active and middle voices.


sequence of tenses

consecutio temporum
consecutio temporum#English

(grammar) Synonym of consecutio temporum


question tag

(grammar) The "tag" at the end of a tag question


stative verb

Coordinate term: dynamic verb

(grammar) A verb which generally expresses a state rather than an action or activity. Not normally found in a continuous inflection.


dynamic verb

Coordinate term: stative verb

(grammar) a verb which generally expresses an action or activity rather than a state.


deinterjectional

(grammar) Deriving from an interjection.


simple tense

Present tense is a simple tense, even when used in complex ways, such as to describe past events.

Please use only simple tenses in titles when submitting articles to our publication.

(grammar) In English, the tense of a verb which is used specifically in the simple aspect--that is, the verb alone does not indicate whether the action is complete or habitual--and is usually used independently of any auxiliary verbs, with the known exceptions of 'will', 'shall', and 'would'.


autobenefactive

(grammar) Aspectually indicating that the agent of an action is its benefactor.


ephelcystic nu

From Ancient Greek νῦ ἐφελκυστικόν (nû ephelkustikón, literally “attractive nu; dragged-in nu; affixed nu”), from the letter νῦ (nû) + ἐφελκῠστῐκός (ephelkustikós, “attracted to; drawn towards”) from ἐφέλκυσις (ephélkusis, “attraction, pull; affixation”). Shortened from earlier ἐφελκυστικόν τοῦ νῦ (ephelkustikón toû nû, literally “pulling in nu; attracting nu”), transferring the epithet to the letter nu itself.

bor

νῦ ἐφελκυστικόν

(grammar, linguistics, phonology) Euphonic nu /ν/ (n). Consonant /ν/ affixed to vowel endings of some Ancient Greek grammatical forms to produce euphony: in prevocalic position, to avoid sounding two vowels in a row (hiatus), and prevent elision or fusion of vowels contracting into one sound (crasis). In preconsonantal coda position, /ν/ may be added to create a long syllable in poetic meter. Nu is also usually written before a pause at the end of a clause in prose or the end of a verse in poetry.

(grammar, linguistic morphology) Paragogic nu /ν/ (n), understood as an allomorph of certain Greek morphemic forms otherwise terminating in vowels /ε/ (e) or /ι/ (i), viz. third person verb and third declension dative plural noun forms, phonemically represented as -ε(ν) (-e(n)) and -ῐ(ν) (-i(n)). An early Attic–Ionic innovation, nu paragoge spread through the Hellenic world; inclusion or omission of /ν/ in ancient inscriptions is so variable and unpredictable as to suggest morphemes with and without /ν/ occurred in free variation, not bound to the prescriptive rules of phonetic harmony codified by later Byzantine grammarians.


polypersonal

(grammar) Involving more than one person.


humiliative

(grammar) Serving to lower one's own or another's status.


humiliative

(grammar) A construct that serves to lower one's own or another's status.


reclamatory

Equivalent to reclaim (“return land to a suitable condition for use; claim back, repossess; return someone to a proper course of action, reform; cry out in opposition or contradiction”) + -atory. Compare exclamatory, declamatory.

For example, a reclamatory question (calling for a repetition) does not sort well with B + A; […]

1986, Dwight Bolinger, Dwight Le Merton Bolinger, Intonation and Its Parts: Melody in Spoken English, Stanford University Press, page 318

The same is true of a question calling for a repetition (a reclamatory question) : (25) Are you OK? - Eh? (What? Am I what?) - Are you OK ? - Oh, sure, fine.

1998, Daniel Hirst, Albert Di Cristo, Intonation Systems: A Survey of Twenty Languages, Cambridge University Press, page 50

Nevertheless, reclamatory questions do not constitute a counterexample to my proposal, but rather provide evidence to strengthen it. They neatly differ from other repetitive interrogatives in a significant way: they are manifestly used to elicit […]

1998, Villy Rouchota, Andreas H. Jucker, Current Issues in Relevance Theory, John Benjamins Publishing, page 183

(grammar, of a question) Asking for repetition (and sometimes expressing doubt or confusion).


polypersonalism

(grammar) The quality of being polypersonal.


secondary tense

en-noun

secondary tense (plural secondary tenses)

(grammar) In Latin, the perfect, imperfect or pluperfect tense.

(grammar) In Greek, the aorist, imperfect or pluperfect tense.

(grammar) In English, the analytic distinction distinction between perfect and non-perfect verb phrases.


primary tense

(grammar) In Latin, the present or future tense.

(grammar) In Greek, the present, future or perfect tense.

(grammar) In English, inflectional tense: the synthetic distinction distinction between present and preterite.


nonneuter

(grammar) not neuter; masculine or feminine


triactantial

1988, Julio Calvo Pérez, Perceptual and Topological Criteria in Linguistics Description, Publicacions de la Universitat de València
S- A Juan se le permite venir
F- On permet Jean de venir
E- John is allowed to come by
G- Johannes ist erlaubt vorbeizukommen
All of these expressions contain an explicit triactantial (3-place) performative to allow, […]

... are my proposed semantic classes of Georgian deponents, with examples of each type : TYPE I . base trivalent transitive, no relative DV
The first group comprises verbs of giving and communicating, that is, fundamentally triactantial verbs ...

2002, Winfried Boeder, Philologie, Typologie und Sprachstruktur: Festschrift für Winfried Boeder zum 65. Geburtstag, Peter Lang Pub Incorporated

(grammar) Having three actants (such as subject, direct object, and indirect object),


quotientive

"Once" is a quotientive adverb.

(grammar) Of an adverb: expressing how often, or how many times.


prepositive adjective

prepositive adjective (plural prepositive adjectives)

(grammar) An adjective that occurs on an antecedent basis within a noun phrase.


nominalized adjective

nominalized adjective (plural nominalized adjectives)

(grammar) An adjective that has undergone nominalization, and is thus used as a noun.


lexical verb

(grammar) A member of an open class of verbs typically expressing action, state, or other predicate meaning that includes all verbs except auxiliary verbs.


postpositive adjective

postpositive adjective (plural postpositive adjectives)

In the sentence "She is beauty personified," the postpositive adjective is "personified".

The word "better" is a postpositive adjective in "I want something better".

In "This seems sufficient", "sufficient" is the postpositive adjective.

(grammar) An adjective that follows the noun or pronoun that it modifies.

adjetivo pospositivo

adjective that follows the word it modifies


matrix clause

(grammar) A clause that has another (subordinate) clause embedded within it.


perfect participle

perfect participle (plural perfect participles)

(grammar) A participle indicating a completed action or state:

a simple (one-word) participle, traditionally called the past participle, used together with an auxiliary verb to form a perfect tense, such as "eaten" in English or "gegangen" in German

a compound participle, e.g. "having eaten" in English or "ayant mangé" in French.


perfect auxiliary

perfect auxiliary (plural perfect auxiliaries)

(grammar) The auxiliary verb that is combined with a past participle to form a compound perfect tense: in English, the verb have; in French, German, and Danish either the equivalent of have or the equivalent of be, depending on the verb.


juxtapositive

(grammar) Of or relating to a grammatical case expressing position beside something.


direct question

direct question (plural direct questions)

(grammar) A question asked in a direct way, for example How old are you?


indirect question

indirect question (plural indirect questions)

(grammar) A question asked in an indirect way; either as a statement, for example I'd like to know how much I would earn; or enclosed in another question, for example Could you tell me how much I would earn?


corefer

en-verb

corefer (third-person singular simple present corefers, present participle coreferring, simple past and past participle coreferred)

corefers (present singular third-person)
coreferring (participle present)
coreferred (participle past)
coreferred (past)

(grammar) To exhibit coreference; to refer to the same thing.


phrasal noun

"Break-in" is the phrasal noun from "break in"

(grammar) A noun consisting of a verb followed by a particle or preposition; the substantive counterpart of a phrasal verb (in grammar schemas that use that concept), conveying gerundive meaning.

phrase

not to be confused; a phrase that functions much like a compound noun and has a [component] noun as its head


islandhood

(grammar) The property of being an island phrase.


pro-verb

Formed in English of pro- (“substituting for”) + verb.

“They herd cattle, and raise corn, just as we used to do”; i.e., to herd cattle and raise corn. Do is sometimes thus used as a sort of pro-verb to represent an active verb or a phrase.

1875, Simon Kerl, A Common School Grammar of the English Language, page 150

The pro-verb do is like a pronoun; just as a pronoun replaces the entire NP, the pro-verb replaces an entire VP.

2000, Laurel Brinton, The Structure of Modern English: A Linguistic Introduction, page 206

(linguistics, grammar) A pro-form used to substitute for a verb or verb phrase.


pronominalisation

en-noun

pronominalisation (countable and uncountable, plural pronominalisations)

(grammar) The replacement of a noun by a pronoun

(grammar) The attachment of a pronoun to the end of a verb to indicate its subject or object


intransitivize

en-verb

intransitivize (third-person singular simple present intransitivizes, present participle intransitivizing, simple past and past participle intransitivized)

intransitivizes (present singular third-person)
intransitivizing (participle present)
intransitivized (participle past)
intransitivized (past)

(grammar, transitive) To make intransitive.


shadow pronoun

Perlmutter proposes that all chopping rules are rules that leave a shadow pronoun subsequently deleted.

1980, Linguistic Inquiry - Volume 11, Issues 2-4, page 367

Perlmutter (1972) proposes that all rules which move constituents over variables be considered "copying " rules. He further argues that if there is a rule which deletes the "shadow pronoun", i.e., the pronoun left behind by the copying rule, this Shadow Deletion rule will be sensitive to island constraints.

1980, Saadun Ismail Suaieh, Aspects of Arabic Relative Clauses, page 231

Shadow pronouns are very frequent in spoken Scottish English but are also found in many varieties of informal English, for example in Ireland, England and the United States.

1989, James Milroy, Regional Variation in British English Syntax, page 46

The crucial distinction is not subject clitic versus object clitic, but shadow pronoun versus free anaphor.

2004, Reineke Bok-Bennema, Romance Languages and Linguistic Theory 2002, page 164

resumptive pronoun
resumptive pronoun#English


short illative

(grammar) In some languages, a shortened version of the illative case.


emphatic state

en-noun

emphatic state (countable and uncountable, plural emphatic states)

(grammar) A noun and attributive adjective form, occurring in Aramaic and Old South Arabian and by minority reconstructed for Proto-Semitic, where the word spearheads what is perceived as an agglutinated determiner.


intensive pronoun

intensive pronoun (plural intensive pronouns)

(grammar) A pronoun used to emphasize some other nominal element in its clause:

To emphasize a preceding noun or another pronoun, as an adverbial adjunct

In apposition with a noun or pronoun, as an adnominal adjunct


adjective pronoun

adjective pronoun (plural adjective pronouns)

(grammar) An adjective used as a pronoun, such as each, either, and neither, which relate to objects taken singly.


superplural

A natural question that arises is whether the step from the singular to the plural can be iterated. Are there terms that stand to ordinary plural terms the way ordinary plural terms stand to singular terms? Let's call such terms superplural. A superplural term would thus, loosely speaking, refer to several ‘pluralities’ at once, much as an ordinary plural term refers to several objects at once. Further, let's call a predicate superplural if it can be predicated of superplural terms.

2008, Øystein Linnebo, David Nicolas, “Superplurals in English”, in Analysis, volume 68, number 3, Oxford University Press, pages 186 of 186–197

As indicated previously, with Rayo (2002, 2006) and Williamson (2003), we hold that absolute unrestricted quantification is genuinely possible. Therefore, we do not follow McKay and Yi. Rayo (2006) develops and alternative that allows for absolutely unrestricted quantification. It consists in using languages that contain not only plural terms, but also terms that are “superplural”, “super-superplural”, etc. […] in order to specify the truth-conditions of sentences containing mass nouns and plurals, we will need to be able to refer to several “pluralities”. We will do so using superplural terms.

2008, David Nicolas, “Mass Nouns and Plural Logic”, in Linguistics and Philosophy, volume 31, number 2, Springer, pages 225 of 211–244

The considerations presented in this paper generalize, and should therefore support the view that the truthmaking predicate can take plural predicates of any order (possibly including infinite order), that is, not just superplural arguments, but also super-superplural arguments, and so on. It should also be noted that they also support the view that the truth-making predicate takes plural predicates of 'mixed order'. For instance, what makes (Aristotle exists and Socrates resembles Plato) true is Aristotle together with Socrates and Plato together. ‘Aristotle together with Socrates and Plato together’ (or 'Aristotle and (Socrates and Plato)') would be a superplural expression of 'mixed order', since it is obtained combining a singular and a first-order plural expression. I am indebted to Øystein Linnebo for alerting me to the points in this footnote.

2013, Gonzalo Rodriguez-Pereyra, “Resemblance Nominalism, Conjunctions and Truthmakers”, in Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, New Series, volume 113, Oxford University Press, pages 30 footnote 10 of 21–38

We can avoid total immersion, however, by confining ourselves to the phenomena that are expressible in our mother tongue. Everyone knows that it is not adequate to the apparatus of superplural quantification, since it has no superplural forms of pronouns or common nouns, no ‘theys’ and ‘thems’ to follow ‘they’ and ‘them’, and no ‘thingss’ or ‘mens’ to follow ‘things’ and ‘men’.

2016, Alex Oliver, Timothy Smiley, “8.4 Superplurals”, in Plural Logic. Second Edition, Revised and Enlarged, Oxford University Press, page 138

Barngarla has singualar, dual, plural and what I call superplural. Consider the following: mína ‘eye’, mínalbili ‘two eyes’, mínarri ‘eyes’ and mínailyarranha ‘heaps of eyes’.

2020, Ghil'ad Zuckermann, Revivalistics. From the Genesis of Israeli to Language Reclamation in Australia and Beyond, Oxford University Press, page 227

(grammar and ontology) A number that is even more plural than another plural.


chillu

There are five chillus currently in use: ൺ (ṇ), ൻ (ṉ), ർ (ṟ), ൽ (l) and ൾ (ḷ). There are also four archaic ones: ൿ (k), ൔ (m), ൕ (y) and ൖ (ḻ).

(grammar) A type of letter used in Malayalam which does not have an inherent vowel, used to represent a pure consonant without the use of a virama.


literary present

(grammar) The present tense as used by convention to describe events in fictional works, such as when explaining the plot of a book or film.

(grammar) The present tense as used to describe an action of speaking or writing that lives on through written works or record.


continuous tense

continuous tense (plural continuous tenses)

present perfect continuous
present perfect continuous

past perfect continuous
past perfect continuous

future perfect continuous
future perfect continuous

(grammar) A verb tense expressing ongoing action; in English, any of the tenses formed with the present participle, namely present continuous ("I am dreaming"), past continuous ("I was dreaming"), present perfect continuous ("I have been dreaming"), past perfect continuous ("I had been dreaming"), future continuous ("I will be dreaming") or future perfect continuous ("I will have been dreaming").


interjectional phrase

interjectional phrase (plural interjectional phrases)

(grammar) A phrase that functions syntactically as an interjection.


conjunctional phrase

conjunctional phrase (plural conjunctional phrases)

(grammar) A phrase that functions syntactically as a conjunction.


pronominal phrase

pronominal phrase (plural pronominal phrases)

(grammar) A phrase that functions syntactically as a pronoun.


hodiernal tense

hodiernal tense (plural hodiernal tenses)

(grammar) Referring to events of today, in an absolute tense, or of the day under consideration, in a relative tense.


absolute tense

(grammar) The grammatical expression of time reference relative to now, the exact moment of speaking.


relative tense

(grammar) A grammatical expression of time reference relative to a different point in time, at the moment being considered in the context.


petitive

Among the general petitive structures we may mention the following: […]

2000, James A. Matisoff, Blessings, Curses, Hopes, and Fears, page 23


grammatical gender

grammatical gender (countable and uncountable, plural grammatical genders)

(grammar) The grammatically prescribed gender of a noun, which does not necessarily correspond with the referent’s attributes such as biological sex.


nonabsentative

(grammar) Not being or relating to the absentative; indicating the presence of something.