Linguistics

Cooperative Principle

"Make your conversational contribution such as is required, at the stage at which it occurs, by the accepted purpose or direction of the talk exchange in which you are engaged."

English Native Language

400 Million, USA, UK, Australia, New Zealand, etc.

English Foreign Language

500-1000 Million, is gaining importance with English as a World Language

Corpus

A body of texts, which are collected according to a specific criteria and is storable in electronic form. It serves the analysis of specific linguistic phenomena.

Speech Perception

A child's ability to recognize voices, which starts around 2 months. It marks the ability to segment, recognize one's own name and to distinguish similar phonemes.

Inserts

A class of words that is rather peripheral in the grammar and lexicon and are usually stand-alone words that are characterized by their ability to enter into syntactic relations with other structures.

Pidgin

A code language for limited use, which is usually restricted to certain contexts and situations such as trade. There are no native speakers.

Phrasal Verbs

A combination of words used as a verb, consisting of a verb and an adverb or preposition. (example: give in, come up with)

Projection

A compositional process, in which a certain word or phrase needs another phrase to go along with it and projects these to the right or left of themselves. This creates further subnodes.

Adjunction

A compositional process, in which phrases are added to another phrase, which aren't necessary for the latter. (Adding adjectives to NPs) These structures are usually "roof-shaped" and don't use projection.

Merger

A compositional process, in which two nodes, which need each other, are merged into one.

Movement & Deletion

A compositional process, in which, under particular restrictions, pieces of the tree structure can be moved or deleted. (This shit is very obscure)

Question

A constituency test, in which a string of words is replaced by a wh-question and then moved to the front.

Movement

A constituency test, in which you move a constituent to another place in the sentence.

Replacement

A constituency test, in which you replace a string of words with a single word without rendering the whole sentence ungrammatical.

Diachronic

A corpus whose data covers a whole period of time is ...

Synchronic

A corpus whose data is was produced at about the same time is ...

Language Planning

A deliberate effort to influence tha function, structure or acquisition of a language within a speech community.

Lexical

A difference between two varieties that differ in their words is ... (elevator vs. lift, truck vs. lorry)

Pragmatic

A difference between two varieties that differ on the level of how meaning is produced is ... (direct or indirect, amount of small talk)

Morpho-Syntactic

A difference between two varieties that differs on a grammatical level is ... (got vs. gotten)

Loanwords

A direct borrowing (Weltanschauung, sushi, sauna)

Linguistic Environment

A factor that influences variation based on conditioned sound changes.

Socio-Psychological

A factor that influences variation based on in-group versus out-groups and the projection of personal qualities.

Speaker

A factor that influences variation based on region, social class, gender, ethnicity, age and networks.

Situation

A factor that influences variation based on the setting, addressee, medium, topic and purpose.

Execution

A felicity condition, which states that a procedure has to be completed correctly and completely in order to not misfire. (The couple is not married if one answers "yes")

Intention

A felicity condition, which states that the participants must have the intention to do the procedure without trying to deceive in order to not abuse the situation.

Convention

A felicity condition, which states that there must be an appropriate procedure in order not to misfire. (Saying "I do" instead of "yes" at a wedding)

Semantic Shift

A language change phenomenon that lets words acquire a meaning that is similar to the original meaning.

Linguistic assimilation

A language planning ideology in which every member of a society should learn and use the dominant language or variation of the society.

Vernacularisation

A language planning ideology in which indigenous languages should be restored, developed and adopted as official languages.

Linguistic Pluralism

A language planning ideology in which multiple languages should be recognized and supported.

Internationalization

A language planning ideology in which non-indigenous languages should be adopted as official languages or in a particular domain.

Polysynthetic

A language that creates longwinded words with morphemes that usually are whole sentences in other languages is ... (Yupik, West Greenlandic, Mohawk)

Isolating

A language that has no bound morphemes, relies on word order and whose words don't vary in form or meaning is ... (Mandarin, Vietnamese, Thai)

Proscribed

A language that is discouraged by official sanction or restriction is ...

Tolerated

A language that is neither promoted nor proscribed is ...

Hyper-Central

A language that is the hub of the WLS (World language system). Currently this is English.

Promoted

A language that lacks official status but is encouraged is ...

Inflectional

A language that relies heavily on bound morphemes that carry multiple meanings is ... (Latin, French, German)

Agglutinative

A language that relies heavily on bound morphemes that only carry one meaning and usually creates long chains of suffixes is ... (Turkish, Finnish, Swahili)

Isogloss

A line on a dialect map, marking the boundary between two regions which differ with respect to one particular feature.

Para-Verbal Features

A linguistic element that can vary across cultural groups that has mainly to do with amplitude, pitch and tone.

Topics

A linguistic element that can vary across cultural groups that has mainly to do with avoidance. (is it appropriate to talk about religion or politics)

Agonism

A linguistic element that can vary across cultural groups that has mainly to do with how directly a disagreement is voiced.

Intonation

A linguistic element that can vary across cultural groups that has mainly to do with how high or low the voice is in certain situations. (rising or falling with questions)

Turn-Taking

A linguistic element that can vary across cultural groups that has mainly to do with how speakers determine who has/gets the floor.

Framing

A linguistic element that can vary across cultural groups that has mainly to do with signaling how an utterance is intended by variable cues, how to interpret what is said.

Overlap/ Interruption

A linguistic element that can vary across cultural groups that has mainly to do with the interpretation of when talking over somebody is considered rude or enthusiastic.

Idiolect

A linguistic system of a single person. Often only differing in one respect to other variations.

Corpus Planning

A major domain of language planning, which is concerned with prescriptive interventions in the form of language planning. These cause changes in the structure of the language.

Status Planning

A major domain of language planning, which is concerned with the allocation or relocation or a language or variety to functional domains. These changes affect the status of the language opposed to other languages.

Acquisition Planning

A major domain of language planning, which is concerned with the government system trying to influence aspects of language through education.

Manner

A maxim of conversation, which aims to be as clear as required.

Quantity

A maxim of conversation, which aims to be as informative as required, i. e. the least amount of sentences for the most amount of information.

Relevance

A maxim of conversation, which aims to be as relevant as required.

Quality

A maxim of conversation, which aims to be as true as required.

Dialect Map

A method of plotting regional variation on a map, using symbols to denote how a specific word is pronounced.

Affixation

A morphological operation, which adds a morpheme to the stem in the form of prefixes, suffixes, circumfixes or infixes. These can be inflectional or derivational.

Stress

A morphological operation, which only shifts the stress pattern in a word to change its grammatical information. (English Nouns vs. Verbs: récord (N) vs recórd (V))

Suppletion

A morphological operation, which partially or completely replaces the lexical root. (English: go/went, buy/bought)

Ablaut

A morphological operation, which substitutes a vowel for another one in the lexical root. (English irregular past changes: sing/sang)

Relevance

A pragmatic parameter, which contributes to a given communicative exchange.

Beliefs

A pragmatic parameter, which interact with the speakers/ hearers interpretation of a message.

Background Knowledge

A pragmatic parameter, which is needed to understand a message.

Organization

A pragmatic parameter, which is relevant for how language is ordered.

Medium

A pragmatic parameter, which is used to transmit a message.

Borrowing

A process of lexical enrichment that adopts words from another language. The process is further split up into "loanwords" and "calque".

Word formation

A process of lexical enrichment that covers the words that are not entirely new and aren't borrowed from other languages.

Coinage

A process of lexical enrichment that invents a totally new word. This is quite rare and often connected to Eponymy's (brand names used as verbs)

Syntagmatic

A relationship that is horizontal and includes collocations and phrasal verbs is ... (Sequence)

Paradigmatic

A relationship that is vertical and includes synonymy, antonymy, hyponymy, homonymy and polysemy is ... (Substitution)

Give options

A rule of rapport (harmony) that urges the need for independent decision making.

Don't Impose

A rule of rapport (harmony) that urges the need for independent solution finding.

Maintain camaraderie

A rule of rapport (harmony) that urges the need for involvement and connection.

Prescriptive

A rule that has only consequences in the form of value judgement is ... (proper use of grammar)

Regulative

A rule that is based on the consequences of violations is ... (traffic rules)

Descriptive

A rule that is based on what happens in reality is ... (Real Phrase Structures of spoken language)

Constitutive

A rule that is necessary to uphold the existence of what is at play is ... (chess rules)

Generative Grammer

A school of thought that claims that there is a finite set of rules and a finite set of elements, which can produce an infinite amount of sentences in a language. It therefore defines, which sentences are grammatical and which ones aren't.

Lexical Field

A semantic field of related words whose meanings delimit each other. (colour terms: red, blue, mauve, purple, etc.)

Narrowing

A semantic language change that decreases the range of meaning of a certain utterance.

Broadening

A semantic language change that increases the range of meaning of a certain utterance.

Initialism

A shortening process that abbreviates words through their initials, which are pronounced as letters. (DNA, CD, UK)

Acronym

A shortening process that abbreviates words through their initials, which are pronounced as words (AIDS, UNICEF)

Clipping

A shortening process that doesn't change the meaning of a word but cuts part of it off. It can happen in the back (exam-ination), in the front (ham-burger) or in the middle (in-flu-enza). It can also appear in compound words (sit-uational com-edy -> sitcom) and is therefore interconnected with blending.

Blending

A shortening process that merges the first part of one word with the last part of another (motel/ motor - hotel, Brangelina/ Brad - Angelina)

Back-Formation

A shortening process that removes affixes, which were etymologically, originally connected with the word. (to act is based on the word actor, which has been stripped of the -or suffix)

Diglossia

A sociolinguistic situation in which two varieties exist side by side throughout the community, with each having a definite role to play.

Declaration

A speech act classification that changes the reality, proposed in the statement. (I hereby resign for the board.)

Expressives

A speech act classification that expresses the Speakers attitudes and emotions towards something. (Thanks for the coffee.)

Representatives

A speech act classification that is about the Speaker expressing a statement, which is either true or false. (I saw her yesterday.)

Verdictives

A speech act classification that makes a judgement or assessment. (This is the best cake ever.)

Comissives

A speech act classification that obliges the Speaker to a future action. (I won't do it again.)

Directives

A speech act classification that urges the Hearer to perform an action. (Can you help me?)

Indirect

A speech act, in which the structure and function do not match each other is ...

Direct

A speech act, in which the structure and function match each other is ...

Morpheme Exchange

A speech error, in which 2 morphemes of 2 words switch places (I randomED some sampLY). This may be inflectional or derivational.

Morpheme Substitution

A speech error, in which a derivational morpheme is substituted with a wrong one (A timeFUL remark).

Morpheme Shift

A speech error, in which one inflectional morpheme is applied in the wrong place instead of another (I haven't sattEN down and writ yet).

Constituent

A string of words that naturally belong together.

Hyponymy

A subordinate term of a group. (salmon is a hyponym of fish)

Hypernymy

A superordinate group of meaning. (fish is a hypernym of salmon)

Source

A thematic role, from where the movement occurs. (Jim fell off "the chair".)

Goal

A thematic role, to where something moves. (Jane ran to "the station".)

Location

A thematic role, where something happens. (The fox lives in "the cave".)

Cause

A thematic role, whose entity brings about an event. ("The snow" caved the roof.)

Stimulus

A thematic role, whose entity causes an experience to happen. (The teacher heard the "strange noise".)

Patient

A thematic role, whose entity is affected by the action. (I will kill "you".)

Agent

A thematic role, whose entity is the initiator of an action. ("I" will kill you.)

Instrument

A thematic role, whose entity is used by the agent to perform an action. (She took the picture with "her iPhone".)

Theme

A thematic role, whose entity moves literally or metaphorically as part of an action. ("Susan" fell over.)

Experiencer

A thematic role, whose entity perceives a stimulus. ("He" like the smell.)

Recipient

A thematic role, whose entity receives or acquires something. (Peter gave "Mary" a hug.)

Trade

A type of colonization that is rather casual and has a restricted impact on the colonizers' language and works mostly through borrowings and jargon. The languages remain more or less isolated.

Settlement

A type of colonization where one European language is adopted as the societal vernacular, which oppresses the other European languages as well as indigenous languages of the colony.

Exploitation

A type of colonization, where English filtered slowly down with the education system over a colonial social elite. English tends to be the imposed official language for administration and higher education.

Speech Event

A type of interaction that is going on and has always at least two participants and more than one speech act.

Critical Discourse Analysis

A type of research that studies the way power abuse, dominance and inequality are enacted and reproduced by text and speech in the social and political context. This branch does take an explicit position and has a political agenda.

Speech Situation

A type of social occasion with more than one speech event.

Accent

A variation in phonology.

Slang

A variation in vocabulary that is usually rather informal and connected to youth-culture.

Jargon

A variation in vocabulary that is usually rather professional.

Regional Varieties

A variety of language that is consistently used by speakers of a region. Although consistent the features don't follow rules or a grammar.

Ethnolect

A variety that is based on the language of members of a specific ethnic community.

National Standard

A variety that is codified by the varieties of an individual nation. Based on this the regional varieties emerge. (Examples: BE, AE, etc.)

Standard English

A variety that is not linked to a certain region and has a distinct combination of linguistic features. It is strongly limited and follows the consensual usage of an international "elite", while carrying the most prestige within a country. It is widely understood but not widely produced.

Sociolect

A variety that is spoken by a social group, social class or subculture

Adjective

A word class that inflect for comparison, occurs as head of the AdjP between D and N and modify nouns. They typically denote qualities.

Preposition

A word class that is invariable and occurs as the head of a PP. They typically denote relations between entities.

Adverb

A word class that may often be formed by adding -ly to adjectives, occur as head of AdvP and modify verbs. They typically denote degree, circumstances or attitude.

Noun

A word class that varies in number and case, occurs as the head of the NP and appears after P/D/Adj. They typically denote concrete entities or qualities.

Verb

A word class that varies in tense and voice, occurs as head of a VP, follows modals/ auxiliaries and can be negated with not. They typically denote actions or states.

Eponymy

A word formation process that adopts brand names, geographical names, folklore or other sources as common words. (YouTube, to hoover, African-American, Casanova)

Derivation

A word formation process that applies affixes to a word.

Compounding

A word formation process that combines two constituents (out of which at least one has to be a free lexeme) into a new word. These words usually are headed in a way and may change the natural stress of the words if they were written apart. This process is highly productive

Shortening

A word formation process that creates words that are shorter than its original form. It has multiple subcategories, which are: Blending, Clipping, Initialism, Acronym and Back-formation.

Polysemy

A word that has more than one meaning out of context, which are somehow related. These two meanings are considered one lexeme. (example: court -> enclosed area, retinue of a sovereign, judicial tribunal)

Cultural transmission

Acquisition of language through learning and experience.

Calque

Also called "loan translation". A word for word translation of another language. Sometimes they're also changed through syntactic rules. (beer garden, blue blood)

Conversion

Also called "zero derivation". A word formation process that shifts a words grammatical function without changing its form. (English Noun to Verb: a host/ to host)

Speech Act

An action performed by one person through speech (requests, promises, warnings, etc.)

Gradable

An antonym that has two words at the ends of a continuum is ... (slow - fast)

Complementary

An antonym that pairs two absolute oppositions is ... (married - single, dead - alive)

Relational

An antonym that pairs two words that describe a relationship between two objects or people is ... (parent - child, husband - wife)

Poverty of stimulus

An argument that argues that children aren't exposed to enough varied language to learn each sentence to determine if a sentence is correct or not. Therefore they have to learn rules that govern the correctness of sentences.

Conventional

An implicature that creates meaning through the words used in a sentence and is based on lexical implied causality.

Conversational

An implicature that is context dependent, while the conventional meaning of the sentence is not part of the implicature.

Divergence

An increasing differentiation of tow languages as they develop from a common ancestor. This comes from geographical separation, social differences, new historical environments, new regional identities and the influence of substrate languages.

Type

An individual word in a corpus. These are only counted once, regardless of how often it appears.

Polite speech-act

An insert that is based on empty formulaic politeness (please, thanks, sorry)

Hesitators Planners

An insert that is used to elongate the time to plan the next part of the utterance. (er, um, erm)

Greetings

An insert that is used to greet somebody (hi, hello, morning)

Attention signal

An insert that is used to start a conversation and to catch attention. (hey, yo, hey you)

Interjections

An insert that is usually an expression of surprise (ah, oh, oops)

Expletives

An insert that is usually an expression of surprise. (shit, heavens)

Response forms

An insert that shows the other participants ones participance in the speech event. (right, no, huh uh, uh huh)

Discourse markers

An insert that tends to occur at the beginning of a turn and signals a transition or an interactive relationship between the speaker, the hearer and the message. (well, right, now, I mean, like)

Response elicitors

An insert that urges the other participants to respond. (right?, okay?)

Constatives

An utterance that can be true or false and usually reports things about the world that are obvious.

Performatives

An utterance that doesn't report or describe but is part of doing an action. (Tested by inserting "hereby") These utterances cannot be true or false but only felicitous or unfelicitous.

Felicitous

An utterance that is said in order to perform an action in the suitable situation it is ...

Unfelicitous

An utterance that is said to distract or does not fit the situation is ...

Variant

Any alternative way of saying the same thing without changing the meaning in a systematic way.

Linguistic variable

Any linguistic unit that is realized by more than one norm.

Token

Any word in a corpus. Every word is counted regardless of repetition.

Regularization

Applying regular rules to irregular situations. (corpuses instead of corpora)

Features of Human language

Arbitrariness, Semanticity, Displacement, Cultural transmission, Productivity, Discreteness, Duality of Patterning, etc.

Opt out

Breaking a maxim of conversation by explicitly refusing to answer.

Clash

Breaking a maxim of conversation by infringing on one of them in order to save another one.

Flouting

Breaking a maxim of conversation by intentionally failing to observe a conversational implicature to create meaning through the breaking of the maxim.

Violation

Breaking a maxim of conversation by misleading or deceiving the hearer.

Contact-Induced

Change that is brought about by particular contact situations is ...

Increase in Transparency

Complicated things are replaced by more easily understandable ones. (twice becomes two times)

Lexical categories

Contain words that share certain characteristics

Multilingualism

Countries that have more than one language, which is the norm. There are about 200 countries that have an estimated amount of 6000 to 7000 languages.

Bilingualism

Countries that have more than one official language have to often make political decisions based on promoting one language more than the other.

Apparent

Data on variation that is from a given moment in time is ...

Real-Time

Data on variation that stems from earlier studies of the same community or follow-up studies is ...

Decompositional view

Each morpheme and affix is stored separately in the lexicon. Evidence is that we can understand bushisms and nonsense words through context and how they are "built".

Whole Lexeme view

Each word is stored separately in the lexicon.

Post-Colonialism

English tends to be viewed as invasive and indigenous languages are promoted again, while english remains as an internationalized and globalized language.

Deixis

Expressions that encode features of the context of the utterance, which relate to real referents.

Idions

Expressions whose meaning is different from the meaning of the individual words. (example: have your feet on the ground = to be sensible)

Creole

Extended code languages, which are used by communities. These emerge, when people of different languages come together and are forced to communicate for a longer period of time. These languages are fully functional.

Traditional Dialectology

Focuses on regional variation and tends to look for NORMs (Non-mobile older rural males) and are generally more in rural areas. Surveys are often made by telephone and the dialect boundaries tend to be somewhat interpretative.

Modern Dialectology

Focuses on social factors and tends to look for diverse social groups in urban landscapes. The focus is on mobility, dialect contact and language globalization. Surveys are often made online, using contemporary methods to have a good quantitative turn-out.

High Consideration

Focusing on the need for independence and not imposing. (avoiding interruptions, longer pauses, indirectness)

High Involvement

Focusing on the need to connect and for involvement. (embracing overlap as a sign of enthusiasm, short pauses, lots of questions)

Structuralism

Founded by Ferdinand de Saussure. Language is a system of relations and is defined by the way elements relate to other elements in the language.

Inflectional Affixes

Functional Morphemes that have grammatical function (Example: work-ed / thing-s), In English there are only inflectional suffixes.

Derivational Suffix

Functional Morphemes that usually change the word class of the stem morpheme. (Example: dark-ness)

Function words

Grammatical Morphemes with free roots that denote grammatical functions (Pronouns, Conjunctions, Prepositions, Auxiliaries, Determiners)

Convergence

Historically, a process, by which varieties of language come in contact and become more similar in structure. This comes through close contact and interaction of the speaker, the influence of the media and the influence of a prestigious linguistic variety.

Syntagmatic Relations

Horizontal relation of words, which creates meaning through the combination of words

Communicative Competence

How language is used in discourse.

Grammatical Competence

How units of language are combined.

Copulative

If a compound is both constituents at the same time it is ... (singer-songwriter, bittersweet)

Endocentric

If a compound is right-headed it is ... (book cover, laser printer)

Exocentric

If a compound is unheaded it is ... (peabrain, paperback, pickpocket)

Textual

If a discourse marker is used to signal a transition and to structure an utterance to achieve coherence it is ...

Interpersonal

If a discourse marker is used to signal an interactive relationship and to express subjective attitudes and evaluations it is ...

Syntactic

If a language change is based on changes to the grammatical system such as word order, double negatives, etc. it is ...

Morphological

If a language change is based on changes to the morphophonemic system it is ...

Semantic

If a language change is based on changing the meaning of certain utterances it is ...

Phonological

If a language change is based on different pronunciation it is ...

High-Density

If a personal network of people all know each other it is ... (also called closed network)

Low-Density

If a personal network of people do not know each other it is ... (also called open network)

AUX-Movement

If a sentence is turned into a question by using an auxiliary, the tense form of the original verb can be removed from the tree diagram.

Iconic

If a sign bears a natural resemblance to what it refers to it is ...

Symbolic

If a sign has no inherent connection to what it refers to it is ...

Indexical

If a sign points to or has a necessary connection to what it refers to it is ...

Relative

If a spacial reference is made from an egocentric view it is ... (left, right)

Absolute

If a spacial reference is made in reference to fixed bearings it is ... (north, south, east)

Intrinsic

If a spacial reference is made in reference to properties of objects it is ... (on top, besides, in the middle of)

Adstratum

If languages in contact have equal prestige.

Physiological

If the cause of language change is mainly articulatory simplification it is ... (Making things easier to pronounce)

Social

If the cause of language change is mainly language contact it is ... (borrowings, loan words, etc.)

Cognitive

If the cause of language change is mainly regularization it is ... (regular patterns are easier to learn)

Inter-Sentential

If the code-switching happens between sentences or clauses it is ...

Intra-Word

If the code-switching happens within a word, using foreign affixes it is ...

Tag

If the code-switching is a backchannel, etc. it is ...

Intra-Sentential

If the code-switching is just a phrase or part of a phrase introduced into another language it is ...

Phatic

If the function of an utterance is to build a relationship it is ... (Oh, wow, really?)

Emotive

If the function of an utterance is to express the speaker's feelings it is ... (It was great)

Metalinguistic

If the function of an utterance is to focus on language use it is ... (you call it a piano)

Referential

If the function of an utterance is to refer to entities it is ... (Lily plays the organ)

Poetic

If the function of an utterance is to show the effect of beauty it is ... (the queen of instruments)

Conative

If the function of an utterance is to tempt the hearer to do something it is ... (would you mind?)

Simultaneous

If two (or more) languages are learned at the same time, the bilingualism is ...

Sequential

If two (or more) languages are learned one after another, the bilingualism is ...

Principle A

In Binding theory Anaphors (himself, themselves, reflexive pronouns, etc.) are co-indexed/ refer to the subject in the same clause. (Kim washes herself)

Principle C

In Binding theory names are not co-indexed/ don't refer to the subject or any clause located to their left. (Kim likes Kim)

Principle B

In Binding theory pronouns (she, her, their, etc.) are not co-indexed/ don't refer to the subject in the same clause. (Kim loves her)

Results

In a top down approach, this is the fifth step, which looks at what finally happened.

Abstract

In a top down approach, this is the first step, which summarises the situation.

Evaluation

In a top down approach, this is the fourth step, which asks why it is interesting or why it has to be the way it is.

Orientation

In a top down approach, this is the second step, which asks questions about background information.

Coda

In a top down approach, this is the sixth and last step, which marks the end of the story and bridges back to the present speaker.

Complicating Actions

In a top down approach, this is the third step, which orders the separate events temporally

Fluency of Immigrants

In countries with one main language immigrants are sometimes expected to have a certain level in that language.

Dialect

It is a neutral label for any variety within a language that is typical of a given group of speakers.

Variation

It is found on all levels of language structure and use. (Phonology, lexis, morphology, syntax, etc.)

Colonialism

It is responsible for the emergence of "New Englishes" and new contact-derived varieties in multilingual communities such as creoles and pidgins.

Sentence

It is the highest ranking unit of grammar and is often difficult to determine in spoken language.

Corpus linguistics

It is the study of language based on examples of "real life" language use. It is rather a methodology than an area of linguistics.

Phrase

It is usually larger than a word, consisting of constituents. Each of these strings of words have a head as its principle element.

Ambiguity

It lies in the syntactic structure and can usually either mean that a PP refers either to an NP adjunction or a VP adjunction.

Systemic

Language change that becomes part of the (sub)system and becomes the accepted norm is ...

Sporadic

Language change that crop up occasionally and co-exist with other variants and does not impose a subsystem is ...

Simplification

Language change to reduce the complexity. These are structural changes.

Modularity

Language has several subsystems such as Phonology, Morphology, Syntax, etc.

Sapir's definition

Language is a purely human form of communication. It is non-instinctive and based on symbols.

Pinker's definition

Language is an instinct, which has been developed as a biological adaptation of communication and is not exclusive to humans.

Darwin's definition

Language is art. It has to be learned and is therefore not a true instinct.

Saussure's definition

Language is made up of distinct signs that correspond to ideas. It is therefore a system of signs we use to speak.

Constituency

Language is made up of grammatical units

National Identity

Languages may promote this by being different to other countries.

Super-Central

Languages that are transnationally important with demographic wight and histories of colonialism in the WLS (World languages system). There are about 12 such languages, among which there is Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Hindi, Russian, Spanish, Japanese, etc.

Mixed Language

Languages that combine elements of two or more languages. These mixtures are structured systematically.

Minority languages

Languages that may not be promoted or even banned in schools.

Peripheral

Languages without demographic wight and institutional support in the WLS (World language system). There are over 6000 of these languages.

Derivational Prefix

Lexical Morphemes that usually change the meaning of the stem morpheme. (Example: un-able)

Content word

Lexical Morphemes with free roots that denote concepts (nouns, verbs, adjective, adverbs)

Descriptivism

Linguistic approach to language that aims to describe the rules that govern what people do or can say. It is an objective description of language.

Prescriptivism

Linguistic approach to language that aims to prescribe the rules what people should and should not say. It is rather subjective, as it focuses on a "correct" use of language.

Genderlect

Linguistic variation between genders.

Referential

Meaning that arises from being related directly to a referent in the real wold is ... (people, objects, events, etc.)

Social

Meaning that arises from information derived about the identity of the person who uttered a sentence or the person who the sentence was about is ... (social status, ethnicity, age group, etc.)

Affective

Meaning that arises from the attitudes toward the hearer or the topic in an utterance and is expressed by word choice is ... (emotional connotation, etc.)

Grammatical Morphemes

Morphemes that carry grammatical meaning and are in closed word classes.

Lexical Morphemes

Morphemes that carry lexical meaning and are in open word classes.

Derivational Morphemes

Morphemes that create new words in combination with others.

Inflectional Morphemes

Morphemes that modify the grammatical function of another morpheme.

Machine-Readability

One of the essential qualities of corpora that makes sure that data processing and retrieval is possible and large quantities can be statistically analysed.

Representativeness

One of the essential qualities of corpora that makes sure that language is varied in register and genre and is generally balanced in text size, etc.

Authenticity

One of the essential qualities of corpora that makes sure that the performance is natural and can give insights into how language is really used.

Intransitive

One of the five canonical clause structures in English, S V (We hesitated).

Complex-Intransitive

One of the five canonical clause structures in English, S V C (We felt happy).

Transitive

One of the five canonical clause structures in English, S V O(d) (We sold our car).

Complex-Transitive

One of the five canonical clause structures in English, S V O(d) C (We made them happy)

Ditransitive

One of the five canonical clause structures in English, S V O(i) O(d) (We gave them food).

Field

One of the four types of linguist, who work base on observation, corpora and recordings. Their research is usually discourse analysis, lexicology, syntax or pragmatics.

Toolkit

One of the four types of linguists, who apply linguistics in various fields such as foreign language acquisition, machine translation, literary analysis, etc.

Laboratory

One of the four types of linguists, who work with experiments in a controlled setting. Their research is usually in pragmatics or sociolinguistics.

Armchair

One of the four types of linguists, who works based on intuition and philosophical reflection. They imagine examples and counter examples. Their research is theoretical and thus mostly in Morphology, Syntax and Pragmatics.

Adjacency Pair

Pairs of utterances that typically occur together, are produced by two different speakers and are ordered in first and second part. (Examples: Question - Answer, Greeting - Greeting, Compliment - Response, Invitation - Acceptance/Rejection, etc.)

Collocation

Patterns of preferred co-occurances of particular words with a relative transparency of meaning (example: heavy rain)

Implicit

Performative utterances that do not perform the action they say are ...

Explicit

Performative utterances that simultaneously perform the action they say are ...

Clitics

Shortened attached morphemes such as: n't, 'd, 's (genitive 's and numerals aren't clitics)

Sign

Something that refers to something else.

Central

Standardized official languages of small and medium sized nations in the WLS (World language system). There are about 150 of these languages, among which there are Dutch, Finnish, Korean, Wolof, Quechua, etc.

Pragmatics

The Study of analysing language in context, which deals with how language is interpreted and what factors outside of language contribute to both literal and non-literal meanings.

Semanticity

The ability to assign signs to things in the real world and matching them with specific meanings.

Productivity

The ability to potentially create and understand an infinite amount of new signs.

Displacement

The ability to refer to things that are not present in the communicative situation.

Perlocutionary

The act of of performing by saying something like persuading somebody or frightening somebody is ... (It is about the effect of the utterance on the hearer)

Illocutionary

The act of performing something in saying something like asking a question or giving advise is ... (It is about the speakers intention)

Locutionary

The act of saying something is ...

Functional

The approach to discourse analysis that analyses language using context and looking at its functions.

Structural

The approach to discourse analysis that focuses on the structure and studies the elements of discourse regarding their cohesion on a micro-level is ...

Root

The base form of a word, which remains when all affixes are removed. (Example: childishness -> child) Also called word primitive.

Lexeme

The basic unit of a lexicon (dictionary entry)

Discreteness

The basic units of speech are clearly distinct

Lexical Semantics

The branch of Semantics that examines word meanings, meaning relationships and the discovering of relationships in the lexicon of languages.

Discourse Analysis

The branch of linguistics that focuses on language use above and beyond the sentence.

Norms

The component of communicative situations that is concerned with the expectations of the interlocutors.

Setting

The component of communicative situations that is concerned with the location, time, place and physical circumstances.

Instrumentalities

The component of communicative situations that is concerned with the mode of communication. (written or spoken, face-to-face, phone)

Ends

The component of communicative situations that is concerned with the purpose or goal of the event and the participants.

Participants

The component of communicative situations that is concerned with the social status and roles of the speakers, audience and addressee.

Act Sequences

The component of communicative situations that is concerned with the speech acts themselves.

Key

The component of communicative situations that is concerned with the tone or mood of the speech event.

Genre

The component of communicative situations that is concerned with the type of event the speech event takes place in. (lecture, sermon, chat, debate)

Speaking Grid

The components of communicative situations as proposed by Hymes. (it is an acronym)

Stem

The form of a word, which remains when all inflectional affixes are removed (Example: childishness -> childish)

Kachru's Model

The inner circle is norm providing, the middle circle is norm developing and the outer circle is norm dependant.

Superstratum

The language of the dominant group in language contact.

Substratum

The language of the subordinate group in language contact.

Variability

The language people use varies, depending on the speech situation they are in.

Relativity

The linguistic research that concerns itself with the views of different culture and how these are influenced by language.

Cross-Cultural

The linguistic research that works with comparative data of communication practices of different cultural groups separately is ...

Inter-Cultural

The linguistic research that works with comparative data of communication practices of different cultural groups with each other is ...

Utterance Meaning

The meaning of an expression in a given context by an individual speaker. Based on what something means in this particular situation.

Sentence Meaning

The meaning of an expression taken in isolation. Based on dictionary entries.

Duality of patterning

The meaning of words rely on the context in which they are spoken.

Signified

The meaning which is transmitted through the use of the Signifier. it is the concept the Signifier stands for.

Lexicon

The mental dictionary of words. Estimated size is about 50'000 active words in an adult and 75'000 to 150'000 passive words.

Government and Binding

The more modern theory of the generating of sentences. It is a bottom up approach and only a max of 2 branches from one node are possible.

Signifier

The physical manifestation of a sign (in form of a picture or acoustics, etc.) It is a substitute for what is actually talked about.

Complementary Schismogenesis

The process by which each speaker's linguistic behavior drives the other one to increasingly exaggerated forms of an opposing behavior in an ever-widening spiral.

Transcription

The process of creating a representation in writing of a speech event so as to make it accessible to discourse research.

Decreolization

The process, when creole languages progressively assimilate to the standard.

Sense

The relations a word has to other words with related meanings. It is the intensional meaning of the total sum of all sense related meanings. (A dog may refer to all possible breeds of dogs)

Thematic Role

The role that the referent of a DP or an NP plays in the state of affairs described in the sentence.

Referential Approach

The saussurian model that claims that the meaning of a word is the object that the word or expression pick out in the real existing world.

Denotation

The set of entities that the word can refer to. A word refers to all the possible meanings of a word simultaneously. (I love birds means all the birds.)

Morpheme

The smallest unit of meaning.

Generative Syntax

The standard theory of the generating of sentences. It is a top down approach by creating sentences by using phrase structure rules and 3 branches from one node are possible.

Bottom Up

The structural approach to discourse analysis that analyses how utterances fit together and focuses on adjacency pairs, discourse markers, backchannels and overlaps.

Top Down

The structural approach to discourse analysis that analyses the global structure of discourse.

Semantics

The study of meaning of linguistic expressions taken in isolation.

Syntax

The study of sentence structures (form, positioning, function)

Semiotics

The study of signs. (de Saussure, Peirce, Barthes, Eco)

Behaviorism

The theory of language acquisition that claims that language is learned through imitation, reinforcement and punishment.

Nativism

The theory of language acquisition that claims that the brain is genetically pre-wired to acquire a native language.

Multi-Word-Stage

The time around the age of 2 to 2 and a half years, when a child can express itself with statements that are more than two words. These utterances are more complex and need a knowledge of lexical categories, etc.

Two-Word-Stage

The time around the age of 20 months, when a child can express itself with statements that consist of two words. Basic combinations like "Daddy come" or "Apple me" are possible.

One-Word-Stage

The time around the age of one year, when a child can express itself with statements that are only one word. These utterances usually are overextensions (doggie stands for dogs, foxes, wolfs, etc.)

Language Contac

The use of more than one language in the same place at the same time. It is the norm, not the exception.

Code-Switching

The use of two or more languages by a single speaker in the same conversation.

Register

The varieties of language that are typical of a particular situation (level of formality)

Positive Face

The wish to be approved of and the desire of the self-image being appreciated. The need to be connected.

Negative Face

The wish to be unimpeded and the claim to territories and personal preserves. The need for independence, autonomy and freedom.

Determination of word categories

There are three test needed for this. One or two tests might be unreliable because of homonyms. (How do they inflect? (Morphology), Where do they occur? (Syntax), What do they typically mean? (Semantics))

Arbitrariness

There is no necessary connection between the sign and the referent.

Discourse Marker

These are very frequent in speech but have little propositional and semantic meaning and are hard to translate. It can have propositional, textual or interpersonal meaning.

Theoretical Linguists

These kind of linguists word in the "closet" and their research is intuition based.

Historical Linguists

These kind of linguists work at the library.

Psycholinguists

These kind of linguists work in a laboratory and work experimental.

Anthropological Linguists

These kind of linguists work in the field and are concerned with language documentation.

Sociolinguists

These kind of linguists work in the streets.

Clause

This unit is arranged around the verb, which is the smallest possible type. It can be augmented by adding a subject, one or 2 objects and adverbs.

Componential Analysis

To find out what a word means, one has a "checklist" of properties, the word must fulfill. It is based on the assumption that the meaning has some essential properties to itself.

Prototype Theory

To find out what a word means, one has to compare it with a prototype of the same category. The category boundaries are fuzzy and not absolute. It is about the most birdy birds and the most vegetably vegetables.

Regional Variation

Traditional dialectology is concerned with this and usually struggles with finding clear-cut boundaries of variation.

Antonym

Two expressions with opposite meanings. (hot-cold, etc.)

Synonym

Two expressions with the same meaning. It is almost impossible to find such a pair as there is almost always nuance between two different words with similar meanings.

Split

Two sounds become dissimilar

Merger

Two sounds become similar and are eventually pronounced the same.

Homograph

Two words that are written the same but sound differently. (example: bow (V) - bow (N))

Homonymy

Two words that sound the same and are written the same but have different meanings. These are considered two lexemes. (example: swallow -> bird and verb)

Homophone

Two words that sound the same but are written differently. (example: two - to - too)

Recursion

Units of language can be combined over and over again.

Loss of Redundancy

Unnecessary repetitions are dropped. (He like it)

Code Switching

Using two languages or grammatical systems in the same speech event. It used to be considered impure.

Allomorphs

Variants of the same morpheme in pronunciation (-ed is pronounced differently in wagged, lapped and wounded)

Paradigmatic relations

Vertical relation of words, which creates meaning through the possible combination of words and or morphemes.

Presupposition

What a speaker takes for granted and as common ground in a conversation.

Implicature

What is implied, suggested or meant, distinctly from what is actually said.

Language death

When a language seizes to be spoken. Half of the approximate 6000-7000 languages world-wide will most likely die in the 21st century. (languages spoken by less than 10 people are usually unsavable)

Language Change

When a later generation acquires an innovation introduced by the previous generation.

Grammaticalization

When a lexical morpheme is transformed into a grammatical morpheme.

Overgeneralization

When a structure from one part of the system is copied to another part of it. (regulares vs. most regular)

Complexification

When a subsystem becomes more specific in a certain aspect to disambiguate vagueness.

Reference

When a word refers to an entity on a specific occasion or point in time (my birds)

Hypercorrection

When an overused form is believed to be the standard. (It is I vs. It is me)

Covert Prestige

When speakers choose not tho adopt the standard variety to signal a group membership or to distance themselves from the standard variety.

Overt Prestige

When speakers of non-standard varieties adopt to a standard variety because of the membership of the dominant class and the prestige it might bring with it.

Lexicalization

When suffixes or parts of compounds become independent words.

Multiplex

When two individuals are linked in multiple ways. (Two people work together, are friends and also met each other in school)

Uniplex

When two individuals are only linked in one way. (Two people only know each other from work)

Dialect Boundary

Where a bunch of isoglosses fall together.

Protowords

Words used by children from around 4 to 6 months old that are mostly babbling and are simplified strongly. (yi for yes, I want that)

FANBOYOS

for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so Words that introduce another clause in a sentence and therefore mark complex sentences.

English Second Language

over 400 Million, learned in a natural setting, example: India