The concepts behind the conversation
Terms: A
Explore 933 linguistic terms, with definitions, examples, and connections to the bigger picture.
Abessive Case
Abessive case is a case that expresses the lack or absence of the referent of the noun it marks. It has the meaning of the English preposition without.
Ablative Case
Ablative case is a case that expresses a variety of meanings including: instrument cause location source time
Absolute Adjective
An absolute adjective is an adjective which functions as a noun .
Absolute Social Deixis
Absolute social deixis is deictic reference to some social characteristic of a referent (especially a person) apart from any relative ranking of referents.
Absolute Tense
Absolute tense is a tense that refers to a time in relation to the moment of utterance .
Absolute-Relative Tense
Absolute-relative tense is a tense: that refers to a time in relation to a temporal reference point that, in turn, is referred to in relation to the moment …
Absolutive Case
Absolutive case is the case of nouns in ergative-absolutive languages that would generally be the subjects of intransitive verbs or the objects of …
Abstract Noun
An abstract noun is a noun that denotes something viewed as a nonmaterial referent .
Accompaniment As A Semantic Role
Accompaniment is the semantic role of a thing that participates in close association with an agent, causer, or affected in an event.
Account
An account is an explanation as to why a dispreferred second part is given as a response in an adjacency pair .
Accusative Case
Accusative case is the case in nominative-accusative languages that marks certain syntactic functions, usually direct objects .
Acoustic Phonetics
Acoustic phonetics is the study of sound waves made by the human vocal organs for communication.
Active Voice
Active voice is a voice that indicates a subject has the semantic function of actor.
Actual Implicature
An actual implicature is any potential implicature that is not canceled by its context.
Actual Presupposition
An actual presupposition is any potential presupposition that is not canceled by its context.
Additive Relation
An additive relation is an interpropositional relation in which the propositions are judged either to be closely related or built one on another.
Addressee
An addressee is any of the immediate intended recipients of the speaker 's communication, as grammaticalized in second person morphemes .
Addressee Honorific
An addressee honorific is an honorific in a system in which a level of status of the addressee relative to the speaker is expressed through a choice made …
Adjacency Pair
An adjacency pair is a unit of conversation that contains an exchange of one turn each by two speakers. The turns are functionally related to each other in …
Adjective
An adjective is a word that belongs to a class whose members modify nouns. An adjective specifies the properties or attributes of a noun referent .
Adjunct
An adjunct, broadly defined, is an optional constituent of a construction .
Adposition
An adposition is a cover term for prepositions and postpositions. It is a member of a closed set of items that: occur before or after a complement composed …
Adpositional Phrase
An adpositional phrase is a phrase that has an adposition as its head.
Advanced Tongue Root
Advanced tongue root refers to the features of a sound made by drawing the root of the tongue forward. This feature distinguishes between tense vowels as …
Adverb (Grammar)
An adverb is a lexical category whose members have the same syntactic distribution and typically modify adjectives , other adverbs, verbs , or whole …
Adverb (Linguistics)
Here are two senses for adverb: An adverb, narrowly defined, is a word belonging to a class of words which modify verbs for such categories as: time manner …
Adverbial Clause
An adverbial clause is a clause that has an adverb -like function in modifying another clause.
Adverbializer
An adverbializer is a subordinating conjunction that: links a subordinate clause to a main clause indicates that the subordinate clause has an "adverbial" …
Affix (Grammar)
An affix is a bound morpheme which adds lexical or syntactic information to a root or stem. Some languages have zero affixes , whereby meaning is conveyed …
Affix (Linguistics)
An affix is a bound morpheme that is joined before, after, or within a root or stem .
Affixation
Affixation is the morphological process whereby an affix is attached to a root or stem .
Agent As A Semantic Role
Agent is the semantic role of a person or thing who is the doer of an event.
Agglutinative Language
An agglutinative language is a language in which words are made up of a linear sequence of distinct morphemes and each component of meaning is represented …
Agreement
Agreement refers to a formal relationship between elements whereby a form of one word requires a corresponding form of another.
Also known as ConcordAlethic Modality
Alethic modality is modality that connotes the speaker’s estimation of the logical necessity or possibility of the proposition expressed by his utterance .
Alienable Noun
An alienable noun is a noun that: refers to something viewed as not permanently or necessarily possessed, and is thus not obligatorily expressed as …
Allative Case
Allative case is a case that expresses motion to or toward the referent of the noun it marks.
Allegory
An allegory is an extended metaphor, especially a story in which fictional characters and actions are used to understand and express aspects of concepts …
Allomorph
An allomorph is one of two or more complementary morphs which manifest a morpheme in its different phonological or morphological environments.
Allophone
An allophone is a phonetic variant of a phoneme in a particular language.
Alternative Question
An alternative question is a question that presents two or more possible answers and presupposes that only one is true.
Alternative Relation
An alternative relation is an interpropositional relation in which at least one of the connected propositions is held to be true, but not necessarily, or …
Ambiguous Consonant Sequence
An ambiguous consonant sequence is a phonetic string (segment or sequence) that may be interpreted as: a single consonant, or two successive consonants.
Ambiguous Phonetic Transition
An ambiguous phonetic transition is a phonetic segment, found between two distinct segments, that may serve only a connective function phonetically and …
Ambiguous Segment
An ambiguous segment is a phone that may or may not function as the nucleus of a syllable.
Ambiguous Sequence
An ambiguous sequence is a phonetic string, a segment or sequence, that may function as: two phonological units, or a single unit.
Ambiguous Vowel Sequence
An ambiguous vowel sequence is a phonetic string (segment or sequence) that may be interpreted as a: diphthong two separate vowels, or a vowel and a …
Americanist System
The Americanist system is a phonetic alphabet designed by Kenneth L. Pike and Eunice Pike after the model of Edward Sapir and Morris Swadesh.
Also known as SIL phonetic alphabet, Pike systemAmplification Relation
An amplification relation is an elaboration relation in which a proposition substantially repeats the content of an earlier one and adds further …
Analytic Definition
An analytic definition is a description of the range of reference of a lexical unit. This description is made up of a: generic term identifying the broad …
Anaphora
Anaphora is coreference of one expression with its antecedent. The antecedent provides the information necessary for the expression’s interpretation. This …
Anaphoric Clitic
An anaphoric clitic is a morphologically bound morpheme that: refers to a previously mentioned constituent, and fills the position of a noun phrase in a …
Anchored Entity
An anchored entity is a brand-new entity that is linked to another referent which is not brand new by means of the inclusion of a referring expression in …
Animate Class
An animate class is a category of nouns having human or animal referents.
Antanaclasis
An antanaclasis is a pun in which a word is repeated with a different meaning each time.
Antecedent
An antecedent is a word, phrase, or clause referred to endophorically by another expression which precedes or follows it.
Anthimeria
Anthimeria is the use of a member of one word class as if it were a member of another, thus altering its meaning.
Anthology
An anthology is a collection of of poems, stories, songs, articles, or other literary passages chosen by a compiler.
Anticipatory Illocution
An anticipatory illocution is an illocutionary act that has the direct illocutionary force of a question about the conditions necessary for the …
Antipassive Voice
Antipassive voice is a voice in an ergative-absolutive language in which: a noun phrase that normally has ergative case instead has absolutive case a noun …
Antithesis Relation
An antithesis relation is a contrast relation in which: the contrasted propositions express events or states that are incompatible with each other, and the …
Antonomasia
Antonomasia is: the use of a proper name to stand for something else having an attribute associated with that name, or the use of a general term to stand …
Apostrophe
An apostrophe is an address to: an absent person, or a personified abstraction or thing.
Apposition
An apposition is a construction consisting of two or more adjacent units that have identical referents.
Article
An article is a member of a small class of determiners that identify a noun's definite or indefinite reference, and new or given status.
Articulation Process
The articulation process is the modification of sound waves produced by the airstream, phonation, and oral-nasal processes.
Ascertainment Relation
An ascertainment relation is an internal alternative relation in which a following proposition presents an alternative circumstance where a preparatory …
Aspect
Aspect is a grammatical category associated with verbs that expresses a temporal view of the event or state expressed by the verb.
Assertive Illocutionary Point
An assertive illocutionary point is an illocutionary point in which the speaker purposes to present that the state of affairs described by the …
Assumptive Mood
Assumptive mood is an epistemic mode that signals the speaker's belief that his statement is based on facts about what is usually the case in such …
Attraction Schema
An attraction schema is a force schema in which an object exerts a force on another object, either physically or metaphorically, to pull it toward itself.
Attributable Silence
Attributable silence is conversational silence between turns that is assignable to a particular participant due to his having been selected by the previous …
Attribution Relation
An attribution relation is an elaboration relation in which a proposition describes an attribute of a referent of another proposition.
Audience
An audience is one or more persons who are part of the conversational group but who are not presently being addressed.
Auditory Evidential
An auditory evidential is a nonvisual evidential that signals that the speaker's evidence for the truth of his statement is based on what he has heard.
Authorized Recipient
An authorized recipient is an addressee, having a unique status or belonging to a socially defined group, with whom one or more distinctive linguistic …
Authorized Speaker
An authorized speaker is a speaker that belongs to a socially defined group for whom the use of a distinctive class of linguistic forms is reserved.
Autosegmental Phonology
Autosegmental phonology is a non-linear approach to phonology that allows phonological processes, such as tone and vowel harmony, to be independent of and …
Auxesis
Auxesis is an exaggeration of the importance of a referent by the use of a referring expression that is disproportionate to it.
Auxiliary Verb
An auxiliary verb is a verb which: accompanies the lexical verb of a verb phrase, and expresses grammatical distinctions not carried by the lexical verb, …
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