The concepts behind the conversation
Terms: N
Explore 933 linguistic terms, with definitions, examples, and connections to the bigger picture.
Narrative Discourse
A narrative discourse is a discourse that is an account of events, usually in the past, that employs verbs of speech, motion, and action to describe a …
Narrative Text
A narrative text is an account of events.
Nasalization
Nasalization is a way of pronouncing sounds characterized by resonance produced through the nose.
Nasalized Vowel
A nasalized vowel is a vowel that is nasalized by a process in which the soft palate is lowered, opening the velum, which allows air to go through both the …
Natural Class
A natural class is a set of sounds that have certain phonetic features in common. All the members of a natural class are affected in the same way in the …
Necessity
Necessity is a degree of contingency in modality that in alethic modality connotes logical requirement deontic modality connotes obligation, and epistemic …
Negation
Negation is a morphosyntactic operation in which a lexical item denies or inverts the meaning of another lexical item or construction. A negator is a …
Negative Conditional Relation
A negative conditional relation is a conditional relation in which the consequent is related to the opposite meaning of the antecedent, and that is marked …
Negative Purpose Relation
A negative purpose relation is a means-purpose relation in which the expressed intent is avoidance of a state or event. The state or event to be avoided is …
Neuter Gender
Neuter gender is a grammatical gender that includes those nouns having referents which do not have distinctions of sex, and often includes some which do …
New Information
New information is information that is assumed by the speaker not to be known to or assumed by the addressee, or previously established in the discourse.
New Metaphor
A new metaphor is a metaphor that is not already part of the conceptual system of a culture as reflected in its language.
Newsmark
A newsmark is a move that treats a previous utterance as news and encourages further talk about it.
Next Turn Repair Initiator
A next turn repair initiator is an utterance, used in the turn after a repairable item, that prompts for a third turn repair in the next turn.
Nominal
A nominal is a word which differs grammatically from a noun but functions as one.
Nominal Clause
A nominal clause is a subordinate clause that functions as a noun phrase.
Nominalization
A nominalization is a noun phrase that has a systematic correspondence with a clausal predication which includes a head noun morphologically related to a …
Nominative Case
Nominative case is the case that identifies clause subjects in nominative-accusative languages. Nouns used in isolation have this case.
Nonconventional Implicature
An nonconventional implicature is a implicature that is drawn in accordance with pragmatic principles, such as the cooperative principle or the …
Nonconversational Implicature
A nonconversational implicature is a nonconventional implicature that arises from the operation of a principle or maxim of language usage other than the …
Nondefective Illocutionary Act
A nondefective illocutionary act is an illocutionary act for which all the presuppositions of the propositional content conditions, preparatory conditions, …
Nonextendedness
Nonextendedness is place deixis that has a component of meaning indicating that the location does not have length or area.
Nonfinite Clause
A nonfinite clause is a clause with a nonfinite verb.
Nonfinite Verb
A nonfinite verb is a verb that is not fully inflected for categories that are marked inflectionally in a language, such as the following: Tense Aspect …
Nonfuture Tense
Nonfuture tense is an absolute tense that refers to a time at or before the moment of utterance, and contrasts with a future tense.
Nonpast Tense
Nonpast tense is an absolute tense that refers to a time at or after the moment of utterance, and contrasts with a past tense.
Nonrecent Past Tense
Nonrecent past tense is a past tense that refers to a time before the range of a contrasting recent past tense.
Nonremote Past Tense
Nonremote past tense is a past tense that refers to a time considered not more than a few days ago, in contrast to a remote past tense.
Nonrestrictive Relative Clause
A nonrestrictive relative clause is a relative clause that does not aid in the identification of the referent of its head noun, but only provides …
Nonspecificity
Nonspecificity is a kind of definiteness, expressed by an interpretation of or grammatical marking on a noun or noun phrase, indicating that the speaker …
Nonvisual Evidential
A nonvisual evidential is a sensory evidential that signals that the speaker's evidence for the truth of his or her statement is derived from a sense other …
Not-Yet Tense
Not-yet tense is an absolute tense that refers to times at and before the moment of utterance in asserting the present and past nonoccurrence of an event …
Notional
A notional X is an X that is thought of informally or in extralinguistic terms.
Noun
A noun is a member of a syntactic class that includes words which refer to people, places, things, ideas, or concepts whose members may act as any of the …
Noun Adjunct
A noun adjunct is a noun that functions as a modifier of a noun.
Noun Class
A noun class system is a grammatical system that some languages use to overtly categorize nouns. Noun classes are often based, at least in part, on …
Noun Phrase
A noun phrase is a phrase that has a noun as its head.
Nuclear Syllable
A nuclear syllable is a syllable that carries maximum prominence, usually due to being stressed.
Number
Number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions (such as "one" or "more than one"). The count …
Numeral
A numeral is a word, functioning most typically as an adjective or pronoun, that expresses a number, and relation to the number, such as one of the …
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