Questions tagged [terminology]
Words, phrases, and acronyms specific to the study of linguistics.
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questions
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Human language's key properties [closed]
I was wondering what is the difference between the three human language unique characteristics that differentiate human from other animals called:
a. displacement
b. discreetness
c. arbitrariness
2
votes
2answers
92 views
What's the name of the principle that derives the sound of a symbol from the name of the thing that that the symbol depicts?
What do we call it when the Initial sound of a word, eg. beth vel sim. "house", is assigned to a symbol of that word, eg. the floorplan of a house(?), to use the sign as the unique ...
5
votes
2answers
96 views
Are there terms for homophones that vary by syllabic emphasis?
Is there a technical term for words that have the same phonemes but are distinguished by syllabic emphasis?
E.g., abstract is æb-strækt, but emphasis on the first syllable is a different word from ...
0
votes
1answer
103 views
Does Morpho-syntax = Grammar?
According to Fukuyama University Asst. Prof. Warren M Tang1 What is morphosyntax? – in other words
Morphosyntax is another word for grammar.
Grammar can be divided into morphology and syntax. ...
2
votes
1answer
61 views
What is it called when a verb takes its "logical" or "usual" object as its grammatical subject?
This usually occurs for objects that are used by a person, and in English often feels to me like an Americanism. Examples:
The sofa sits five.
The wine drinks very smoothly.
The car drives very ...
0
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1answer
89 views
What to call a verb phrase with no subject?
What do you call a verb phrase with no subject, like a description of purpose: "to exact revenge" or ability: "juggle cats while tap dancing"?
6
votes
4answers
799 views
Is there a collective term for the Latin, Cyrillic, and Greek alphabets?
I was just wondering if such a term exists, since they are very similar to each other, and all of them derive from the Greek alphabet, so I thought perhaps there might be a collective term for the ...
0
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0answers
65 views
What does Axel Schuessler mean by "area word"?
My son's studying Chinese. His teacher asked how 念 semantically appertains to its components 今心. I don't speak Chinese, and he had no idea. Then we resorted to Wiktionary that refers to Axel ...
2
votes
1answer
81 views
What is the linguistic term for sounds such as 'um', 'uh', 'like', etc. when used to control the rhythm of speech?
Sounds such as 'um' and 'uh' are common in speech when the speaker needs to prolong a sentence or otherwise control the rhythm of the sentence. I also hear these sounds used to convey indifference or ...
2
votes
1answer
131 views
If mora are potentially sufficient to describe language, then what do syllables add, in theory?
Following the answer to the recent Question, Why is/was Gokana claimed to lack syllables?, I don't really understand the difference.
I have heard of moras in the context of poetry before and didn't ...
0
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1answer
149 views
Why is took not a word? [closed]
Why is took not a word?
The dictionary takes you to take, and it say's "past tense: took"
But it doesn't take you to the word, took.
So
Why is took not a word?
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0answers
31 views
Does it have a name when you know certain vocabulary in another language but not in your own?
For example if you draw a venn diagram for all the vocabulary that you know in the languages that you consider yourself to be fluent in, you'll have some gaps in the "foreign" languages, but ...
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votes
1answer
212 views
What are the differences between lexis, lexicon, vocabulary?
My daughter's school doesn't offer linguistics, and none of her teachers studied it. Can you please answer at her 16 y.o. level? Thanks. Google yielded two answers. Logan R. Kearsley, MA in ...
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votes
1answer
88 views
language varieties that are languages
Language varieties
Any set of linguistic forms which patterns according to social factors: i.e. used under
specific social circumstances. The term includes different accents, different linguistic
...
1
vote
1answer
53 views
Name for a deliberate change of a meaning? [closed]
Is there a specific name, a figure of speech, for a "deliberate, even subtle change of the meaning of a word"? Example: "- You're doing politics at school as a teacher! - Everything can ...
0
votes
2answers
70 views
What is the name of the phenomenon of the subsequent semantic convergence of a borrowed cognate? [closed]
What is the name of the phenomenon of the subsequent semantic convergence of a borrowed cognate?
For example, similar occurs in for the borrowed Latin 'video', which, however, of course, is original p....
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votes
2answers
63 views
Term for a name of a group that contains an example of the group
In this answer, the term "cutthroat compound" was mentioned as a name for the group of words like "scarecrow", which is neither part describes a specific kind of the other part. (A ...
0
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0answers
42 views
'entextualization' v. reading (comprehension) v. interpretation
How does entextualization differ from reading (comprehension) or interpretation? This definition below doesn't distinguish entextualization. All boldenings are mine.
Entextualization, or the ...
3
votes
1answer
72 views
Is there a name for an instance when someone misleads themself on the meaning of a word?
Suppose someone has encountered the word "transfixed" on several occasions, never looked up the word in a dictionary, and concluded from the encounters that the word means "engrossed&...
2
votes
1answer
39 views
What's the name for a word/meaning pair of a polysemous word?
Is there a name use to describe tuples of the form (word, meaning)? Example:
("wood", the material made from trees)
("wood", a geographical area with many trees)
In this case we ...
3
votes
1answer
207 views
How did multiple European languages start using future tense to refer to the present?
I recently noticed that German, English and Spanish seem to have a parallel colloquial use of their future tense, in which it's used to express a hypothesis about the present:
Literal meaning: I think ...
1
vote
2answers
96 views
Linguistic term for using masculine adjectives in front of feminine/plural nouns for emphasis in a language that has grammatical gender
Adjectives in languages that have grammatical gender have to be in agreement with the nouns they modify. In Classical Arabic, however, some adjectives were commonly used in their base form (masculine ...
3
votes
2answers
106 views
Are different inflectional forms of a word different words or the same word?
At some point, I gained the notion that inflections of a word didn't constitute different words, but rather different forms of the same word. This Wikipedia article however, says the process of ...
4
votes
1answer
129 views
What's a grammatical feature?
This is not a naif question asked by a layman just out of curiosity. I am presently editing a book by a colleague which is devoted to the notion of grammatical feature (with a special focus on ...
3
votes
1answer
966 views
What is the linguistic term for referring to a big group by the name of just one of its contents?
I am trying to think up a word that I recall existing for a linguistic idea that I just cannot recall the name of.
It is the idea of when you take a big group and refer to the entire group by the name ...
1
vote
1answer
62 views
Terms for abbreviations
Is there a specific distinguishing word for abbreviations that have evolved to be spoken words in their own right, like potus or Nato, sometimes even an "abbreviation word" with a clear ...
4
votes
2answers
116 views
Is there a universal (general) definition of gerund, infinitive and participle?
Is there a universal (general) definition of gerund, infinitive and participle applicable to all languages despite the differences between them?
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votes
1answer
44 views
If a transcription is shallower if closer to the phonetic end, then why are representations morphophoneMic, not morphophoneTIc?
I read Differences between phonemic and phonetic transcriptions, but no avail. Please see the terms that I colored in gray below. The book merely put them in bold, not gray. Don't the two sentences, ...
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votes
1answer
49 views
Why should Ideograph/Ideogram be shunned, because it can refer to morphograms and "semantic units"?
The book quoted below uses, but doesn't define, "semantic unit". Googling yielded SemanticUnit (GOLD-2010)
A SemanticUnit [sc] is the class of semantics elements, or units of semantic ...
5
votes
2answers
131 views
Please explain -emic vs. -etic to a 15 year old?
Please explain the differences to my 15 year old who's reading this book for fun. But these terms are too complicated for her!
The adjective "abstract" is feeling abstract to us! What does ...
0
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1answer
42 views
What is meant by wordform?
Wordforms are the inflicted forms of lemmas, which are of infinitive in nature.
Is the above definition true?
2
votes
2answers
73 views
What is terminology for the difference between, for instance, "see" and "sees"?
To clarify, I'm referring to the terminology for the difference between just a the word "see" as a verb, and the word in a statement like "Alice sees Bob". What is the correct ...
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votes
1answer
51 views
Question about linguistic terms, semantic roles
Is there not a term that refers universally to "the thing that verbs"?
The word isn't "subject" (in "It is eaten by me", the subject is a patient, I am the one "...
2
votes
1answer
204 views
What do "finite" and "non-finite" mean in linguistics?
What do "finite" and "non-finite" mean in linguistics? I know that they occur in other languages and in some cases not only in verbs.
2
votes
0answers
54 views
what is the difference between reference time and event time
what is the difference between reference time and event time , also i am native Arabic speaker , i tried to translate by google translate two examples the reference time before and after event time ...
3
votes
1answer
402 views
The classification of morphemes
I have seen conflicting charts and models of morphemes. Here's how I understand it.
Free morphemes do not require other morphemes to make sense. That means that all free morphemes are words. Content ...
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vote
3answers
103 views
What is a verb constellation?
I am reading a paper "Aspectual Categories in Navajo" and the author refers to something called a "verb constellation:"
Verb constellations are associated with the situation types ...
0
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1answer
117 views
What do you call a question to convey curiosity, without expecting a direct answer
I was wondering if there is a name for a question that you say out loud to convey curiosity about a topic, without necessarily expecting a direct answer from those around you. This may be used to ...
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votes
1answer
37 views
Figure of speech name [closed]
Is there a name for a situation where a word is not needed because a the previous word doesn’t require it?
Example: heart attacks are harmful for your health. “harmful” makes no sense there because ...
0
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0answers
83 views
English words that can be only used as nouns
Is there a term for words that can be only used as nouns?
For example, I think "history" and "sofa" are such words, but "book" and "dog" are not.
I'm looking ...
1
vote
3answers
164 views
Is there a word for the opposite of jargon? [closed]
I've noticed this phenomenon in language which I've come to think of as "the opposite of jargon", but which I'm hoping there's a better name for. I don't know anything about linguistics, ...
2
votes
1answer
69 views
Is there a linguistic term for apologetic prefacing?
I was editing a question on Stack Overflow. Like so many questions it started with an apologetic or diminishing preface:
I am genuinely sorry if this is seen as simple but I am new to coding in ...
5
votes
1answer
492 views
Name for seemingly incomplete sentences
I remember reading about sentences that naturally seem incomplete (ending in the middle as if the second half were missing), but are actually grammatically correct. The listener/reader just wrongly ...
0
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0answers
96 views
Did any linguists try to popularize "casus causativus", to rectify the mistranslated "accusative"?
"accusative" hails from accusare, which the Romans chose
somewhat inaccurately to translate Greek (ptōsis) aitiatike "(case) of that which is caused" based on the similarity of ...
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0answers
27 views
Clarification of Isochrony Definition
When we speak of isochrony, do we refer to isochrony within a phrase or within a whole language? E.g. should Mandarin, as a syllable-timed language, have equal duration of syllables within one phrase,...
0
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1answer
23 views
The notion of categorization in phonetics
What is meant by "categorization" in phonetics? It's supposed to be related to transcription in the sense that transcription requires one to categorize speech in some two dimensions.
I only ...
2
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4answers
152 views
Linguistic term to describe the "hash" of a word
For example, in the Spanish sentence "Yo era chico y ella era vieja" [I was little and she was old], era appears twice, each time as the same part of speech (a verb) but with different ...
1
vote
1answer
88 views
What is the term for the role of "believe", "think", and "feel" in a sentence?
I remember vaguely that there is an encompassing terms for these words when used in a sentence. Something that represent it is not a normal factual claim, but something that is subjective to the ...
1
vote
1answer
70 views
Short words that change based on their proximity to other vowels
In English, "a" becomes "an" when it is followed by a word starting with a vowel sound. A similar thing occurs in Spanish with the word "y", which becomes "e" ...
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0answers
36 views
Formal terms for pronunciations of loanwords in source and recipient languages?
If they exist, what are formal terms meaning "pronunciation of a loanword in the donor language" and "pronunciation of a loanword in the recipient language"? In shorter terms, the ...
