Questions tagged [terminology]
Words, phrases, and acronyms specific to the study of linguistics.
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Is there a name for a diminutive whose meaning has decoupled from the original word?
In languages where the diminutive is productive (such as Slavic languages), many words derived as a diminutive have a meaning completely decoupled from their origin, and do not anymore "convey ...
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38 views
Could someone give an easily understandable explanation of “derivation rules”?
From Wikipedia, A BNF specification is a set of derivation rules.
The post Term for a non-word consistent with derivation rules on this site also uses this term.
Google returns a lot of results, here ...
1
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1answer
84 views
Term for when speakers of L1, over time, pronounce words in their language like phonetically similar words found in the more dominant L2?
I am looking for the name of the following phenomenon:
Speakers of Language 1 transplant a given word to a new environment in which Language 2 is the dominant language spoken in the area.
Language 2 ...
5
votes
2answers
363 views
Name of assertions in sentences where negation of the whole sentence doesn't negate the assertion
A few years back I watched a talk by a German linguistics professor where he (IIRC) mentioned a rhetorical technique where the writer of a speech moves certain facts into a secondary position in a ...
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0answers
40 views
What's it called? Indicating no exceptions to the rule
In my study of an ancient language, I’m seeing certain phrasing that, in a prescription of proper behavior, means emphatically: “without exception!” My question is: Do linguists have a label for this ...
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0answers
72 views
Is there a word for “mouth transitions” which describes the movement of a mouth which is saying one word, but preparing for the next?
I think I can produce every individual phoneme in standard-ish spoken Mandarin.
However, if I want to speak fluently I have to watch videos of people speaking and closely watch their mouths, because ...
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0answers
44 views
What is the linguistic term for nouns which are used as verb infinitive?
What is the term to for the nouns which are formed from verbs or stems, whether as expressing action (revolution; commendation), or a state (contrition; starvation), or associated meanings (relation; ...
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1answer
41 views
Floating quantifiers in X-bar theory: “the men all have gone”
In chapter 9 of Syntax: A generative Introduction (2nd ed), Carnie shows that we can solve some problems by generating subjects in Spec of VP and letting them move to Spec of TP. In the first ...
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0answers
91 views
Is “them” in “I care for them” an indirect object, a direct object, or neither sort? What exactly is the term “object” describing?
I’m trying to sort out verb complements (broadly defined here
as any phrase that determines, completes, or refines the meaning
of a verb) and the relations they form with verbs: object
re...
2
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1answer
106 views
Some questions about the basic concepts in semantics
According to the Semantics (Kate Kreans, 2011), there are two kinds of denotation for predicates. For example, the word 'dog', has extension (the set of all dogs in the actual world), and intension (...
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57 views
Is there a generic English term for the relation actor:actress?
I am looking for a generic term describing the relation actor:actress or Paul:Paula, like actress is a ____ of actor. In German, there is the term Movierung for this, and it works in both directions (...
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76 views
Does the stem of a word carry the sense information of its inflections?
From what I understand the lexeme or lemma of a word carries the sense information of the word, and hence for an inflected form like tablets, it can have a different lemma, each one for each sense of ...
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25 views
What would be the collective noun for collection of words whose affixal markers indicate the same grammatical categories?
I am working on Sanskrit, a fusional language. I am confused about what should be the collective noun that I should be used to address the set {nominals, verb, adverb, indeclinable, participle}. Could ...
7
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1answer
327 views
What to call an adjective that is a participle of a verb that is no longer used?
While answering the question How often do native speakers use the word “to scathe”? Is it OK if I use it instead of “to injure”?, I described "scathing" and "unscathed" as "...
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55 views
What's the name of the effect where linguistic diversity is far more pronounced in a language's homeland?
I've always just used the term "homeland effect" for this, but websearches suggest that that is not actually its name and probably something I made up at some point.
What I'm talking about ...
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67 views
Linguistic umbrella term for things and relations between things
Is there an established term in linguistics which is a hypernym of both 'things' (e.g. entities; categories of entities; actions; ...), and the relationships between them?
Intuitively, I would assume ...
7
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1answer
827 views
What is the correct term for a “lazy L”?
This question is about a mild form of a specific speech pathology that seems to be gaining prevalence in Australia and if there is a term for it. It is not an "accent" issue, because it can ...
3
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1answer
83 views
Is there a term for a sequence of letters which can be divided into words in multiple ways?
I've been looking for a term that describes a phrase, unbroken into individual words, which could have multiple meanings depending on where it's divided. It's hard for me to even give good examples ...
2
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0answers
49 views
What do you call (the fact that languages are not always one-to-one in their labellings)?
Based on this question. There is no reason that there should be a ["Good" + "morning"] in Spanish any more than there is a ["Good" + "days"] in English. I ...
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4answers
3k views
Is there a term for translating a word to a language that has a different alphabet (such as Hindi to English)?
The specific example that I am thinking of is the word "दाल का सूप" in Hindi. It translates to "lentil soup", and is pronounced "dal", however there are multiple ways of ...
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21 views
Are there single-word and generally accepted terms for the referents of the arguments in comparative clauses?
AFAIK, in any statement comparing two entities, there are typically at least three terms:
NPa stands for the thing compared
VG stands for nature of comparison
NPb stands for the thing that the ...
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1answer
72 views
Is there a concept to describe “a way of saying something that is incorrect, but occurs frequently due to the speaker speaking a second language”?
In the past ten years I've started working with people who's native language is not English. I've noticed that these folks say thing to get a concept across, but it's not something you'd hear a native ...
3
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1answer
65 views
What's the name of the process in which a word acquires new meanings?
I am almost sure there is a proper name for that but I forgot. It would be the opposite of semantic bleaching...
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2answers
125 views
What is this phenomenon in dialog called?
I attempt here to be succinct and I hope that the question is clear. I am looking for the names of the phenomena (in conversational English) that I am attempting to describe.
Consider a dialog between ...
3
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0answers
60 views
Accurate English terminology for “complément du nom” and for “complément/complemento” as a general term
I am looking at this kind of French sentences:
Le directeur de la banque
Un directeur de banque
Le livre de l'élève
Le livre de français
Having done some research about English grammar terminology ...
5
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0answers
101 views
Term for non-homograph homophone synonyms?
In Japanese, 熱い and 暑い are both read atsui and both mean 'hot'. The former pertains to an object (e.g. hot coffee) and the latter to weather.
In French 'cuissot' and 'cuisseau' have the same ...
2
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0answers
59 views
What is shallow semantic processing?
What exactly is "shallow semantic processing", and how is it related to syntactic analysis?
Is it correct to say that syntactic processing of a text is the preliminary step for shallow semantic ...
4
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1answer
356 views
Are individual words really constituents?
The constituent unit is defined in Wikipedia as a word or a group of words that functions as a single unit within a hierarchical structure. When phrase structure trees are produced, each node in the ...
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0answers
31 views
Is “and you” an example of endophora
If I were to tell someone to "stand up" and then, after a beat, say "and you" to another person, is that "and you" endophoric? There's nothing in the first phrase being referred to, it's more the ...
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1answer
58 views
What is the general term for linguistic categories?
I have been trying to understand the division of "properties of items within a grammar or language" as wikipedia calls it into the following sets (among a few others):
Grammatical category
Lexical ...
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2answers
41 views
Terminology for this kind of affixes
I was solving an IOL sample exercise (which can be found here) about the Aymara language. I did it, it was kinda hard but I did it. One of the words in it was challwampiwa.
The first part (challwa) ...
3
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2answers
89 views
Are two words cognate if they ultimately come from the same root but have different roots in more recent languages?
For example, Spanish corteza and French écorce (bark) both ultimately come from PIE *(s)ker- but they have different Latin roots (cortex and scortea). Does that stop them from being cognate?
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1answer
54 views
Difference between intonation and tonality?
I have used them interchangeably, but I think that might be wrong. So, is this understanding of the distinction correct? Tonality is pitch affecting semantics (like the Chinese langauge), and ...
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1answer
72 views
Are these English judges using 'linguistics' correctly? [closed]
I don't feel these English judges are using "linguistics" correctly, because they're just working with the English language, not doing linguistics! Some of them have a degree in classics, but I don't ...
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3answers
2k views
Is there a name for when a 'c' becomes an [s] sound in words like rusticity, when originally it was a 'c' in rustiC?
I know it's a sound change, but is there a specific name for it? It's for an assignment I'm writing on the phonological transparency of the suffix -ity.
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2answers
163 views
Names of the letters in the Latin script
I have noticed that the Spanish alphabet has the 26 letters + the consonant ñ, which is pronounced like the "ny" in "canyón". But out of the remaining 26 letters, I have noticed ...
3
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2answers
295 views
What is the term for referring to a brand in place of the product
Is there a name or term used to describe the phenomenon when a brand name becomes so ubiquitous that it is used in place of the product or related verbs?
Some common examples include:
Google instead ...
3
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1answer
130 views
What is the exact term for the way Tarzan speak in such sentences as “Me Tarzan, you Jane”?
In countries where English is not a native language, you hear people speak with no conjunctions, no verb conjugations, no adjectives nor adverbs. Examples: You come my house. I cook chicken. We eat ...
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1answer
43 views
What is the technical term for the copyist error of replacing a letter with another, similar-looking letter?
One form of textual criticism (which is under the branch of corpus linguistics) is arguing that a text was mistakenly copied by a copyist to reflect an erroneous reading. An example of this is that ...
2
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1answer
48 views
What is aesthetic equivalence in translation?
I found this phrase in a theory about directional equivalence and I'm not sure what it means and if it is part of linguistic aspect of translation.
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3answers
163 views
As a relatively proficient heritage speaker, should I consider myself a “native” speaker, or something else?
Should heritage speakers with a decent level of proficiency (say a middle school level of reading/writing ability) consider themselves "native", or something else?
"Native" would be appropriate in ...
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25 views
Is there a formal term for “long/formal” queries?
So I had a question regarding the types of queries. For example, when we ask a question or do a Google search we could do it in two ways:
"house prices in Boston"
"What are the house prices in Boston?...
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29 views
Semantically passive verbs
Certain (syntactico-morphologically) active verbs signify a passion rather than an action. For example, to fall, signifies something that can hardly be called an action. It belongs to its concept ...
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2answers
84 views
Similar term as phonetics, but for written text
I try to find any term that can specify a descriptive field of study that is interested in language notation. It should contain parts of written text (general text form - not only handwritten): ...
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38 views
Is there a term that describes a sentence from which you can infer the meaning of a word?
When learning new Chinese words, I write down an example sentence from which I can infer its meaning. This way, when I've forgotten the word, I can simply read the sentence and deduce (or remember) ...
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0answers
34 views
vocabulary and notation for syntactic changes
As a layman I have picked up the terminology and notation for changes in phonology. But I know very little about diachronic changes in syntax other than that they happen: things like shift from SOV ...
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2answers
223 views
What is the relation between a specifier and a determiner?
Does specifier mean "the" and "possesser" and determiner mean "the" and "possessive 's"?
3
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1answer
798 views
What are the subjective and objective genitives?
I have recently come across the terms subjective genitive and objective genitive, but I don't fully understand them.
From what I have read, an example might be 'the love of God', as in 'the love of ...
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40 views
What's the term for backshifting when it's not part of reported speech?
In reported speech, backshifting changes "He said, 'Your car is red.'" to "He said your car was red".
What's that called when it's not part of reported speech? E.g. "I thought your car was red" ...
0
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1answer
48 views
What is phonological mechanism?
Does it mean phonological rule? Or can we say phonological mechanism refers to the phonological rules in our mind?
