Questions tagged [terminology]
Words, phrases, and acronyms specific to the study of linguistics.
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How would the Ancient Greek noun λόρδων decline, and is the LSJ's definition of it correct? [migrated]
I'm very familiar with Latin declensions, and have the resources necessary for that, but I have found nothing for Ancient Greek that I am able to make use of, especially considering my lack of ...
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Why misogynist is a monomorphemic word? [closed]
I think this word is consisted of more than one morpheme, do we only count free morphemes when we talk about monomorphemic words?
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Is there a word for a pair of verbs that mean the same thing but with subject and object swapped?
In logic, you can say:
(A and B) --> A / 'A and B' implies 'A' (as the 'B' is just discarded)
Computer programmers working from a specification to an implementation, sometimes talk about ...
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Is there a name for
Is there a name for a section of text which is delimited by final punctuation, regardless of whether it is a sentence, clause, phrase or single word? In other words, a term that generalizes all of ...
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Aren't all spoken languages tonal?
From my understanding, a tonal language is when a difference intonation of the word changes its meaning. Now: Italian for example (which I was told is not tonal) differentiates questions from ...
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what's this linguistic phenomenon?
I am currently working on coding and standardizing the language of my community.
There is something we do when we speak, that so far I haven't encountered in the other languages that I've delved into, ...
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Is there a term for a word taken from another language, but then completely changing the meaning (such as peperoni, latte, chai)
In Italian, il peperone is what the English would call bell pepper, but the English word peperoni has come to mean a type of sausage, in particular when on a pizza.
In Italian, latte is milk, but in ...
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Is there a word/concept for a word that denotes a place but is not a proper name?
Is there a word/concept for a word that denotes a place but is not a proper name? As far as I understand toponyms are always proper nouns, so words such as "area", "playground", &...
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What do you call the adjective phrase attached to some historical persons? E.g. Erik the Red
Many historical persons have full names but also a popular adjective phrase attached to them, such as Eric the Red (Erik den Røde in Danish), Gorm the Old (Gorm den Gamle in Danish), Alexander the ...
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Portuguese — Why use definite articles in front of possessive nouns? Why the extensive use of proposition contraction?
I can speak Spanish and French, and I am currently learning Portuguese. During my learning, I realized that there are some unique features in Portuguese — I don't speak Italian, so I don't know if ...
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What do "titles" and "Beijing" stand for?
I am looking at metonyms and I have two examples I am interested in, but I am not sure what they stand for.
The bookshop holds over 1 million titles.
Since Beijing, the Olympics have got even more ...
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What is the linguistical terminology for (and if) letters of a given alphabet have(ing) their inherent meaning?
Letters or phonemes.
Letters, like runes according to this article:
https://sonsofvikings.com/apps/fireamp/blogs/history/viking-runes-guide-runic-alphabet-meanings-nordic-celtic-letters
At least that'...
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What's a cogniteme?
Today, I encountered for the first time the term cogniteme. What is it meaning and history?
A quick search shows that the term is used by Kyrgyz, Ukrainian, and Russian authors and it may be an ad hoc ...
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Phase and aspect
Question
How to distinguish between phase and aspect?
From one-language point of view
To take an example from Mandarin Chinese, I don't see a difference between a phrase with (cf. the quote from (...
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Object of certain constructions
I am sure you have all come across constructions such as these:
She slept a long sleep
He lived a productive life.
These verbs are traditionally intransitive verbs, and yet here are transitive. ...
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We typically say rates are 'hiked' and cuts are 'swingeing' - is there a term to describe this?
You never really hear of interest rates 'going up', they're always 'hiked'.. and government cuts are rarely 'deep' or 'severe',. they're 'swingeing'. Is there a word/term for either this use of ...
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What are lexeme, word and phrase in HPSG?
In “Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar: The handbook” by Abeillé and Borsley, it says:
lexeme, word, and phrase have a complex system of subtypes. The type lexical-sign, its subtypes, and the ...
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Is there a term for
I understand what phrase, clause and sentence mean. But is there a term for a group of words with a clear beginning and end, regardless of whether it's a phrase, clause or sentence?
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What is (or was) the exative case?
Inspired by this finding I'd like to know what the exative case described by Taplin for south-australian languages is or was. It does not seem to be modern terminology any longer, and lists of ...
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How would you classify a verb that denotes a close temporal relation to another verb?
I am looking at a Papuan language that uses a serialized verb to denote temporal proximity to the main verb's occurrence. I am translating it as "just" in English, as in "he just left&...
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What is the proper definition of a verb?
I do apologise if the question is wordy, but I feel some context is required for me to stand any chance of finding a satifactory answer.
I have been struggling to understand why the word "is"...
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What is meaning of morphs' realizing lexemes?
Hollo, I think realizing in linguistics generally means that some units abstractly defined get instantiated by more concrete forms. But I encounters a usage of "realise" in a linguistic book,...
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Name of cognitive bias/effect causing you not to see your own spelling mistakes (because you know what you wrote)
I’m sure there’s a name for this thing where I can’t see my own spelling mistakes because when I’m reading what I’ve written, I know what it’s supposed to say. So, I’m blind to having typed “exmaple” ...
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Is there a word for a question which is meant to sow doubt?
A rhetorical question is meant to make a statement or point, in the form of a question. But that is different from a question that is asked with the intent to cause doubt. For instance, a lot of ...
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Are implications said to be "accommodated" by listeners?
Do leading questions cause the listener to accommodate the implication, or only the objective presuppositions?
Isn't Henry staying at his girlfriend's?
"Henry has a girlfriend" is a ...
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Why words in many romance languages don't have more than one part of speech, unlike words in English
I have recently just realized that in English, sometimes the same word will have different part of speech depends on the way you pronounce it.
For example, record can be a noun or a verb depends on ...
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Is there a general list of words that second language speakers find 'sticky' and forget to translate?
This question is motivated by some creative writing and world building I'm doing, but it has another real-world inspiration that I would like a real-world linguistics answer to.
My in-laws (and my ...
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a term for the type of ambi-transitive verb that can do away with an object
I found some terms like (non)ergative, inchoative, but neither quite fits the type of transitive verb that can do without an object, for example, "eat"
I ate.
Have you eaten?
I ate an apple.
...
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Why did linguisticians choose 'Patient' (noun) to denote this Thematic Role? Why not Undergoer? [closed]
THEMES and PATIENTS are rather similar, and not all linguists distinguish between
these roles. A THEME typically moves from one location or one person to another,
like the letter in (31). A PATIENT (...
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What is a word?
The way I see it, a word could be conceptualized as different sets. I'll list them below.
Word as a singleton set: { to jump }
Word as a set of all its inflections: { to jump, jumps, jumped, jumping, ...
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What is “sense”? [closed]
Why is that morning star and evening star have different senses? What is the sense of morning star and what is the sense of evening star? I understand they refer to the same object, so they have the ...
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What is the technical term for glosses on a text that disagree with the text?
What is the technical term for glosses on a text that disagree with the text?
For example, in Hebrew we tend to use the term השגות to describe Raabad's "objections" to Alfasi's and ...
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Word for the type of corpus that direct messaging is?
What's a word that can be appropriately used to describe the data you would collect from direct messaging conversations in apps like Messenger, Instagram, WhatsApp?
The software is for _____ intent ...
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What does 'anterodorsal' mean?
In the context of places of articulation of consonants, what does "anterodorsal" mean?
I came across it in the 2008 paper by Wai-Sum Lee: The Articulation of the Coronal Sounds in the Peking ...
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What is the name of the property of what part of the tongue produces the sound?
For consonants, IPA describes 'place of articulation': the part of the mouth the tongue makes contact with, and 'manner of articulation': how the sound is produced there.
Speakers may use the blades ...
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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 ...
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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 ...
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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. ...
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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 ...
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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"?
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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 ...
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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 ...
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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 ...
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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 ...
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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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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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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
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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 ...
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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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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 ...
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