GLOSSARY

ENCARNACIÓN HIDALGO TENORIO

Acronym. An abbreviation formed from the first components in a word or a phrase; usually,

these are individual letters, or parts of words, which are read as if they were an ordinary word, as in NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization, /ˈneɪtəʊ/). Contrast with initialism.

Additive morph. Any suffix attached to a base or stem to produce a new word (e.g. plentyN > plenty·ful

Adj) or a new word form (e.g. walkInf > walk·ingPr.Part).

Adjective. An open word-class which, formally, very often shows three forms which are associated with the notion of grade: the absolute, the comparative and the superlative forms (big / bigger / biggest). The main syntactic role of an adjective as Head of an

adjective phrase is to qualify a noun either in a noun phrase (i.e. attributive position, e.g. a big house) or through the function Subject Complement in the Predicate (i.e. predicative position, e.g. The house is big).

Adjunct. A type of Adverbial typically realised by adverb phrases (e.g. She left yesterday), prepositional phrases (e.g. She left in the morning), noun phrases (e.g. She left last year), or clauses (e.g. She left when it stopped raining), and whose meaning is often connected with place, time, manner and other circumstantial relations.

Adverb. A word that modifies verbs, adjectives, other adverbs, determinatives, noun phrases, clauses or sentences. Its most typical syntactic function is Head of the adverb phrase.

Traditionally, adverbs are regarded as one of the parts of speech, or word-classes. They usually express manner, place, time, frequency, degree, level of certainty, etc., answering questions such as ‘how?’, ‘when?’, ‘where?’ or ‘to what extent?’. Formally, they are very often invariable, although some can show three forms which are associated with the notion of grade: the absolute, or positive, the comparative and the superlative forms (soon / sooner / soonest); adjective-derived adverbs tend to end in -ly (e.g. recently).

Adverbial. A typically optional clause constituent which modifies either the Predicator or the clause as a whole, whose meaning mainly refers to manner (e.g. happily), place (e.g.

there) and time (e.g. now), as well as attitude (e.g. personally), addition (e.g. in addition), enumeration (e.g. firstly), inference (e.g. therefore) or concession (e.g. nevertheless). They can be realised by adverb phrases, noun phrases, prepositional phrases or clauses. See also adjunct, disjunct and conjunct.

Affix. A morpheme that is attached to a word base or stem to form a new lexeme or word-form, respectively. Affixes may be derivational, like -dis and un-, or inflectional, like -s for the plural and -ed for the past participle. They are bound morphemes by definition;

188 GLOSSARY

depending on whether they are added at the beginning, the middle or at the end of the base unit, they are called prefixes, infixes or suffixes.

Affixation. The process of adding an affix to a word at the beginning (i.e. prefixation), the middle (i.e. infixation) or the end (i.e. suffixation) of the base unit in order to create either (a) a different form of that word (read > reads), or (b) a new word with a different lexical meaning (read > reader).

Affixoid. Also known as semi-affix, it is sometimes described as an element that may diachronically be in the process of becoming an affix (e.g. top- meaning ‘of high quality’).

Agreement. A formal relationship between two grammatical elements whereby a form of one of the elements requires a corresponding form of the other; for instance, the Subject and the Predicator must agree in number (The boy sings vs. The boys sing), certain Determiners must agree with their Head (this boy vs. these boys), and pronouns show number and gender agreement with their antecedents (the girl > she; the boys > they).

Allophone. In linguistics, an audibly distinct variant of a phoneme, such as the different

pronunciations of the t in tone [tʰəʊn] and stone [stəʊn]. Given that the substitution of one allophone for another allophone of the same phoneme does not lead to a different word, just a different pronunciation of the same word, they are said to be non-contrastive.

Allomorph. Each variant formal realisation of a morpheme. For instance, the plural morpheme in English has several allomorphs: /s/, as in cats; /z/, as in dogs; /ɪz/, as in foxes; /ən/, as in children; or zero, as in sheep.

Alternation. A variation in the form of a word or other linguistic feature. In morphology, alternation is equivalent to allomorphy. The form involved in an alternation is known as

alternant. Arbitrariness. The absence of any natural, or necessary, connection between the meaning of

a word and its sound or form. Although there are some words that exhibit an apparent connection between sound and sense, this happens very rarely, for instance, in onomatopoeia.

Article. A type of closed word-class that typically precedes the Head of a noun phrase and functions as Determiner. In English, there are two articles, the definite article the and the indefinite a(n). The definite article specifies a particular individual known to both speaker and hearer; the indefinite article can indicate that the noun it precedes is a member of a

class and that its referent is unknown to the interlocutors. Assertiveness. Assertive words such as some, already, something, sometimes, somewhere or

someone are generally used in positive, declarative sentences. In contrast, non-assertive words are normally found either in interrogative or negative sentences, as well as in conditional clauses, and with adverbs, adjectives, verbs, pronouns, determinatives and prepositions that have a negative meaning (e.g. any, anything, anybody, ever or yet).

Aspect. A grammatical category of the verb phrase connected with the notions of completion, duration or repetition. In English we find the perfect (or perfective) aspect,

realised by combining the auxiliary verb have with the past participle, and the progressive (or continuous) aspect, realised by combining the auxiliary verbs be or keep and the present participle. Aspectual meaning can also be expressed lexically by means of prepositional phrases, adverb phrases or lexical verbs.

Assimilation. A process by which one sound becomes more like a nearby sound; this can occur either within a word or between words. Sound segments typically assimilate to a following sound; this is called anticipatory assimilation (e.g. /n/ in bank becomes [ŋ] because of the influence of /k/); they may also assimilate to a preceding one; this is known

as progressive assimilation (e.g. in it’s the verb is devoiced because of the influence of /t/). Contrast with dissimilation.

Attachment. The general pattern of morphological attachment is simple affixation, or concatenation.

GLOSSARY 189

Attributive adjective phrase. An adjective phrase that usually comes before the Head noun it modifies without a copulative verb. Contrast with predicative adjective phrase.

Axis. The constituent of prepositional phrases or genitive phrases typically realised by a noun phrase and preceded by the Relator.

Auxiliary verb. A verb (such as do, can, have or be) that indicates the tense, mood, aspect or voice of the main verb within a verb phrase. Auxiliary verbs are also known as helping

verbs. Contrast with lexical verb.

Back-formation. The process of forming a new word by subtracting an ending which

apparently looks like an affix from another word; thus, by means of back-formation, we obtain shortened words from longer words (e.g. babysitter > babysit, editor > edit).

Base. The unit to which prefixes and suffixes are added to create new words. For example, polite is the base for forming impolite and politeness. Contrast with root and stem.

Base allomorphy. Also known as root allomorphy, it applies to bases or roots which have more than one form (e.g. destroy > destruction; wife > wives).

Blending. A word formed by merging the sounds and meanings of, generally, two words (e.g. breakfast + lunch > brunch). One typical type is exemplified by the combination of a full word with a word part as in motorcade (motor + cavalcade).

Bound morpheme. A morpheme that cannot stand alone as a word, such as derivational morphemes and inflectional morphemes. Contrast with free morpheme.

Bracketing. A technique used in grammar to mainly represent the internal constituency of

complex grammatical units by using pairs of brackets around constituents, as in [Greek philosophers] [could see] [the solution]. A constituent can be a morpheme, word, phrase or clause. See immediate constituent analysis and tree diagram.

Case. A grammatical category of nominal elements to express their syntactic relationship

with other clausal or phrasal constituents. From a traditional perspective, English nouns are claimed to have two case inflections: the common case (e.g. John) and the possessive, or genitive, case (e.g. John’s). Pronouns have three case distinctions: subjective or

nominative (e.g. I, who), objective or accusative (e.g. me, whom) and possessive or genitive (e.g. my/mine, whose).

Categorial meaning. It is one part of grammatical meaning, that is, that part of the meaning of lexemes which derives from their being members of one word-class rather than another (nouns rather than verbs, verbs rather than adjectives, etc.).

Clause. A grammatical unit whose structure typically consists of a Subject and a Predicate. Clauses may be independent, coordinate or subordinate. Contrast with sentence.

Clefting. A process whereby some element in a sentence is moved from its unmarked

position into a separate clause to give it greater emphasis. The two major types of cleft constructions in English are it-clefts (e.g. It was my sister who suggested this explanation) and wh-clefts (e.g. What she couldn’t understand was why it should be so hard to speak honestly to people).

Clipping. The process by means of which a word is formed after dropping part of a syllable, one syllable or more from a word or several words, such as prof from professor, chute from parachute, specs from spectacles or sitcom from situation comedy. A clipped form generally has the same denotative meaning as the word it comes from, but it is regarded as

more informal. Closed word-class. A type of word-class to which no new items can be added, such as

articles, prepositions, or coordinators and subordinators. Their members tend to be morphologically invariable and have grammatical meaning. Contrast with open word-class.

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Collective noun. A noun (such as team, government or family) that refers to a group of individuals. Collective nouns can have singular or plural agreement with the verb, and can be replaced by both singular and plural pronouns, depending on the speaker’s intended meaning.

Combining form. Bound bases of classical origin occurring in neoclassical compounds (e.g. biography, pharmacology, rhinoceros, thermometer). They provide the core lexical

meaning of words, and can combine with bound roots (e.g. fratr·icide), with other combining forms (e.g. bio·cide) and with words (e.g. sperm·icide). Depending on their distribution, they are called initial combining forms (e.g. morph·ology) or final combining forms (e.g. allo·morph).

Common noun. A noun that is not the name of any particular person, place or thing, but represents one or any of the members of a class, which combines with all kinds of Determiners and accepts restrictive modification. Syntactically, common nouns can be subdivided into count nouns and mass nouns. Semantically, common nouns can be

classified as abstract nouns and concrete nouns. Contrast with proper noun. Complement. A phrase or clause that is necessary to complete the meaning of a given

expression. Complements can appear at phrase level, complementing, for instance, nouns (e.g. the teacher of linguistics) or adjectives (e.g. eager to see them), or at clause level, complementing the Subject (e.g. She is very clever) or the Direct Object (e.g. They elected her president).

Complementary distribution. Commonly applied to phonetics and phonology; for example, in English, [p] and [pʰ] are allophones of the phoneme /p/ because they occur in

complementary distribution; [pʰ] occurs when it is the syllable onset and followed by a stressed vowel, as in pen; [p] occurs in all other situations (as in spouse). In morphology, this concept is applied, for example, in the analysis of allomorphs, which can be different faces of one and the same word, or morpheme; thus, whilst English indefinite article a is used before a word beginning with a consonant sound (e.g. a house), indefinite article an is used before a word beginning with a vowel sound (e.g. an animal). Contrast with free variation.

Complex sentence. A sentence consisting of a main or independent clause that contains at least one subordinate clause as realisation of one of its constituents (e.g. I did it because I

love you). Contrast with simple sentence and compound sentence. Complex word. Also known as polymorphemic word, it is a word made up of two or

more morphemes. It may consist of (1) a base (or root), and one or more affixes (e.g. un·law·ful·ly); or (2) more than one root in a compound (e.g. butter·fingers). Contrast with simplex word.

Complex-transitive structure. A clause pattern requiring both a Direct Object and an Object Complement (e.g. He kept the coffee fresh), or both a Direct Object and an Adverbial Complement (e.g. He put the cup of coffee on the desk). In a complex-transitive

construction, the Object Complement identifies a quality pertaining to the Direct Object. Verbs entering in such a structure include believe, consider, find, judge, keep, name and prove.

Compositionality. The idea according to which the meaning of a word is the sum of the meanings of its constituents. Contrast with non-compositionality.

Compound sentence. A sentence consisting of two or more clauses linked by coordination (e.g. I lost you but I found country music). Contrast with simple sentence and complex sentence.

Compounding. The process of combining two free morphemes in order to create a new word, commonly a noun, a verb or an adjective. Sometimes they are written as one single word (e.g. sunglasses), sometimes as two hyphenated words (e.g. time-consuming), sometimes as two separate words (e.g. window cleaner). Scholars distinguish two main subcategories: endocentric and exocentric compounds.

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Concatenation. A process dealing with the formation of new lexical units by putting at least two morphemes together. Concatenative processes are the most productive in the Indo-European language family; therefore, they are of major concern when it comes to discussing word-formation processes in English. These include affixation and compounding. Contrast with non-concatenation.

Conjugation. The term conjugation is applied to the inflection of verbs. It is restricted to

denoting the formation of tensed forms of a verb (e.g. am, is, are, was, were). It may be affected by person, number, tense, mood, aspect and voice. Contrast with declension.

Conjunct. A type of Adverbial normally realised by adverb phrases, as well as prepositional phrases, which helps to indicate the relationship in meaning between two sentences (e.g. therefore, moreover, all in all).

Constituency. The relation between a linguistic unit (i.e. a constituent) and the larger unit of which it is a part. A constituent can be a morpheme, word, phrase or clause. Constituency is traditionally represented by bracketing or tree structures.

Content clause. A content clause is a subordinate clause that provides content implied, or commented upon, by its main clause. There are two main types of content clauses, i.e. declarative content clauses (or that-clauses), as in She thought that he was too late, and interrogative content clauses (or indirect questions), as in She wondered if that couple

would get happy in the future. Continuous morphology. A view of morphology where inflection and derivation are ends of

a gradient, with clear cases at each end of the gradient and less clear cases between the ends. Contrast with split morphology.

Conversion. A word-formation process, also known as zero-derivation, by means of which we obtain a word of a new word-class without adding any affixes to the free base (e.g. emptyAdj vs. emptyV). This does not involve any formal change, except for occasional shift in the syllable stress (e.g. ˈpermitN vs. perˈmitV). The directionality of the process cannot always be easily identified.

Coordination. The grammatical connection of two or more words, phrases or clauses which are syntactically at the same level. Clauses joined by coordination are main clauses, or coordinate clauses. This is in contrast to subordination, by means of which a subordinate clause is inserted into a main clause.

Coordinative compound. Also called dvandva compound, it is a compound of the form [[x][y]], the meaning of which can be characterised as ‘X as well as Y’. Rather than one Head, it has two Heads, as neither of the bases is superordinate to the other (e.g. sleepwalk, bittersweet or maidservant). Contrast with subordinative compounds.

Coordinator. A grammatical or function word (e.g. and, but, or) that joins the elements of a coordinate structure, that is, elements which are syntactically at the same level. Also known as coordinating conjunction. Contrast with subordinator.

Copulative structure. A clause pattern where a copulative verb connects the Subject of a

sentence with an element (typically, an adjective phrase or a noun phrase) known as Subject Complement, which is its referential equivalent or specifies some attribute that describes it. Copulative verbs usually denote a state (e.g. be) or a process (e.g. become) of being.

Count noun. A type of common noun that presents number contrast (i.e. singular and plural forms), and can combine with indefinite articles or numerals. Semantically, it refers to entities that can be individuated and counted. Many nouns can be found in both countable and non-countable contexts, such as coffee, which is used as uncountable in a cup of coffee

and as uncountable in three coffees. Contrast with mass noun. Cranberry morpheme. Also known as unique morphemes, they are non-recurrent

morphemes, that is, bound morphemes that occur only once in isolated words like -ledge in know·ledge or cran- in cran·berry. These morphemes cannot be easily tied with a specific meaning.

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Cumulation. The process by which more than one morpheme is gathered under one only morph. See also portmanteau morph.

Declarative mood. A term used in the grammatical classification of sentence types.

Sentences in the declarative mood are typically used to make assertions about the real

word and their Subject tends to precede the Predicator (e.g. They are very clever). Contrast with interrogative, imperative and exclamative mood.

Declension. The inflection of nouns, pronouns, adjectives and articles to indicate number (plural vs. singular) and case (nominative, accusative and genitive). A declension is also a group of nouns that follow a particular pattern of inflection. It occurs in many languages, and features very prominently in many European languages. Old English was a highly inflected language, but its declensions greatly simplified as it evolved into Modern and Contemporary English. Contrast with conjugation.

Deixis. Deixis refers to words or phrases (such as this, that, here, there, now or then) that point to the time, place or situation in which the speaker is speaking. Without that contextual information, those expressions have little or no meaning at all.

Deontic modality. A subcategory of modality semantically associated with the notion of force, either internal (desire) or external (obligation, advice, permission, prohibition). It is usually realised by modal verbs (e.g. must, should, will, can, may), modal nouns (e.g. willingness), modal adjectives, (e.g. advisable) or lexical verbs (e.g. prohibit, allow). Contrast with epistemic modality.

Dependent. An element that accompanies the Head in a phrase. Most of them are fairly optional and can be omitted with few syntactic consequences (e.g. Modifiers), while others are fairly obligatory or required by the Head (e.g. Complements).

Derivation. In morphology, the process of creating a new word usually by adding a prefix or a suffix to a base. Contrast with inflection.

Derivative. By the application of certain modifications to a base unit, or source, derivational processes create new lexemes from existing lexemes, or derivatives. Also known as output.

Descriptivism. A non-judgmental approach to a language focused on how it is actually spoken and written. Contrast with prescriptivism.

Determinant, also known as Determinans. A linguistic unit that modifies another linguistic unit. For example, in Nice students, nice is the determinant, or Modifier, and students is the determinatum, or that which is to be determined. In morphology, this term can be applied to affixation and compounding; for example, in basketball, ball is modified by basket; and in misunderstand, the prefix mis- modifies understand. Contrast with determinatum.

Determinative. A closed word-class which typically precedes the Head of a noun phrase. Formally, they tend to be invariable, and semantically they express notions such as

(in)definiteness, deixis, quantity or number. Articles (the, a), quantifiers (some, few) or demonstratives (this, that) belong to this category.

Determinatum. A linguistic unit that is modified by another linguistic unit. For example, in Nice students, students is the determinatum, and nice is the determinant, or Modifier. The determinatum is often referred to as Head. In morphology, this term can be applied to affixation and compounding; for example, in basketball, ball is modified by basket; and in misunderstand, the prefix mis- modifies understand. Contrast with determinant.

Determiner. The syntactic function carried out by the word-class determinative (e.g. articles,

demonstratives or quantifiers) within the noun phrase. Direct Object. A syntactic constituent within the Predicate of a transitive clause pattern

typically realised by noun phrases, that-clauses and non-tensed clauses which often makes reference to the entity the Subject acts upon, the entity resulting from the Subject’s action, or the phenomenon the Subject can know, like, feel, hear or say. In mono-transitive

GLOSSARY 193

clauses, it usually appears immediately after the Predicator (e.g. The teachers used a new

book), whereas in ditransitive clauses it usually follows the Indirect Object (e.g. The teachers gave their students a new book). The Direct Object can be modified by an Object Complement as in They found it interesting. Contrast with Indirect Object.

Disjunct. A type of Adverbial that conveys the speaker’s comments on the content, or the manner, of what is being said or written (e.g. Linguistically, this is not a working

solution). They are typically introduced in initial position and followed by a pause. Dissimilation. A phenomenon whereby similar sounds in a word become less similar. That is

the case of particular or governor; where the /r/ sound occurs before another in the middle of a word, the first tends to drop out. Contrast with assimilation.

Distribution. One of the criteria used to classify words into the various types of word-classes referred to in linguistics. This is based on the potential contexts of use of the words under analysis, which includes, among other things, their position within the phrase or clause, as well as the type of words they can combine with (e.g. the distribution of nouns is marked

by the Determiners and the Modifiers that can precede them). Ditransitive structure. A clause pattern requiring both a Direct Object and an Indirect

Object. The former tends to be inanimate and the latter animate, as in Andrew gave his

child (Oi) a sympathetic smile (Od). Their distribution varies, so that the Indirect Object can precede the Direct Object, but also follow it; in that case, it will be realised by a prepositional phrase instead of a noun phrase, like in Andrew gave a sympathetic smile

(Od) to his child (Oi). Contrast with monotransitive structure. Diachrony. A diachronic approach considers the evolution of a language through history.

Contrast with synchrony. Dynamic adjective. A type of adjective referring to attributes that can usually be controlled

by the entity possessing them. They can be used with verbs in the progressive form (e.g. She is being nice) and the imperative mood (e.g. Be nice). Contrast with stative adjectives.

Ellipsis. The omission of one or more words which must be supplied by the listener or

reader. Empty morph. Also called linking vowel or interfix, it is a morph (e.g. the first o in

psychology) whose main function is to link bound morphemes, and which is considered to have no meaning and is not assigned to any morpheme.

Endocentric compound. A compound that is the equivalent to a phrase where one constituent, which contains the basic meaning of the whole compound, fulfils the function Head and another fulfils the function Modifier, such as battlefield, classmate or steamboat. This can be explained on the grounds of an existing hyponymic relation between bases; in other words, a steamboat is a type of boat, a classmate is a type of mate, and a battlefield is a field where a battle is being or has been fought. Contrast with exocentric compound.

Epistemic modality. A subcategory of modality by means of which speakers express their commitment to the likelihood or their knowledge about the truth contained in a proposition. It is semantically associated with notions such as certainty, probability and possibility, and it is usually realised by modal verbs (e.g. may, will, should), nouns (e.g. possibility), adjectives (e.g. certain), adverbs (e.g. clearly) or lexical verbs (e.g. think). Contrast with deontic modality.

Exclamative mood. A term used in the grammatical classification of sentence types. Sentences in the exclamative mood are used to express strong emotions (e.g. How difficult

this task was!). Formally speaking, the Subject + Predicate sequence is preceded by What or How. Contrast with declarative, imperative and interrogative mood.

Exocentric compound. A type of compound that seems to lack a Head. Frequently these compounds refer to a class of human beings (e.g. redskin), or to a particular person, on the

194 GLOSSARY

grounds of some (often) pejorative properties (e.g. butterfingers). An alternative term is bahuvrihi compound. Contrast with endocentric compound.

Form. One of the criteria used to classify words into the various types of word-classes

referred to in linguistics. This is based on the potential changes undergone by the word

under analysis; for example, nouns can change from singular to plural or verbs from present tense to past tense (i.e. inflectional morphology), or adjectives can turn into adverbs or nouns into adjectives (i.e. derivational morphology).

Free morpheme. A morpheme that can stand alone as a word. Contrast with bound morpheme.

Free variation. The phenomenon of two (or more) sounds or forms appearing in the same environment without a change in meaning. For example, the word economics can be pronounced with /ɪ/ or /e/ in the first syllable; likewise, the comparative of many disyllabic

adjectives can be formed either periphrastically with more or with the suffix -er (e.g. more stupid or stupider). Contrast with complementary distribution.

Function. The syntactic role performed by linguistic forms within larger grammatical units; for instance, nouns function as Head within noun phrases, and noun phrases function as Subject or Object within clauses. Function is one of the criteria used to classify words into different word-classes.

Gender. In English, a lexico-semantic category of nouns related to notions such as animacy, humanness, biological sex and subjectivity, which has a reflection in agreement with both personal and relative pronouns. Thus, the gender of cow is [+ANIMATE] [‒HUMAN] [+FEMALE]; stereotypically, for mariners, the gender of boat can be described in similar terms due to some subjective reasons based on the close relationship between this vehicle and the person in question.

Gradable adjective. An adjective describing a quality which can vary in intensity or grade; for example, rather cold, cold, very cold, colder and the coldest.

Grammar. Also known as morphosyntax, the term grammar first refers to the rules that

govern a language; for example, how words combine, how they change according to their relationship to other words, and how they build up into clausal or sentential units. Furthermore, it is also used to make reference to the different schools that throughout history have aimed to tackle the study of language, such as Chomsky’s Transformational Generative Grammar or Halliday’s Systemic Functional Grammar. See also morphology and syntax.

Grammatical hierarchy (also known as rankscale). The hierarchical organization of grammatical units according to which each unit consists of one or more units of the next

lowest rank. It is integrated by sentences, clauses, phrases, words and morphemes. Grammatical meaning. The meaning conveyed by word order, inflectional morphemes or

function words. Contrast with lexical meaning. Grammatical unit. The grammatical units of English are these: morpheme, word, phrase,

clause and sentence. They are hierarchically organised; thus, one sentence consists of one clause or more; one clause consists of one phrase or more; one phrase consists of one word o more; and one word consists of one morpheme or more.

Grammatical word. Also called function word, it is a word with grammatical meaning, such

as prepositions, determinatives, subordinators, coordinators or auxiliary verbs. Contrast with lexical word.

Grammaticalisation. The process which involves a shift in status of words from full lexical units to mainly affixes. One example from the history of English can illustrate this

GLOSSARY 195

principle. Old English lic meant ‘form, body’ and existed as an independent word; later on it was retained only as the ending -lice, which resulted in the suffix -ly.

Head. The key word determining the nature of a phrase (in contrast to any Dependents, such

as Modifiers or Determiners), which is compulsory in that structure, and controls it

semantically and syntactically. For example, in a noun phrase, the Head is a noun, in an adjective phrase, the Head is an adjective, or in an adverb phrase, the Head is an adverb.

Homography. The relation whereby words have the same spelling but different origin, meaning and sometimes pronunciation, such as the verb bear (to carry or endure) and the noun bear (the animal with a shaggy coat).

Homomorphy. The relation whereby morphological units have the same orthographic and phonological form, the same etymological origin and closely related meanings, but belong to different word-classes (e.g. the verb right and the adjective right).

Homonymy. The relation whereby words have the same pronunciation or spelling but differ

in meaning, and are not etymologically related, such as bank (financial institution) and bank (land along the side of a river).

Homophony. The relation whereby words (such as knew and new, or meat and meet) have the same phonological form but different meaning, etymological origin and often spelling.

Hyphenated compound. A compound word combined using hyphens, such as half-naked, narrow-minded or son-in-law.

Hyponymy. It shows the relationship between the more general terms, or hypernyms, and the more specific instances of it, or hyponyms. A hyponym is a word or phrase whose

semantic field is more specific than its hypernym. The semantic field of a hypernym, also known as a superordinate, is broader than that of a hyponym. For example, carnation, daffodil, bluebell and clover are all hyponyms of flower.

Immediate constituent analysis. In linguistics, immediate constituent analysis, or IC

analysis, is a method of sentence analysis that was first proposed by Bloomfield, and reached a full blown strategy for analysing sentence structure in the early works of

Chomsky. Most tree structures employed to represent the syntactic structure of sentences are products of some form of IC analysis.

Imperative mood. A term used in the grammatical classification of sentence types. Sentences in the imperative mood are used to give orders or instructions, and typically lack an explicit Subject (e.g. Open the door!). Contrast with declarative, exclamative and interrogative mood.

Indicative mood. Mood shows the attitude of the speaker or the writer to the action or state described by the verb. The indicative is used in ordinary statements and questions.

Contrast with subjunctive mood. Indirect Object. A syntactic constituent within the Predicate of a ditransitive clause pattern

which typically indicates to whom or for whom the action of the Predicator is performed. It is usually realised by noun phrases; with verbs that can be followed by two objects, it typically comes immediately after the verb and before the Direct Object; if the Direct Object precedes the Indirect Object, the latter will be realised by a prepositional phrase introduced by to or for; when the Indirect Object is realised by pronominal noun phrases, they take the form of the objective case (e.g. They gave him a new calendar).

Infix. A type of affix that can be inserted within the base form of a word (rather than at its beginning or end) to create a new word or to intensify its meaning, such as in Singa·bloody·pore. The process of inserting an infix is called infixation.

Inflection. A morphological process by means of which some morphemes are attached to the stem of a word to express diverse grammatical meanings. Inflections in English include the

196 GLOSSARY

plural, the third-person singular, the past tense, the -ing form of the continuous verbal forms, the comparative and the superlative.

Initialism. An abbreviation that consists of the first letter or letters of words in a phrase, such as FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation). Initialisms are usually written in capital letters, and spoken letter by letter. Contrast with acronym.

Interfix. See empty morph.

Internal modification. Also called suprasegmental modification, it is where the tone or stress pattern of a word signals a particular morphological operation such as conversion (e.g. ˈconvertN vs. conˈvertV).

Interrogative mood. A term used in the grammatical classification of sentence types. Sentences in the interrogative mood are typically used to ask questions; they usually begin with an interrogative word (e.g. who, when, where) and present Subject-Auxiliary inversion, as in What are you reading? Contrast with declarative, exclamative and imperative mood.

Intransitive structure. A clause pattern where the Predicator does not need to take any Objects (e.g. The bomb did not explode). Some other types of (adverbial) complementation are nevertheless very frequent in this pattern (e.g. She lived in Sydney).

Language. A typically human system of communication that uses arbitrary signs such as

sounds, gestures or written symbols to convey meanings. The study of language is called linguistics.

Left-headed compound. A compound where the determinatum or Head precedes the determinant or Modifier (e.g. attorney general, brother-in-law). Contrast with right-headed compound.

Lexeme. The fundamental unit of the lexicon of a language. When we find one example such as put up with consisting of more than one word, we call it lexical unit.

Lexical meaning. Also called denotation, it is the meaning of lexical words such as nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs, independent of their use in any context in which they may occur. Contrast with grammatical meaning.

Lexical verb. An open word-class characterised by some grammatical features such as tense

and the third person singular. English lexical verbs have different forms such as the infinitive, past, present, and past and present participle, and function as the Head, or Main Verb, of the verb phrase. Contrast with auxiliary verb.

Lexical word. Also called content word, it is a word with lexical meaning, such as nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs. Contrast with grammatical word.

Lexicalisation. A process by means of which words which, at a certain stage, were transparent in their composition, or in the derivational process, are no longer so. For example, the word asleep derives from Old English on slæpe, but in Contemporary English

it is not understood as being ‘on sleep’. In Old English we had a transparent phrase; in Contemporary English we have an opaque compound. Thus the phrase has become lexicalised, and speakers can no longer derive it from on + sleep but learn it as a single word.

Lexicology. The branch of linguistics that studies the stock of words (or lexicon) in a given language.

Lexicon. A lexicon is a language’s inventory of lexemes, or catalogue of a language’s words. Linking vowel. See empty morph.

Linguistics. The scientific study of the nature, structure and variation of language. Major subfields of linguistics include phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, pragmatics and discourse analysis.

GLOSSARY 197

Main verb. The Head of the verb phrase realised by a lexical verb. It may be accompanied by Dependents known as the Auxiliary System, which are typically realised by inflections or auxiliary verbs.

Mass noun. A type of common noun (such as advice, bread, knowledge or luck) that names things that in English cannot usually be counted. A mass noun (also known as non-count noun) is generally used only in the singular, and cannot be combined with the indefinite

article or numerals, but it accepts the zero determiner (e.g. He hates beer). Many abstract nouns are uncountable, but not all uncountable nouns are abstract. Contrast with count noun.

Mental lexicon. It is a construct used in linguistics and psycholinguistics to refer to individual speakers’ lexical representations. It differs from the lexicon of a language in that it is not just a general collection of words; instead, it deals with how those words are activated, stored, processed and retrieved by each speaker. An individual’s mental lexicon changes and grows as new words are learned and is always developing, but it can also

shrink as an individual ages and starts forgetting words or is unable to learn more. Modifier. A type of optional phrasal Dependent realised by words, phrases or clauses that

provide additional information about the Head (e.g. very intelligent; clearly nice; happy

people; students from Russia; teachers who like working; information to take into

account; immigrants living in the US). Modifiers tend to appear before the Head they modify. When they appear after the Head, they are called Post-modifiers or Qualifiers. They may be either restrictive (essential to the meaning of a phrase) or non-restrictive (additional but not essential elements in a phrase).

Monotransitive structure. A clause pattern in which the Predicator requires one compulsory argument, which can be a Direct Object (e.g. They do not trust their colleague) or a Prepositional Object (e.g. They do not rely on their colleague). Contrast with ditransitive structure.

Morph. The formal realisation of a morpheme. Actually a morph is a word segment, or suprasegmental material such as stress shift, that represents one morpheme in sound or writing. For example, the word inactive is made up of three morphs (i.e. in-, act-, -ive), each of which represents one different morpheme. Contrast with morpheme. See also allomorph.

Morpheme. The smallest meaningful unit of a language. As such, it is an abstract unit which can have one or more formal realizations. Contrast with morph.

Morphology. The branch of linguistics (and one of the major components of grammar) that studies the internal structure of words in terms of morphemes.

Morphosyntax. See grammar.

Native morphology. In morphology, the Germanic component in English is often referred to

as native. Contrast with non-native morphology. Neoclassical compound. A compound word resulting from the combination of Greek- or

Latin-derived forms which act as affixes or stems. For example, pachy- combines with -derm to form pachyderm. These compounds are a substantial component of the technical and scientific lexicon of English.

Non-compositionality. The notion according to which words are stored in the mental lexicon as whole units, and are directly accessed as such. Contrast with compositionality.

Non-concatenation. One of the two building techniques used to add extensions to roots most

frequent in Semitic languages. Words are formed by weaving in a vowel pattern on a root that is, by itself, unpronounceable; for instance, in Arabic, all the words referring to the notion of writing involve the k-t-b root, interleaved with vowel patterns: kataba (to write), kitaab (book), kaatib (writer). Contrast with concatenation.

198 GLOSSARY

Non-gradable adjective. An adjective that makes reference to a quality which cannot vary in intensity or grade because they are extremes (e.g. freezing), absolutes (e.g. dead) or classifying (e.g. nuclear).

Non-native morphology. In morphology, the Romance component in English is often referred to as non-native. Contrast with native morphology.

Non-tensed verb phrase. Also called non-finite verb phrase, it is a type of verb phrase that

does not show a distinction in tense and cannot stand alone as the Predicator of a main clause. There are three types of non-tensed verb phrases: infinitive (e.g. to go), present participle (e.g. going) and past participle (e.g. gone). Contrast with tensed verb phrase.

Noun. An open word-class characterised by the morphological feature number and its being preceded by determinatives; syntactically, it functions as the Head of a noun phrase; semantically, it often refers to concrete and abstract entities in the world.

Number. A grammatical category typical of nouns formally expressed as an inflectional contrast between a singular and a plural form (e.g. bike vs. bikes), syntactically reflected in

determinative-noun-verb agreement (e.g. This bike goes a lot faster vs. These bikes go a lot faster); semantically, it typically expresses a contrast between one and more than one.

Object Complement. A syntactic constituent within the Complex-transitive structure that

follows the Direct Object and semantically renames or describes it. It is usually realised by a noun phrase or an adjective phrase (e.g. They called her Babylon).

Onomasiology. A branch of lexicology concerned with the names of concepts. Contrast with

semasiology. Onset. The part of the syllable that precedes the vowel of the syllable (e.g. sp in spoil). Opacity. The impossibility of relating the meaning of a complex word to the meanings of its

apparent component morphemes. For example, a word like department is said to be semantically opaque because its meaning is not related to the meaning of depart and -ment, and the meaning of depart in department is not related to depart in departure. Contrast with transparency.

Open compound. A compound with spaces between the bases it consists of, as in living room, science fiction, full moon or school bus.

Open word-class. A type of word-class to which new members can be added (by means of word-formation processes). Their members tend to be morphologically variable and have lexical meaning. Examples of open word-classes are nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs. Contrast with closed word-class.

Operational test. A test that can be used to determine the internal constituency of a complex unit such as a clause or a phrase. Some operational tests are the passive transformation, reduction, expansion or wh-question elicitation.

Operator. An operator is an auxiliary or helping verb such as to do in interrogative

sentences. In declarative sentences, they appear before frequency adverbs such as always and the main verb in its infinitive (e.g. may always work), present participle (e.g. was

living) and past participle forms (e.g. have studied; were provided). The negative particle is added to them.

Output. By the application of certain modifications to a base unit, or source, derivational processes create new lexemes from existing lexemes, or output. Also known as derivative.

Paradigmatic axis. Axis of selection; thus, in a simple noun phrase we could choose several determinatives, and have the nice house, a nice house, this nice house, that nice house, on the grounds of the categories deixis and number; likewise, we could choose several adjectives and not others based upon the denotative meaning of the Head noun (e.g. a plastic bag vs. *plastic thoughts).

GLOSSARY 199

Parsing. A traditional grammatical exercise involving breaking down a linguistic string into its component parts of speech with an explanation of the form, function and syntactic relationship of each part. In contemporary linguistics, this term usually refers to the computer-aided syntactic analysis of language.

Phoneme. The basic unit of phonology. This is combined with other phonemes to form morphemes. Technically, it is described as the smallest contrastive linguistic unit that may

bring about a change of meaning; thus, the difference in meaning between live and leave is a result of the exchange of the phoneme /ɪ/ for the phoneme /i:/. Two words that differ in meaning through a contrast of a single phoneme form a minimal pair.

Phonetics. The branch of linguistics dealing with speech sounds, and their production, transmission, reception, combination, description and representation by written symbols. Contrast with phonology.

Phonology. The branch of linguistics that studies sounds with reference to their distribution and patterning. It has traditionally focused on the study of the systems of phonemes. It

describes the way sounds function to encode meaning. Contrast with phonetics. Phrase. A grammatical unit consisting of one or more words, where generally the one which

is compulsory fulfils the function of Head and the rest are Dependents. There are a number of different types of phrases depending on their Head, such as noun phrases (e.g. a red pen), verb phrase (e.g. can go), adverb phrases (e.g. very quickly), adjective phrases (e.g. nicer than you expected) or prepositional phrases (e.g. in the flat).

Phrasal compound. A group of words that express a complex meaning, but are not formed through the usual noun or verb modification, as in along-the-wall, over-the-fence, pipe-

and-slipper or slept-all-day. Polarity. The distinction between affirmative and negative forms, which may be expressed

syntactically (I want a Coke vs. I don’t want a Coke), morphologically (possible vs. impossible), or lexically (yes vs. no).

Polysemy. The capacity for a sign to have multiple senses which are usually related by contiguity of meaning within a semantic field. For example, the derived noun destruction can denote (1) an event and (2) a result. It is thus regarded as distinct from homonymy, in which the multiple meanings of a word may be unconnected or unrelated. Words’ etymology can be helpful in determining polysemy but not the only solution.

Portmanteau morph. A single morph which represents two or more morphemes, as in stops, where -s means present simple tense, third person and singular number. See also cumulation.

POS (part of speech). See word-class. Post-modifier. A type of Modifier, also known as Qualifier, within a phrasal structure,

which typically follows the Head whose meaning it limits. It can mainly be realised by prepositional phrases (e.g. the man in the corner), relative clauses (e.g. the woman who

was living in Paris) or non-tensed clauses (e.g. the students working harder).

Pragmatics. The branch of linguistics that studies how the transmission of meaning depends not only on structural and linguistic knowledge of both speaker and hearer, but also on the utterance context, the speaker’s inferred intent and other extralinguistic factors. It encompasses speech act theory, conversational implicature, talk in interaction, and other approaches to language behaviour in philosophy, sociology and anthropology. Contrast with semantics.

Predicate. One of the two main parts of a sentence or clause which follows the Subject, and includes the Predicator, Objects, Complements and Adverbials.

Predicative adjective phrase. An adjective phrase that usually follows a linking verb such as be and modifies phrases in the position of Subject. Contrast with attributive adjective phrase.

200 GLOSSARY

Predicator. The most relevant constituent of the Predicate, semantically specifying actions, processes or states. The Predicator is realised by tensed and non-tensed verb phrases, and largely determines the number and type of other clause constituents.

Prefixation. The process of adding a prefix to a word so that new words can be formed as in disloyal.

Preposition. Prepositions and post-positions are a subcategory of closed word-classes that

mainly express spatio-temporal relations (e.g. in, under, before, ago), and typically combine with a noun phrase forming a prepositional phrase. English has prepositions rather than post-positions.

Prescriptivism. The attitude or belief that one variety of a language is superior to others and should be promoted as such. In traditional grammar, this term refers to the scholar’s concern for good, proper or correct usage. Contrast with descriptivism.

Productivity. A general term for the limitless ability to use language to say new things, which can then be explained on the grounds of availability and profitability. Also known

as open-endedness or creativity. In a narrower sense, this is commonly applied to particular forms or constructions that can produce new instances of the same type; that is the case of affixes such as dis-, in clear contrast with very unproductive affixes such as -ledge.

Pronoun. A word that substitutes for a noun phrase, clause, sentence or even text. It is a particular case of a pro-form and is regarded as one of the closed word-classes. Subtypes include personal pronouns, demonstratives, relatives, interrogatives and indefinites. Their use often involves anaphora, where the meaning of the pronoun is dependent on an

antecedent. Proper noun. A noun belonging to the class of words used as names for unique individuals,

events or places. Proper nouns (e.g. Josh, Brazil, Venus) typically begin with a capital letter, and are not usually preceded by articles or other determinatives because of their being self-defining by nature. Most of them are singular. Contrast with common noun.

Qualifier. A type of Modifier, also known as Post-modifier, within a phrasal structure, which

typically follows the Head whose meaning it limits. It can mainly be realised by

prepositional phrases (e.g. the man in the corner), relative clauses (e.g. the woman who

was living in Paris) or non-tensed clauses (e.g. the students working harder).

Rankscale. See grammatical hierarchy. Rankshift. See subordination. Recursivity. The quality of being recursive, that is, the embedding potential of a

morphological unit or syntactic structure within another unit or structure of the same type, respectively.

Reduplication. Also called rhyming compound. It contains rhyming elements such as blackjack, voodoo or pooper-scooper.

Relative clause. A clause that generally modifies the Head of a noun phrase, and is introduced by a relative (that, which, where, when, who, whom, whose, why) or a zero relative. They are traditionally divided into restrictive and non-restrictive, or defining and non-defining relative clauses (e.g. The man who could not jump in time came from your village vs. Mike, who could not jump in time, came from your village).

Relator.A grammatical linker typically realised by a preposition (e.g. before dinner), a

conjunction (e.g. before the meeting started) or a genitive marker (e.g. John’s arrival) that relates the axis to the containing construction.

Right-headed compound. Most English compounds are said to be right-headed, due to the fact that the right base behaves as the Head, or determinatum, and the element to the left

GLOSSARY 201

behaves as a Modifier, or determinant (e.g. stir-fry, oil-rich, swearword). Contrast with left-headed compound.

Rime. The part of a syllable which consists of its vowel and any consonant sounds that come after it (e.g. oil in spoil).

Root. That part of a word left when all affixes are removed. Contrast with base and stem.

Semantic role. The underlying relationship a clause constituent has with the Predicator.

Some of the most frequent ones are the following: Subjects tend to be the agent, or doer, of an event (e.g. The child did not break the window). Very often the affected role corresponds with the Direct Object (e.g. The child did not break the window). The experiencer is an entity that receives a sensory impression (e.g. The man could hear the noise). A beneficiary is the role of a referent which is advantaged or disadvantaged by an event (e.g. The student bought a grammar book for her mother). Sayers are found in communication processes (e.g. My neighbours told me that your friends are very nice).

Semantics. The branch of linguistics concerned with the study of meaning in language, more specifically of how languages organise and express meanings. Contrast with pragmatics.

Semasiology. The branch of linguistics concerned with the meaning of a word independent of its phonetic expression. Contrast with onomasiology.

Semi-affix. See affixoid. Sentence. For some linguists, the largest independent unit of grammar, consisting of one or

more clauses related by coordination or subordination. Simple sentence. A sentence consisting of only one single clause. Contrast with complex

sentence. Simplex word. Also known as monomorphemic word, it is a word that contains just one

morpheme (e.g. stop). Contrast with complex word. Solid compound. Compounds written as one single word (e.g. teapot, blackbird). Source. Also known as base, it is the unit to which prefixes and suffixes are added to create

new words. Splinter. A fragment of a word used in the formation of new words arising as a result of its

reanalysis, which involves (re)assignment of meaning to the new morphological unit. For

example, following the pattern of alcoholic, in chocoholic, -holic has acquired the meaning ‘addicted to X’, just as in workaholic or shopaholic.

Split morphology. A view of morphology where the distinction between inflection and derivation is clear-cut. Contrast with continuous morphology.

Stative adjective. An adjective demoting more or less permanent states or signifying attributes that cannot usually be controlled by the entity possessing them, this being the reason why, normally, they can neither be used with verbs in the progressive form (e.g. *She is being English) nor in the imperative mood (e.g. *Be English). Contrast with dynamic adjectives.

Stem. Any form to which inflectional affixes can be attached. In English, most stems also qualify as words. Contrast with base and root.

Subject. The clausal constituent that commonly appears at the start of declarative sentences preceding the Predicator, or following the operator in interrogative sentences. It is typically realised by a noun phrase (e.g. The girl was happy), a that-clause (e.g. That you are tired

is more than obvious), a non-tensed clause (e.g. Smoking in public places was allowed some years ago) or a nominal relative clause (e.g. What you need is love). The Subject generally indicates what the clause is about, or who or what performs the action referred to

by the Predicator. Subject Complement. A clause constituent (usually realised by an adjective phrase or a

noun phrase) which follows a linking verb and describes or renames the Subject of the sentence (e.g. Marie was nervy).

202 GLOSSARY

Subjunctive mood. Mood shows the attitude of the speaker or the writer to the action or state described by the verb. The subjunctive is very rare in English; it is used to express doubts or wishes. Contrast with indicative mood.

Subordination. Also known as rankshift, it is the phenomenon whereby a unit of a given rank in the grammatical hierarchy functions as a constituent of a unit of the same or a lower rank, as when clauses function as constituents of other clauses or phrases; thus, one

is dependent on (or subordinate to) another. Clausal subordination is often (but not always) indicated by a subordinator (e.g. that, if, because) or a relative (e.g. who, which, where). Contrast with coordination.

Subordinative compound. Any compound where one of the components is the semantic and the structural centre, and the second component is subordinate to the former; the relation between designatum and designans can vary and convey comparison (e.g. honey-sweet), limit (e.g. breast-high), emphasis (e.g. dog-cheap), object (e.g. gold-rich), subject (e.g. foot-sore), cause (e.g. love-sick), space (e.g. top-heavy) or time (e.g. spring-fresh).

Contrast with coordinative compound. Subordinator. Also known as subordinating conjunction, it is a subcategory of closed word-

classes that introduces a dependent clause into the structure of a main clause. Most subordinators are single words (e.g. because, after, if). However, some of them consist of more than one word (e.g. as long as, given that). Contrast with coordinator.

Suffixation. The process of adding a suffix to a base or stem in order to create either a different form of that word (e.g. happy > happier), or a new word with a different meaning (happy > happiness).

Suppletion. In morphology, the use of phonetically and orthographically distinct roots for different forms of the same word, such as the adjective bad and its suppletive comparative and superlative forms worse and worst.

Suppletive morph. A morph from a different root used in a paradigm, or grammatically related set of forms; for example, went is the suppletive past of the verb go. Likewise, the comparatives and superlatives of four highly frequent words such as good, bad, much and little are suppletive morphs in Contemporary English: better, best; worse, worst; more, most; less, least.

Synchrony. A synchronic approach aims at describing language rules at a specific point of

time, even though they may have been different at an earlier stage of the language. Contrast with diachrony.

Syntagma. Given that the internal structure of outputs can be analysed in terms of the syntactic relation between its constituents, some linguists call them syntagmas. In syntagmas, the determinatum behaves as if it were the Head in a phrase structure (e.g. arm·chair), and the determinant as if it were the Modifier (e.g. dis·agree).

Syntagmatic axis. The axis of combination (e.g. The + student + was + happy). Contrast with paradigmatic axis.

Syntax. One of the two major components of grammar (the other one being morphology). Syntax accounts for the rules that govern the ways in which words combine to form phrases, clauses and sentences.

Synthetic compound. Any compound whose designatum shows derivation, especially when the right base is a deverbal noun ending in -er or an -ing verb, as in theatre-goer or bird-watching.

Tense. Tense is a verbal grammatical category mostly realised by the past tense morpheme in regular verbs (e.g. walk > walked); irregular patterns include suppletive forms (e.g. go > went) or zero derivation (e.g. cut > cut). Semantically, it is connected with the notion of temporal, social or psychological distance; that is the reason why it is typically used to

GLOSSARY 203

convey the idea of past and present (e.g. They worked in the morning), deference (e.g. Could you pass me the salt?) and doubt (e.g. This might happen in the future again).

Tensed verb phrase. Also called finite verb phrase, a type of verb phrase that shows a distinction in tense and can stand alone as the main verb in a sentence. Contrast with non-tensed verb phrase.

Text. The largest unit of linguistic description, of either written or spoken nature, which,

thanks to all sorts of devices, comes to be cohesive and coherent. Transitive structure. A clause pattern where the Predicate has at least one argument (i.e. the

Direct Object); semantically, this often refers to an entity affected by the Subject’s actions (e.g. She kicked the ball). It may also contain an additional argument, the Indirect Object (e.g. She gave her girlfriend a kiss), or an Object Complement attributing some qualities to the Direct Object (e.g. She found him funny).

Transparency. A morphologically complex word is semantically transparent if its meaning can be inferred from its component parts, because of its being partly lexicalised;

disenchantment is semantically transparent, being made up in a predictable fashion from dis-, -enchant- and -ment. Contrast with opacity.

Transposition. The morphological process by means of which the lexical class (category) of a lexeme changes, as in conversion (emptyAdj > emptyV) and suffixation (e.g. beautyN > beauty·fulAdj).

Tree diagram. One of the types of bracketing often used by linguists as a graphic tool to break down and then map out all the components of a clausal or phrasal structure. It is sometimes used in morphology as well to show how words are decomposed into smaller

units we call morphemes. Truncated compound. Compound words such as sitcom (i.e. situation comedy), which are

formed by truncation, are called truncated compounds. Other linguists prefer the term blending instead.

Truncation. A word-formation process in which both members of a compound word are truncated as in sitcom (i.e. situation comedy).

Voice. A grammatical category common in many of the world’s languages affecting the verb

phrase, and the distribution of clause constituents and semantic roles. The two terms of the category are active (e.g. They organised a fantastic conference) and passive voice (e.g. A fantastic conference was organised by them).

Vowel alternation. Also known as vowel change, it is the morphological pattern found in irregular verbs such as hang (hung), see (saw) or take (took); or in the plural formation of words such as foot (feet), goose (geese) or mouse (mice), where partial suppletion takes place. This phenomenon is challenging for any theory of morphology because it involves a change inside the stem, rather than the addition of an affix to the stem.

Word. According to Bloomfield’s definition, the minimal free form of a language, that it, the

smallest combination of form and meaning that can stand alone as an independent unit. Linguists often distinguish between orthographic words (i.e. a written sequence which has a white space at each end but no white space in the middle), phonological words (i.e. a piece of speech which behaves as a unit of pronunciation), lexical words or lexemes (i.e. an abstract unit of the lexicon of a language, with a more or less identifiable meaning or

function), and grammatical words (i.e. one of the several forms that may be assumed by a lexical unit for grammatical purposes).

204 GLOSSARY

Zero morph. A morph with no orthographic or phonological form proposed as a possible realisation of a morpheme that is ordinarily realised by other morphs with full phonetic form (e.g. the plural form of sheep). This term is of particular relevance in the analysis of conversion (e.g. bottleN > bottleV).