List of Terms in Morphosyntax

(based on book "Trends in Linguistics: Aspects of the Theory of Morphology by Igor Mel’ čuk)

1. Term : META-linguistic /metǝliŋꞌgwistik /adj/ (p.1)

Definition : Adjective form of metalanguage/metǝ,læŋwidʒ /n/. A language which is used to talk about another language, the object language. A metalanguage may be either a natural language or a formal language; the same is true of an object language. It is very common in linguistics to use a natural language, such as English as a metalanguage to talk about the same natural language as the object language; when this is done. It is essential to distinguish the two clearly to avoid confusion (Trask, 2013).

Usage : This is conventionally done by typographical means, such as by citing object language forms in italics or in inverted commas: compare Mean are beasts with ‘Men’ is an irregular plural.

2. Term : Semantemes /n/(p.7)

Definition : An indivisible unit of meaning (base: semantic), another similar terms like grammeme (p.8 and p.23) in linguistics is a unit of grammar, just as a lexeme (p.21 and 52) is a lexical unit and a morpheme is a morphological unit

Related items : An emic unit is a type of abstract object analyzed in linguistics and related fields. Kinds of emic units are generally denoted by terms with the suffix -eme, such as phoneme, grapheme, grammemes and Lexeme. An emic unit is defined by Nöth (1995) as "an invariant form obtained from the reduction of a class of variant forms to a limited number of abstract units". The variant forms are called etic units (from phonetic). This means that a given emic unit is considered to be a single underlying object that may have a number of different observable surface representations.

The various etic units that represent a given emic unit of a certain kind are denoted by a corresponding term with the prefix allo-, such as allophone, allograph, allomorph (corresponding respectively to phoneme, grapheme, morpheme). The relation between an emic unit and the corresponding etic forms is sometimes called the allo/eme relationship.



3. Term : Semantic Actants (p.7 and 84)

Definition : The word of actant is often referred to as argument and term (čuk, 2004). The term actant was first introduced in Tesnière (1959) to denote the major syntactic roles of nominals that directly depend on the Main Verb syntactically: Subject, Direct Object and Indirect Object (the semantic dimension being ignored). Therefore semantic actants is the same as semantic argument.

Another Items :as cited in Glottopedia, the is also term called Syntactic actants (Glottopedia) are as a dependent syntactic argument, i.e. a noun phrase (or other referential constituent) that is required by a valency of a predicate. There is some difference between semantic actants and syntactic actants. E.g.: (1) some syntactic actants, like "dummy subjects" (like it in Engl. It rains.), correspond to no semantic actant. (2) some semantic actants, like "zero" object ('on what?') in Engl. It depends., correspond to no syntactic actant

4. Term : Genitive /adj or n/(p.42 and 45)

Definition :The term consists of gen and ive (a suffix of adjectives), in linguistics it means possessor of another noun. Typically expresses a possessive relationship.

Example : John's book was on the table. And, the pages of the book turned yellow.

Related terms :Genitive is one of the grammatical case. Case means distinctive, overtly marked form which can be assumed by an NP to indicate that that NP bears some identifiable grammatical or semantic relation to the rest of the sentence. In English, overt case marking is confined to a few pronouns (I,me;they,them) , but some other languages such as German, Russian,Latin, Basque and Finnish exhibit elaborate case systems typically involving about three to six distinct forms, but sometimes a dozen or more. Among the most frequently distinguished cases (p.139) are the nominative (subject of a finite verb), accusative (direct object of a transitive verb), absolutive, ergative, dative (p.130) (indirect object of a verb), instrumental (an object used in performing an action), comitative, locative (location). aIlative (denotes movement), ablative (express motion) and genitive.

5. Term : Syntagmatic /sintaægꞌmætik /adj/(p.24)

Definition : Adjective form of syntagm /sintaægm/adj/, an occasional synonym for construction. It is also considered as an elementary constituent segment within a text. Such a segment can be a phoneme, word, grammatical phrase, sentence or an event within a larger narrative structure, depending on the level of analysis. Syntagmatic analysis involves the study of relationships (rules of combination) among syntagmas.

Note :In many European languages. This word is used as the exact equivalent of the English word Phrase.



6. Term : Phraseological /freɪziːjəꞌlɑdʒɪkəl /adj/(p.41)

Definition : Refers to the word Phraseology, it is the study of set or fixed expressions, such as idioms, phrasal verbs, and other types of multi-word lexical units (often collectively referred to as phrasemes), in which the component parts of the expression take on a meaning more specific than or otherwise not predictable from the sum of their meanings when used independently

Example :Dutch auction’ is composed of the words Dutch ‘of or pertaining to the Netherlands’ and auction ‘a public sale in which goods are sold to the highest bidder’, but its meaning is not ‘a sale in the Netherlands where goods are sold to the highest bidder’. Instead, the phrase has a conventionalized meaning referring to any auction where, instead of rising, the prices fall.

7. Term : Congruence/koŋꞌgruǝnts /n/ (p.89)

Definition : A term used in linguistics to refer to a correspondence between
the decisions made at one level of analysis (phonology, grammar or semantics) and those made at another. The sentence is the unit where there is maximum congruence of levels, in that criteria of identification at each level tend to coincide: certain classes of exception aside, a sentence is a grammatically, semantically and phonologically autonomous unit. The notion of word, by contrast, displays less congruence (‘is less congruent’): phonological (andorthographic), morphological, syntactic and semantic criteria often conflict in word identification and classification (Crystal, 2008 ).

8. Term : Apophony /n/(p.140)

Definition : In linguistics, apophony (also known as ablaut, (vowel) gradation, (vowel) mutation, alternation, internal modification, stem modification, stem alternation, replacive morphology, stem mutation, internal inflection etc.) is the alternation of sounds within a word that indicates grammatical information (often inflectional)..

Example : Apophony is exemplified in English as the internal vowel alternations that produce such related words as (1) sing, sang, sung, song (2) rise, raise (3) lie, lay (4) bind, bound (5) food, feed (6) blood, bleed (7) brood, breed (8) doom, deem (9) goose, geese (10) tooth, teeth (11) foot, feet

9. Terms : Parasitic/perǝꞌsitik/adj/(p.144)

Definition : [Complete terms: Parasitic Gap] an empty position which does not result directly from a movement transformation but which is licensed secondarily by another transformation that does not itself affect the parasitic gap.

Example : The following example involves a parasitic gap, indicated by p, and an ordinary gap, indicated by e: Which film did he criticize e without seeing p? The parasitic gap is possible only because the ordinary gap is present; hence, the following is ungrammatical: He criticized Henry V without seeing p



10. Term : Oblique /ǝꞌblɪ:k /adj/(p.144)

Definition : In languages which express grammatical relationships by means of inflections, this term refers to the form taken by a noun phrase (often a single noun or pronoun) when it refers collectively to all the case forms of a word except that of the unmarked case, or nominative (Crystal, 2008 ).



11. Term : Empty Morphs /n/(p.145)

Definition : a morph which cannot be assigned [allocated] to any morpheme.

Example : a well-discussed example in English is the word children, where a possible analysis is into root child and plural suffix -en (cf. oxen); the residual /r/ left by this analysis is then seen as an empty morph without which the word would not be exhaustively analyzed at the morphemic level (Crystal, 2008 ).



12. Term : Hypostasis /haiꞌpɑstǝsǝs /n/(p.166)

Description : (from the Greek word ὑπόστασις meaning foundation, base or that which stands behind), is a relationship between a name and a known quantity, as a cultural personification (i.e. objectification with personality) of an entity or quality. It often connotes the personification of typically elemental powers, such as wind and fire, or human life, fertility, and death. In descriptive linguistics, the term was first introduced by Leonard Bloomfield to account for uses of systemantic words as autosemantic in sentences such as I'm tired of your ifs and buts. In this sense, the usage meaning of the word is referred to as a whole.



13. Terms : Slot (p.184)

Definition : a term used in grammatical analysis to refer to a place in a construction into which a class of items can be inserted to a place in a construction into which a class of items can be inserted

Example : In the sentence; The children – home, the ‘slot’ marked by the dash can be ‘filled’by came, are, went, etc. – a subclass of verbs. Approaches characterized by this emphasis are sometimes referred to as slot-and-filler models. The analysis of sentence structure in terms of slots is a major feature of tagmemic grammar, where the notion is used to identify the filler items (e.g. ‘subject slot’,‘object slot’) (Crystal, 2008 ).



14. Terms : Monovalent, Bivalent, Trivalent (p.224) and Multi-valent (p.218)

Definition : Family of Valency /n/. A term introduced by the French linguist Lucien Tesnière (1893–1954), which has been particularly influential in the development of models of dependency grammar in Europe and Russia. The term is derived from chemistry, and is used in linguistics to refer to the number and type of bonds which syntactic elements may form with each other. A valency grammar presents a model of a sentence containing a fundamental element (typically, the verb) and a number of dependent elements (variously referred to as arguments, expressions, complements or valents) whose number and type is determined by the valency attributed to the verb.

Example : The valency of vanish includes only the subject element (it has a valency of 1, monovalent, or monadic), whereas that of scrutinize includes both subject and direct object (a valency of 2, bivalent, or dyadic). Verbs which take more than two complements are polyvalent, or polyadic. A verb which takes no complements at all (such as rain) is said to have zerovalency (be a valent). Valency deals not only with the number of valents with which a verb is combined to produce a well-formed sentence nucleus, but also with the classification of sets of valents which may be combined with different verbs. For example, give and put usually have a valency of 3 (trivalent), but the valents governed by the former (subject, direct object and indirect object) are different from those governed by the latter subject, direct object, and locative adverbial). Verbs which differ in this way are said to be associated with different valency sets. The notion is similar to that used in case grammar, where cases are sometimes referred to as valency roles (Crystal, 2008 ).



15. Term : Antipassive /æntɪꞌpæsiv /n or adj/ (p.235)

Description : In grammar, a term used primarily to characterize a type of voice in ergative languages (e.g. Dyirbal) which is the functional equivalent of the passive in non-ergative languages. In these languages, the topic of a clause is usually the patient, not (as in English) the actor, and the antipassive construction handles cases where the actor is chosen as topic. Antipassive forms are formally more complex than the corresponding ergative forms, with the verb marked by a derivational suffix. The use of an anti passive does not exclude the possibility that passive or passive-like constructions may also occur in the same language (as in Maasai). The term is also sometimes used with reference to non-ergative languages, such as English, for certain types of apparently intransitive construction for example, verbs such as cook or paint when used without their object (Crystal, 2008 ).

16. Term : Enclitic /n/(p.241)

Definition : From the word Clitic/n/. A term used in grammar to refer to a form which resembles a word, but which cannot stand on its own as a normal utterance, being phonologically dependent upon a neighbouring word (its host) in a construction.(The term ‘clitic’ comes from the Greek word for ‘leaning’.) Such clitic words (‘clitics’) can be classified into proclitics (i.e. they depend upon a following word, as in the case of the articles) and enclitics (i.e. they depend upon a preceding word, as in the attachment (cliticization)of some pronouns to the end of a verb form in Italian or Spanish). The processes are also referred to as proclisis and enclisis respectively (Crystal, 2008 ).

Example : Examples of cliticized forms are the contracted forms of be, such as I’m and he’s. The articles of English, French, etc., are sometimes referred to as clitics: a form like the cannot stand on its own in normal utterance, but it would be called a word none the less by native-speakers.



17. Term : Inversion /ɪnꞌvɜ:ʒn /n/ (p.244)

Definition : a term used in grammatical analysis to refer to the process or result of syntactic change in which a specific sequence of constituents is seen as the reverse of another.

Examples : In English, one of the main ways of forming questions is by inverting the order of subject and auxiliary, e.g. Is he going (Crystal, 2008 ).

Another example, in English the auxiliary comes after the subject noun in declarative sentences (e.g. He will come by at 8 o’clock) but before the subject in questions (Will he come by at 8?). This specific operation is called subject–verb inversion.(Richards, Schmidt, Kendricks, & Kim, 2002)



18. Terms : Confixation (p.299) Interfixation (p.299) Infixation, Circumfixation and Transfixation (p.300)

Definition : The term affixation can be broken down into confixation (when affixes do not interrupt roots and are not interrupted themselves, as in Suffixation, Prefixation, and Interfixation, Infixation (when affixes that interrupt roots but are not interrupted themselves), Circumfixation (when affixes do not interrupt roots but are interrupted themselves) and Transfixation (when affixes interrupt roots and are interrupted by elements of roots themselves). Unlike affixation, compounding involves the binding of two lexeme stems, while conversion takes place when a word assumes the characteristics of a different word-class without any change of form.



19. Term : Augmentative /ↄ:gꞌment /n/(p.357)

Definition : (Augm) a term used in morphology to refer to an affix with the general meaning of ‘large’, used literally or metaphorically (often implying awkwardness or ugliness).

Example :Examples of augmentatives include -one in Italian and -ón in Spanish (e.g. sillón‘arm chair’, cf. silla‘chair’).



20. Term : Monosyllabic /mɒnǝsiꞌlæbik /adj/ (p.484)

Definition : Monosyllabic in which words predominantly consist of a single syllable.

Description : The languages of China and Southeast Asia are sometimes referred to as monosyllabic. The languages of the region tend to be highly isolating and can be phonetically complex (the phonetic rules of Thai language permits 23 638 possible syllables, compared to, for example, Hawaiian language's 162). The difficulty of defining the term "word," such as the difficulty of telling apart collocations, set phrases and compound words in languages such as Chinese or English (is "dog house/doghouse" a single word or a two-word phrase?), the subjective question of what constitutes "most" words to make a language monosyllabic (there are no living languages that are strictly monosyllabic) and other such considerations render the topic non-scientific and unencyclopedic (Hannas, 1997).



21. Term :Ellipsis /ɪꞌlipsis /n/ (p.488)

Definition :A term used in grammatical analysis to refer to a sentence where, for reasons of economy, emphasis or style, a part of the structure has been omitted, which is recoverable from a scrutiny of the context. Traditional grammars talk here of an element being ‘understood’, but linguistic analyzes tend to constrain the notion more, emphasizing the need for the elided (or ellipted) parts of the sentence to be unambiguously specifiable. (Trask, 2013)

Example : Take a look in this sequence;

A: Where are you going?

B: To town

The ‘full’ form of B’s sentence is predictable from A’s sentence (‘I am going to town’). But in such sentences as Thanks, Yes, etc., it is generally unclear what the full form of such sentences might be (e.g. ‘Thanks are due to you’? ‘I give you thanks’?), and in such circumstances the term ‘ellipsis’ would probably not be used. Elliptical constructions are an essential feature of everyday conversation, but the rules governing their occurrence have received relatively little study. They are also sometimes referred to as reduced, contracted, deleted, or ‘abbreviated’ constructions.



22. Term :Truncation/trʌŋkeɪʃǝn /n/ (p.493)

Definition :A term sometimes used in phonology to refer to a process of word shortening which is phonologically predictable. Certain types of hypocoristic (pet-name), for example, have been shown to be truncated in a regular way. The process has attracted particular attention in prosodic morphology, where it is used to illustrate such processes as template-mapping and prosodic circumscription.



23. Term :Haplology /hæpꞌlɒdʒi /n/ (p.497)

Definition :The morphological process in which one of two consecutive morphs of identical or similar form is dropped.In phonology, it is largely used in both synchronic and diachronic contexts, to refer to the omission of some of the sounds occurring in a sequence of similar articulations, as when cyclists is pronounced /ꞌsaikli:/, library /ꞌlaɪbrɪ. Some psycholinguists also use the term to refer to a tongue-slip where an omission of this kind has taken place, e.g. running jump becoming rump



Example : The Basque word for 'cider', a compound of sagar' apple' and ardo 'wine', ought, by the usual rules of word formation, to have the form *sagar-ardo, but the actual form is sagardo, in which one of the -ar- sequences has been dropped.

REFERENCES

Crystal, D. (Ed.) (2008 ) A Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics (6 ed.). UK: Blackwell Publishing.

čuk, I. M. (2004). Actants in Semantics. Linguistics, 42(1).

Glottopedia. Retrieved 2, 2017, from http://www.glottopedia.org/index.php/Actant

Hannas, W. C. (1997). Asia's Orthographic Dilemma. Honolulu: University of Hawai`i Press.

Richards, J. C., Schmidt, R., Kendricks, H., & Kim, Y. (Eds.). (2002) (3 ed.). London: Pearson Education.

Trask, R. L. (Ed.) (2013) A dictionary of Grammatical Terms in Linguistics. London, England: Taylor & Francis.