| linguistics | | |
| n. (cognition) | 1. linguistics | the scientific study of language. |
| ~ linguistic performance | (linguistics) a speaker's actual use of language in real situations; what the speaker actually says, including grammatical errors and other non-linguistic features such as hesitations and other disfluencies (contrasted with linguistic competence). |
| ~ tone | (linguistics) a pitch or change in pitch of the voice that serves to distinguish words in tonal languages.; "the Beijing dialect uses four tones" |
| ~ complementary distribution, complementation | (linguistics) a distribution of related speech sounds or forms in such a way that they only appear in different contexts. |
| ~ linguistic competence | (linguistics) a speaker's implicit, internalized knowledge of the rules of their language (contrasted with linguistic performance). |
| ~ feature of speech, feature | (linguistics) a distinctive characteristic of a linguistic unit that serves to distinguish it from other units of the same kind. |
| ~ science, scientific discipline | a particular branch of scientific knowledge.; "the science of genetics" |
| ~ cognitive science | the field of science concerned with cognition; includes parts of cognitive psychology and linguistics and computer science and cognitive neuroscience and philosophy of mind. |
| ~ computational linguistics | the use of computers for linguistic research and applications. |
| ~ dialect geography, linguistic geography | the study of the geographical distribution of linguistic features. |
| ~ etymology | the study of the sources and development of words. |
| ~ diachronic linguistics, diachrony, historical linguistics | the study of linguistic change.; "the synchrony and diachrony of language" |
| ~ grammar | the branch of linguistics that deals with syntax and morphology (and sometimes also deals with semantics). |
| ~ descriptive grammar | a grammar that is produced by descriptive linguistics. |
| ~ prescriptive grammar | a grammar that is produced by prescriptive linguistics. |
| ~ phrase structure, sentence structure, syntax | the grammatical arrangement of words in sentences. |
| ~ syntax | studies of the rules for forming admissible sentences. |
| ~ generative grammar | (linguistics) a type of grammar that describes syntax in terms of a set of logical rules that can generate all and only the infinite number of grammatical sentences in a language and assigns them all the correct structural description. |
| ~ phonemics, phonology | the study of the sound system of a given language and the analysis and classification of its phonemes. |
| ~ neurolinguistics | the branch of linguistics that studies the relation between language and the structure and function of the nervous system. |
| ~ pragmatics | the study of language use. |
| ~ semantics | the study of language meaning. |
| ~ sociolinguistics | the study of language in relation to its sociocultural context. |
| ~ structural linguistics, structuralism | linguistics defined as the analysis of formal structures in a text or discourse. |
| ~ synchronic linguistics | the study of a language without reference to its historical context. |
| ~ descriptive linguistics | a description (at a given point in time) of a language with respect to its phonology and morphology and syntax and semantics without value judgments. |
| ~ prescriptive linguistics | an account of how a language should be used instead of how it is actually used; a prescription for the `correct' phonology and morphology and syntax and semantics. |
| ~ descriptivism | (linguistics) a doctrine supporting or promoting descriptive linguistics. |
| ~ prescriptivism | (linguistics) a doctrine supporting or promoting prescriptive linguistics. |
| ~ derivative | (linguistics) a word that is derived from another word.; "`electricity' is a derivative of `electric'" |
| ~ descriptor, form, signifier, word form | the phonological or orthographic sound or appearance of a word that can be used to describe or identify something.; "the inflected forms of a word can be represented by a stem and a list of inflections to be attached" |
| ~ root word, stem, root, theme, radical, base | (linguistics) the form of a word after all affixes are removed.; "thematic vowels are part of the stem" |
| ~ participant role, semantic role | (linguistics) the underlying relation that a constituent has with the main verb in a clause. |
| ~ postposition | (linguistics) the placing of one linguistic element after another (as placing a modifier after the word that it modifies in a sentence or placing an affix after the base to which it is attached). |
| ~ preposition | (linguistics) the placing of one linguistic element before another (as placing a modifier before the word it modifies in a sentence or placing an affix before the base to which it is attached). |
| ~ topicalization | (linguistics) emphasis placed on the topic or focus of a sentence by preposing it to the beginning of the sentence; placing the topic at the beginning of the sentence is typical for English.; "`Those girls, they giggle when they see me' and `Cigarettes, you couldn't pay me to smoke them' are examples of topicalization" |
| ~ morphophoneme | (linguistics) the phonemes (or strings of phonemes) that constitute the various allomorphs of a morpheme. |
| ~ phoneme | (linguistics) one of a small set of speech sounds that are distinguished by the speakers of a particular language. |
| ~ allophone | (linguistics) any of various acoustically different forms of the same phoneme. |
| ~ linguistic rule, rule | (linguistics) a rule describing (or prescribing) a linguistic practice. |
| ~ linguistic universal, universal | (linguistics) a grammatical rule (or other linguistic feature) that is found in all languages. |
| ~ sign | a fundamental linguistic unit linking a signifier to that which is signified.; "The bond between the signifier and the signified is arbitrary" |
| ~ phylum | (linguistics) a large group of languages that are historically related. |
| ~ aphaeresis, apheresis | (linguistics) omission at the beginning of a word as in `coon' for `raccoon' or `till' for `until'. |
| ~ linguistic process | a process involved in human language. |
| ~ voice | (linguistics) the grammatical relation (active or passive) of the grammatical subject of a verb to the action that the verb denotes. |
| ~ obscure | reduce a vowel to a neutral one, such as a schwa. |
| ~ reduce | destress and thus weaken a sound when pronouncing it. |
| ~ etymologise, etymologize | construct the history of words. |
| ~ topicalize | emphasize by putting heavy stress on or by moving to the front of the sentence.; "Speakers topicalize more often than they realize"; "The object of the sentence is topicalized in what linguists call `Yiddish Movement'" |
| ~ geminate, reduplicate | form by reduplication.; "The consonant reduplicates after a short vowel"; "The morpheme can be reduplicated to emphasize the meaning of the word" |
| ~ analytic, uninflected | expressing a grammatical category by using two or more words rather than inflection. |
| ~ synthetic | systematic combining of root and modifying elements into single words. |
| ~ animate | belonging to the class of nouns that denote living beings.; "the word `dog' is animate" |
| ~ inanimate | belonging to the class of nouns denoting nonliving things.; "the word `car' is inanimate" |
| ~ cacuminal, retroflex | pronounced with the tip of the tongue turned back toward the hard palate. |
| ~ inflected | showing alteration in form (especially by the addition of affixes).; "`boys' and `swam' are inflected English words"; "German is an inflected language" |
| ~ uninflected | not inflected.; "`boy' and `swim' are uninflected English words" |
| ~ early | of an early stage in the development of a language or literature.; "the Early Hebrew alphabetical script is that used mainly from the 11th to the 6th centuries B.C."; "Early Modern English is represented in documents printed from 1476 to 1700" |
| ~ old | of a very early stage in development.; "Old English is also called Anglo Saxon"; "Old High German is High German from the middle of the 9th to the end of the 11th century" |
| ~ middle | of a stage in the development of a language or literature between earlier and later stages.; "Middle English is the English language from about 1100 to 1500"; "Middle Gaelic" |
| ~ late | of a later stage in the development of a language or literature; used especially of dead languages.; "Late Greek" |
| ~ modern, new | used of a living language; being the current stage in its development.; "Modern English"; "New Hebrew is Israeli Hebrew" |
| ~ new | in use after medieval times.; "New Eqyptian was the language of the 18th to 21st dynasties" |
| ~ cognate | having the same ancestral language.; "cognate languages" |
| ~ received, standard | conforming to the established language usage of educated native speakers.; "standard English"; "received standard English is sometimes called the King's English" |
| ~ acceptable | judged to be in conformity with approved usage.; "acceptable English usage" |
| ~ nonstandard | not conforming to the language usage of a prestige group within a community.; "a nonstandard dialect is one used by uneducated speakers or socially disfavored groups"; "the common core of nonstandard words and phrases in folk speech" |
| ~ bad | nonstandard.; "so-called bad grammar" |
| ~ unaccepted, unacceptable | not conforming to standard usage.; "the following use of `access' was judged unacceptable by a panel of linguists; `You can access your cash at any of 300 automatic tellers'" |
| ~ suprasegmental | pertaining to a feature of speech that extends over more than a single speech sound. |
| ~ segmental | divided or organized into speech segments or isolable speech sounds. |
| ~ autosemantic | of a word or phrase meaningful in isolation, independent of context. |
| ~ synsemantic | of a word or phrase meaningful only when it occurs in the company of other words. |
| ~ radical | of or relating to or constituting a linguistic root.; "a radical verb form" |
| ~ polyphonic | having two or more phonetic values.; "polyphonic letters such as `a'" |
| ~ homophonous | characteristic of the phenomenon of words of different origins that are pronounced the same way.; "'horse' and 'hoarse' are homophonous words" |
| ~ ablative | relating to the ablative case. |
| ~ aspectual | of or belonging to an aspect (as an aspect of the verb).; "the aspectual system of Greek" |
| ~ prepositional | of or relating to or formed with a preposition.; "prepositional phrase" |
| ~ vocative | relating to a case used in some languages.; "vocative verb endings" |
| n. (cognition) | 2. linguistics, philology | the humanistic study of language and literature. |
| ~ arts, humanistic discipline, humanities, liberal arts | studies intended to provide general knowledge and intellectual skills (rather than occupational or professional skills).; "the college of arts and sciences" |
| ~ dialectology | the branch of philology that is devoted to the study of dialects. |
| ~ lexicology | the branch of linguistics that studies the lexical component of language. |
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