Glossary
of linguistic terms
ablaut – the patterned variation of vowel sounds in relation to meaning in forms
of the same root; this variation may be in terms either of vowel quality or
of vowel duration; it is seen in present-day
English in verbs such as sing ~
sang ~ sung.
accusative case – grammatical case usually exhibited by a noun phrase often
functioning as the direct object of the verb, and usually (but by no means
always) expressing semantically the goal or patient of the action that the verb
denotes.
active – see
voice.
affix –
prefix or
suffix.
affixation –
process of adding an affix.
agreement – formal relation between two elements, so the form of one element
is required to correspond with the form of the other.
allomorph – one of the variant pronunciations of a morpheme, among which
the choice is determined by context (phonological, grammatical or lexical).
For example, [z], [
ə
z] and [s] are phonologically
determined allomorphs
of the plural suffix, occurring respectively in ‘cats’, ‘dogs’ and ‘horses’. A
morpheme with only one pronunciation is sometimes said to have only one
allomorph.
allophone – one or more phonetic variants of the same
phoneme.
anacrusis – an introductory syllable at the beginning, and preceding, the
normal metrical scheme.
Anglo-Norman – the variety of French spoken
by those who invaded England
at the time of the Norman Conquest, and their descendants.
aspect – the grammatical means which marks the duration or type of temporal
activity denoted by the verb; in English we find progressive (
I am sleeping) and
perfective (
I have slept) aspect.
auxiliary verb – a set of verbs which have primarily grammatical meaning and
which are associated with a following lexical verb; a subset of these verbs are
called in present-day English modal verbs, but it is
not clear that such a subset
existed in Old English.
bahuvrihi – another term for
exocentric, drawn from the terminology of
traditional Sanskrit grammarians.
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borrowing – see
loan word.
bound morpheme,
bound allomorph –
morpheme or
allomorph that cannot
stand on its own as a word. A bound morpheme is one whose allomorphs are
all bound. See also
free morpheme.
case – grammatical category expressing the relationship of a noun phrase to the
verb in its clause. See also
nominative,
accusative,
genitive,
dative,
instru-
mental.
cause – the element which is the source of the action or state expressed by the
verb.
Celtic – one of the branches of
Indo-European, from which are descended,
amongst others, the
present-day languages Breton, Irish Gaelic, Scots Gaelic
and Welsh.
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