Lingg 166 Glossary Vanessa Mak

Vanessa Mak

2005-00875

Lingg 166 – Linguistic Glossary

LOCATIVE (LOC)

• • •

•

•

The case which identifies the location or spatial orientation of the state or action identified by the verb. [Chicago is windy; It is windy in Chicago] (Malmkjaer 1991 : 67) a declensional case used to express geographical or other physical location, i.e., having the same denotation as the English preposition in (Pei and Gaynor 1954 : 125) In Language which express grammaical relationships by means of inflections, this term refers to the form taken by a noun phrase (often a single noun or pronoun), when it typically expresses the idea of location of an entity or action. English does not have a locative case form, using such prepositions as at instead. Structures which express location meaning may also be referred to as locative, e.g. in The man was standing at a bus stop, at a bus stop could be called a locative phrase. Some linguists see locative constructions as having particular importance in developing a linguistic theory, interpreting such notions as ‘being’, ‘having’, etc., as involving a fundamental locative feature. The term is also given special status in case grammar. (Crystal 1991 : 206) Morphological case in some languages which serves to identify location; e.g. Turkish ev ‘house’ vs. evde ‘in the house’. Some remnants of the locative can be found in Latin, where its function has been taken over mostly by the ablative or prepositional constructions. (288) Term for the semantic role of location in case grammar. (288)

MASCULINE (M)

•

A feature of nouns under grammatical gender, associated with male (Malmkjaer 1991 : 481)

NEUTER (N) •

A feature of nouns under grammatical gender, associated with sexless things (Malmkjaer 1991 : 481)

NEGATION, NEGATIVE (NEG)

•

a process or construction in grammatical and semantic analysis which typically expresses the contradiction of some or all of a sentence’s meaning. In English grammar, it is expressed by the presence of the ‘negative particle’ not or n’t (the contracted negative); in lexis, there are several possible means, e.g. prefixes such as un-, non-, or words such as deny. Some (as in French ne…pas). The use of more than one negative form in the same clause (as in ‘double negatives’) is a characteristic of some English dialects, e.g. I’m not unhappy (which is a stylistically marked mode of assertion) and I’ve not done nothing (which is not acceptable in standard English). In recent linguistics, a topic of particular interest has been the range of sentence structure affected by the position of a negative particule, e.g. I think John isn’t coming vs. I don’t think John is coming: such variations in the scope of negation affect the logical structure as well as the semantic analysis of the sentence. The opposite ‘pole’ to negative is positive (or affirmative), and the system of contrasts made by a language in this area is often referred to as polarity. Negative polarity items are those words or phrases which can appear only in a negative environment in a

•

sentence, e.g. any in I haven’t got any books (cf. *I’ve got any books). (Crystal 1991 : 231) In contrast with logical negation, natural language negation functions not only as sentence negation, but also primarily as clausal or consituent negation : She did not pay (= negation of predication), No one paid anything ( = negation of the subject NP), He paid nothing (= negation of the object NP). Here, the scope (semantic coverage) of negation is frequently polysemic or dependent on the placement of negation, on the sentence stress, as well as on the linguistic and/or extralinguistic context. Natural language negation may be realized in various ways : a.) lexically with adverbs and adverbial expressions (not, never, by no means), indefinite pronouns (nobody, nohing, none), coordinating conjunctions (neither…nor), sentence equivalents (no), or prepositions (without, besides); b.) morphologically with prefixes (in + exact, un + interested) or suffixes (help + less); c.) Intonationally with contrastive accent (in Jacob is not flying to New York tomorrow., the negation can refer to Jacob, flying, New York, or tomorrow depending which elements are stressed); d.) Idiomatically by expressions like ‘For all I care…’ (323)

NOMINALIZER/NOMINALIZATION (NMLZ)

•

•

•

•

•

•

Any grammatical unit which behaves like a noun or noun phrase but which is built up from something very different. The English word arrive is a verb, as in She arrived at ten o’ clock. But the word arrival is a noun, as in Her sudden arrival surprised us. Clearly the noun arrival is built up from the verb arrive, and so we say that arrival is a nominalization of arrive. (Trask 1944 : 204) There are more complex and elaborate types of nominalization. For example, in Tom and Sally Perkins study volcanoes, the sequence study volcanoes is a verb phrase. But Studying volcanoes is dangerous work, this verb phrase has been nominalized into a noun phrase (it is the subject of the sentence). (Trask 1944 : 204) Yet another type of nominalization can be built up from Susie smokes, which is a complete sentence. This entire sentence can be nominalized into a noun phrase, as in That Susie smokes surprises me, in which the nominalization that Susie smokes is again the subject of its sentence. (Trask 1944 : 204) English allows adjectives to be nominalized only in limited circumstance, as in The poor are always with us, in which the adjective poor has been nominalized into a noun. But Spanish allows any adjective at all to be nominalized, as in el rojo ‘the red one’, in which the adjective rojo ‘red’ has been nominalized. (Trask 1944 : 204) The use of nominalizations for various communicative purposes has been particularly investigated within Systemic Linguistics within which nominalizations are treated as a kind of grammatical metaphor. (Trask 1944 : 204) a term used in some grammatical descriptions as a substitute for noun (e.g. nominal group = noun phrase). In a more restricted sense, it refers to words which have some of the attributes of nouns but not all, e.g. the poor are many, where the head word of this phrase, does not pluralise (*the poors). Nominalisation refers to the process of forming a noun from some other word-class (e.g. red+ness) or (in classical transformational grammar especially) the derivation of a noun phrase from an underlying clause (e.g. His answering of the letter from He answered the letter). The term is also used in the classification of relative clauses (e.g. What concerns me is his attitude). (Crystal 1991 : 233-4)

• •

Every derivation of nouns from another word class, e.g. from verbs (feeling vs. feel) or adjective (redness vs. red) but also from another word (womanhood vs. woman). (327) Productive process of word formation through which words of all word classes can be used as nouns. In conrast to conversion (hit < to hit), lexicalization is not an underlying phenomenon of nominalization. Normally, nominalization concerns adjectives (including participles) that appear as abstract concepts (the inconceivable) or as nouns denoting persons (one’s contemporaries; the good, the bad), where the resulting word keeps its attributive adjectival function. Also verbs and verb phrases frequently appear as gerunds in nominal phrases : swearing, twiddling one’s thumbs. Virtually any word can be nominalized conjuctions (no ifs, ands, or, buts), adverbs (the here and now), particles (a resounding no), or parts of words (an ism). (327)

NOMINATIVE (NOM) • •

•

Nominative case – a feature of the noun largely functionally definable (in this case, the nominative, for mentioning the subject) and translatable as boy (subject). (Malmkjaer 1991 : 481) That case-form in which a noun, pronoun, adjective, etc., is used when standing alone and without any syntactical context or relationship, or when used as the grammatical subject of a sentence. (Pei and Gaynor 1954 : 147) In languages which express grammatical relationships by means of inflections, this term refers to the form taken by a noun phrase (often a siingle noun or pronoun) when it is the subject of a verb. It is usually the first form to be listed in a grammatical paradigm, or in a dictionary, and is often the unmarked form (cf. Oblique), e.g. in Latin, homo (‘man’) is nominative singular (cf. hominem, hominis, etc.) The term is also used in recent generative grammar, to refer to the case assigned to the subject NP in a finite clause. In the phrase nominative island condition, it refers to a type of constraint on the freedom of movement of items occuring inside a clause containing a nominative-marked subject. In government-binding theory, nominative case is assigned to the NP governed by I with AGR, i.e. to the subject in a finite clause. (Crystal 1991 : 234)

OBJECT (OBJ)

•

• •

The case (objective case) which is the semantically most neutral case, the case of anything representable by a noun whose role in the action or state identified by the verb is identified by the semantic interpretation of the verb itself; conceivably the concept should be limited to things which are affected by the action or state identified by the verb. The term is not to be confused with the notion of direct object, nor with the name of the surface case synonymous with accusative. [The door opened.] (Malmkjaer 1991 : 67) The word or word-group or phrase designating the person or thing at which the action expressed in the sentence is directed (Cf. direct object, indirect object) (Pei and Gaynor 1954 : 151) A term used in the analysis of grammatical functions, to refer to a major constituent of sentence or clause structure, traditionally associated with the ‘receiver’ or ‘goal’ of an action, as in The cat bit the dog. Traditional analysis distinguishes a direct versus an indirect object, to allow for sentences such as The man gave a letter/The man gave the boy a letter, which is marked in English by a contrast using prepositions and word order, and in inflecting languages by different cases (typically, the object case being accusative, the indirect object case being dative). In generative grammar, the direct object is called

•

simply ‘object’, and contrasted with indirect object. A further distinction is that between ‘objective GENITIVE’ (i.e. the genitive functions as subject, as in the shouting and ‘subjective genitive’ (i.e. the genitive functions as subject, as in the shouting of the people = ‘people shout’). Much discussion in Linguistics has focused on clarifying the notion of ‘receiving’ an action. In relation to the other elements of clause structure (subject, complement, etc.), distinguishing various kinds of verb-object relationship, both in terms of surface and underlying structure. Examples of problem sentences are John is easy to please (where John is the underlying object of please) and The plants are selling well (where in reality it is the plants which are ‘logical receivers’ of the action). (Crystal 1991 : 240) In the study of inflected languages, objective may be used as an alternative to accusative; e.g. in English the contrast between subject and object forms of pronouns (e.g. he ~ him) is sometimes referred to as a distinction between subjective and objective case. Some linguists talk about the ‘object of a preposition’ to refer to the noun phrase in around the corner. The term ‘objective’ has a special status in case grammar, where it refers to the semantically most neutral case, i.e., a noun whose role in the action is identified by the semantic interpretation of the verb itself. In government-binding theory, objective case is assigned to any noun phrase governed by a transitive verb. (Crystal 1991 : 240)

OBLIQUE (OBL) • •

•

A collective term for all declensional cases other than the nominative and vocative. (In Old French and Old Provencal, the oblique case appears as a single form, opposed to the nominative). (Pei and Gaynor 1954 : 151) 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 case forms of a word except that of the unmarked case, or nominative. (Crystal 1991 : 241) Oblique object – syntactic function filled by a noun phrase in an oblique cae other than the accusative or dative, or by a prepositional or adpositional phrase: German Er klagte der Mann des Mordes an (gen.). ‘He accused the man of murder.’ Oblique objects are not considered to be among the primary syntactic functions of a language such as subject or direct object, which can be seen by the facts that only in a few languages do they require verb agreement or occur as antecedents for reflexive pronouns. Specific semantic functions include: agent (in passive constructions), benefactive, locative, and other semantic categories which are not directly related to the action expressed in the predicate. (336)

PATIENT (P)

• •

A term used by some linguists as part of the grammatical analysis of a sentence: it refers to the entity which is affected by the the action of the verb, e.g. The dog bit the man, goal, and recipient have been used as alternative terms. (Crystal 1991 : 253) Semantic role of elements which are affected by the action of the verb, in contrast to the agent, which is the performer of the action. In nominative langauges such as English, the patient is usually marked as the direct object.

PASSIVE (PASS)

•

•

•

Passive voice - the conjugational category expressing that the action denoted by the verb is performed upon the grammatical subject, i.e., the grammatical subject is actually the direct object, target, or recipient of the action. (Pei and Gaynor : 161) In contrast to the active voice, the subject is the entity undergoing the action, as ub Sultan Bayezit was imprisoned by Tamerlane, or in Sultan Bayezit was imprisoned. The first is called the long passive, or passive-with-agent; the second is the short passive. In English, the passive voice is marked, and it is most typically used either to make the entity undergoing the action the centre of attention, or to remove the entity performing the action (the agent) from the centre of attention, and possibly to remove it from the sentence altogether. In English, the passive voice is marked, and it is most typically used either to make the entity undergoing the action the centre of attention, or to remove the entity performing the action (the agent) from the centre of attention, and possibly to remove it from the sentence altogether. (Trask 1944 : 337) A term used in the grammatical analysis of voice, referring to a sentence, clause, or verb form where the grammatical subject is typically the recipient or ‘goal’ of the action denoted by the vern, e.g. The letter was written by a boy. It is contrasted with active, and sometimes with other forms, e.g. ‘middle’. A linguistic statement of constraints affecting these relationships is a complex matter. In English, for example, there are active sentences that do not have passive counterparts (e.g. The boy fell, They have a car), passive sentences which have an unclear active counterpart (e.g. The house was sold), and so on. In addiitions, there is the problem that the central type of passive construction (using the verb to be, e.g. He was pushed) is closely relation to other types of constructuon (cf. He got pushed, He was interested), and a boundary line is sometimes difficult to establish. Passive constructions which take an agent are agentive passives (e.g. He was kicked (by the dog)), as opposed to ‘non-agentive’ or ‘agentless’ passives, where there is no need for (and sometimes no possibility of) an agentive phrase being added, since the speaker does not have a ‘performer’ of the action in mind (e.g. The city is industrialized now). In generative grammar, the transformation of a sentence from its active to its passive form is known as passivisation. A verb or sentence which undergoes such a process is said to passivise. Two kinds of passive may be distinguished: verbal and adjectival. (Crsytal 1991 : 252)

PERFECTIVE (PFV) •

• •

A verbal aspect expressing a non-habitual or one-time action, or an action considered from the point of view of its completion. (Gei and Paynor 1954 : 164) The grammatical category representing distinctions in the temporal structure of an event. The sentence She smoked illustrates perfective aspect (the event is viewed as an unanalysable whole). (Trask 1944 : 23) A term used in the grammatical description of verb forms, referring to a contrast of a temporal or durative kind, and thus sometimes handled under the heading of tense (e.g. ‘perfect’ ‘future perfect’ ‘pluperfect’) and sometimes under aspect (e.g. ‘perfective’ ‘nonperfective’). It is illustrated in English by the contrast between I go and I have gone, or between I have gone and I had gone (traditionally called the pluperfect, also now past perfect). Linguists prefer an aspectualy analysis here, because of the complex interaction of durational, completive, and temporal features of meaning invovled: tranditional grammar, completive, and temporal features of meaning involved; traditional grammars, however, refer simply to ‘perfect tense’, etc., and thus imply a meaning which is to some degree an oversimplification. ‘Perfect’ in these contexts, refer to a past situation where the event is seen as a present relevance; in perfective aspect, by contrast, a situation is

seen as a whole, regardless of the time contrasts which may be a part of it. Perfective then contrasts with imperfective, which draws attention to the internal timestructuring of the situation. The terminological distinction between ‘perfect’ and ‘perfective’ is often blurred, because grammarians writing on English have often used the latter term to replace the former, presumably because they wish to avoid its traditional associations. But this can lead to confusion in the discussion of those languages (such as the Slavic languages) where both notions are required. In such languages as Russian and Polish, for example, a contrast between perfective and imperfective is fundamental to verb classification, and is formally marked morphologically. For example, the prefic ‘pro-‘ before the verb ‘read’ produces a ‘perfective verb’, which lacks the prefix, there is no such implication. (Crystal 1991 : 254)

Bibliography: Malmkjaer, K., ed. (1991). The Linguistics Encyclopedia. London : Routledge. Pei, M. & Gaynor, F. (1954). A Dictionary of Linguistics. New York : Philisophical library. Trask, R.L.. (1944). Key Concepts in Language and Linguistics. London : Routledge. Crystal, D., ed. (1991). A Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics. Oxford : Blackwell. Trauth, G. (1998). Routledge Dictionary of Language and Linguistic. London : Routledge.s