Theoretical Grammar of English/DEFINITIONS

DEFINITIONS

anaphora – The relation between a pronoun and another element in the same or in an earlier sentence that supplies its referent. E.g. in Mary disguised herself, the reflexive pronoun herself is understood as anaphoric to Mary: that is, it refers to whomever Mary refers to. Likewise, e.g., in conversation, across sentence boundaries. Thus, if A asks, “Where’s Mary?” and B says “She’s in the garden,” she in the sentence B utters is meant to be understood as anaphonic to earlier Mary.

Thence of similar elements involving elements other than pronouns: e.g. the idiot is anaphoric to John in I asked John, but the idiot wouldn’t tell me; do so is anaphoric to help in I wanted to help but couldn’t do so. Also to cases of anticipatory anaphora”; e.g. she is anaphoric to Mary in When she read it, Mary was delighted. But the term is the Greek for referring “up”: i.e. to something earlier. Hence, anticipatory anaphora is often distinguished as cataphora (“referring down”). Their mother’s nitpicking drove the sisters berserk.

calque – A word or expression that has been formed by translation of a corresponding word or expression in another language. E.g. French gratte-ciel “skyscraper” (lit. “scratch-sky”) is a calque on English skyscraper. Also called a loan translation.

category – Any class or system of grammatical or lexical units distinguished at some level in the structure of a language. “Noun phrase,” for example, is a *syntactic category. “Case” and “tense” are inflectional or *morpho-syntactic categories. Color terms or terms for kinship might be said to form a “lexical category” and so on.

clitic – A grammatical element treated as an independent word in syntax but forming a phonological unit with the word that precedes or follows it. E.G. Ancient Greek tis is a clitic in nêsós tis “a (certain) island”: it is inflected independently (in this case as nominative singular) but actually forms a unit with the word for island (basically nêsós) that precedes it.

From the Greek word for leaning”: thus, unaccentuated tis “leans on” nêsós. “Enclitics” are “clitics” linked phonologically, as here, to the word preceding, proclitics those linked to the following word. The distinction between clitics and affixes is naturally fluid: e.g. English -n’t in haven’t or aren’t is a clitic by some criteria but has to be claimed as an affix by others. So, too, is the boundary between clitics and full words: e.g. unstressed to is a clitic, by some relevant criteria, in I have to go.

defective – (Lexical unit) whose paradigm is incomplete in comparison with others of he major class that it belongs to. E.g. Latin aio was a defective verb for “to say” found only in some tenses and for only some persons.

deixis – the way in which the reference of certain elements in a sentence is determined in relation to a specific speaker and addressee and a specific time and place of utterance. E.g. in I came yesterday, the reference of I will be to whoever is speaking on some specific occasion, and the time reference of yesterday will be to the day before the one on which the speaker is speaking.

Hence, deitic, of any element or category whose reference is determined dietically. Thus, I and you are deictic elements, as opposed to potentially anaphoric pronouns, such as he or she. So are here as opposed to there (location in space in relation to a speaker), now as opposed to then, (location in time in relation to a speaker), or come and go (direction of movement basically in relation to a speaker).Tense is similiarly a deitic category (present, past or future) in relation to the time of speaking.

The Greek term is from a verb “to show” or “to point out.” Applied in antiquity to pronouns, including demonstratives (= ‘deitics’), such as this and that. Index finger derive from this Greek word.

notional – (Category, distinction) defined by our perception of the world in which acts of speech take place, independently of he structure of a specific language. Thus, time is a notional category: for any act of speech, there is a time when the words are uttered, ther are other times preceding it and others that are to come. It may be represented, in a particular language, by the *grammatical category of *tense. But time and tense are of a different order; and, although the basic role of tenses is to indicate time, they commonly have other roles, as well. Equally, time is commonly indicated in ways other than by tense: e.g. by adverbs, such as today and yesterday,

For similar distinctions between notional and grammatical categories cf e.g. modality and mood; participants and persons.

nominative (NOM) – Case whose basic role, or one of shoes basic roles, is to indicate a subject of all classes of verb. Thus, in Latin, miles portas claudit (soldier-NOM) gates closes) “A soldier is closing the gates,) wherein the verb is transitive; miles venit (soldier-NOM has-come”) “A soldier has come,” wherin it is intransitive.

notional – (Category, distinction) defined by our perception of the world in which acts of speech take place, independently of the structure of a specific language. Thus, time is a notional category: for any act of speech, there is a time when the words are uttered and other times preceding and following it. Time may be represented, in a particular language, by the grammatical category of tense. Time and tense, though, are of a different order; and, although the basic role of tenses is to indicate time, they commonly have other roles, as well. Equally, time is commonly indicated in ways other than by tense: e.g. by adverbs such as today or tomorrow.

Similar distinctions between notional and grammatical categories are manifest in modality and mood; participants vs. persons.

paradigm – The forms of a given noun, verb. Ec., arranged systematically according to their grammatical features. In the illustration below, those of the Latin word for “table” (mensa) are arranged in two dimensions, one defined by features of case (nominative, vocative, genitive, etc.) and the other by number (singular, plural).

In the teaching tradition, paradigms such as that of mensa are learned as models (the original meaning of the Greek word from which “paradigm” comes) from which a pupil can deduce the corresponding forms of other words belonging to the same inflectional class. In a current account, this is one form of Word and Paradigm morphology.

SG PL

NOM mensa mensae

VOC mensa mensae

ACC mensam mensās

GEN mensae mensārum

DAT mensae mensīs

ABL mensā mensīs

particle – Used of divers classes of uninflected words in divers languages, (including Russian). Usually of words that are short, sometimes, though not always, clitic, and generally not falling easily under any of the traditional parts of speech. A typical example is the enclitic ge in Ancient Greek, basically a marker of emphasis: keînós ge…”THAT (man)…” or “THAT (man) at least…”

Used by e.g. C.F. Hockett in the 1950s of all forms that do not take inflection. Also by Jespersen of all the elements, e.g. in English, traditionally called adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions, and interjections. Thence, specifically in English, of the second element of a phrasal verb: e.g. up in I picked it up.

predicate – 1. A part of a clause or sentence traditionally seen as representing what is said of, or predicated of, the subject. E.g. in My wife bought a coat in London, the subject my wife refers to someone of whom it is said, in the predicate, that she bought a coat in London. 2. A verb or other unit that takes a set of arguments within a sentence. Thus, in the same example, “buy” is a two-place predicate whose arguments are represented by my wife and a coat.

The senses are, respectively, from ancient and modern logic. For sense (1), cf. verb phrase, but that is sometimes used of a smaller unit within the predicate.

privative – 1. (Opposition) between marked and unmarked phonemes which are distinguished by the presence or absence of some phonetic feature: e.g. between a voiced consonant or a long vowel, seen as having the feature of *voice (1) or of length, and a voiceless consonant or a short vowel, seen as lacking it. Opp. Equipollent. 2. = negative. Thus, a negative prefix a(n)- is called privative in Ancient Greek.: e.g. in an-áxios ‘un-worthy.’

productivity – The property of permitting novel combinations of elements. Often referred to as a design feature of language in general: thus it is possible for any speaker to combine words into a sentence that they have neither spoken nor heard before. Also of specific rules, formations or constructions: e.g. the formation of adjectives in –able is productive in that speakers can readily create new ones (Is it climb-up-able? It’s not vacuum-able, Do you reckon it’s do-able? etc.)

progressive (PROG) – Feature of verbal forms used to refer to actions, etc., seen as in progress without necessary time limits. E.g. am reading is present progressive in I am reading your book, was reading past progressive in I was reading your book. More generally, the progressive in English is marked by a construction in which a form of the auxiliary “be” (am, was, etc.) is linked to an -ing form.

semantics – The study of meaning. It covers both grammar and the lexicon.

syntax – The study of grammatical relations between words and other units within the sentence.

synthetic – (Form, language) in which grammatical distinctions are realized by inflections. Opp. Analytic: e.g. a possessive construction is realized analytically in Italian (la casa di Cesare, lit. ‘the house of Cesar’ but was realized synthetically in Latin domus Caesaris ‘house-NOMSG Caesar-GENSG.’

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On aspect: durative – punctual – progressive

durative – (Aspect) indicating a process, e.g. seen as continuing for an appreciable time. Thus, the use of the past tense might be considered as durative in I worked in Paris for five years. Opp.: punctual; cf. progressive.

punctual – (Aspect) marking an action, etc. taking place at an undivided moment of time, e.g. that of woke in ‘I woke up at 5:00 this morning.”

progressive – (Aspect) Feature of verbal forms used to refer to actions, etc., seen as in progress without necessary time limits. E.g. am reading is present progressive in I am reading your book, was reading past progressive in I was reading your book. More generally, the progressive in English is marked by a construction in which a form of the auxiliary be” (am, was, etc.) is linked to the present participle. Also called “continuous.” The distinction between progressive and non-progressive (I am reading vs. I read) is one of aspect.

Work Cited

Matthews, P.H. Oxford Concise Dictionary of Linguistics. Oxford UP. Oxford: 1997.