Glossary

A declarative sentence makes a statement or conveys information.

The deep structure of a sentence or phrase refers to the basic syntactic structure that is constructed in a speaker's mind before the application of any transformational rules. This is the level at which all grammatical constraints are 'checked-off' such as theta assignment.

Words of degree are adjectives and adverbs that offer relative hierarchical, spectral or binary semantic specification. ex: 'big' (positive degree), 'bigger' (comparative degree) and 'biggest' (superlative degree)

A deictic word or expression is one that is bound to a context in order to have meaning. For example, in order to interpret the meaning of 'me', the speaker must be known. There are several types of deictic expressions. Personal: pronouns in English such as 'you', 'him', 'it', etc. Temporal: primarily adverbs in English such as 'then', 'tomorrow', 'later', etc. Spacial: 'here' and 'there' or 'this book' and 'that' hang board'

Deletion is a phonological process by which a sound is removed from a phonological environment, often in order to facilitate articulation. ex: /mɛmoɹi/ becomes [mɛmɹi] 'memory'

A demonstrative adjective modifies a noun phrase by indicating some type of location in space and time. ex: 'This' dress looks better on you than 'that' one.

The term dental refers to a place of articulation in which a sound is produced by the tip of the tongue coming into contact with the back of the upper teeth. It is represented by the diacritic /d̪/. Languages that have dental phonemes include Finnish, Polish, and Russian.

A derivation is a process by which a sound or group of sounds is altered by the application of a phonological or morphological rule. In phonology, a derivation occurs when an underlying form undergoes a language-specific rule or constraint yielding an altered surface form. Ex: In English, /t/ is that which a speaker believes s/he is articulating in the word 'tea'. However, since /t/ is word initial, it will become aspirated [tʰ]. A morphological derivation occurs when a root undergoes affixation, which changes either meaning or the part of speech. Ex: 'happy' (an adjective) + 'ness' (a suffix)= 'happiness' (noun).

A descriptive grammar gives an analysis and formulates rules about a language based on speakers' linguistic performance without deciding which forms are grammatical or ungrammatical.

Desphilic is the first standard script of Persian Romanization that uses the standard US English keyboard to transcribe the Persian language using the Roman alphabet. 

A determiner is closed-class word or morpheme that modifies, thus is always followed by, a noun. ex: the, a, those, his, etc.

A diactritic is a small mark or sign added to a phonetic symbol in order to add a feature that will alter the sound. ex: In Standard English word initial /p/ is aspirated thus the diacritic /ʰ/ is used to distinguish an aspirated /pʰ/ from an unaspirated /p/.

A dialect is a systematic variance (phonological, morphological, syntactic, or semantic) of an established language that develops due to social and/or geographical factors.

Diglossia is a type of linguistic standardization in which a group of speakers use two distinct dialects of a language based on social context.   ex: Jamaicans may switch between Jamaican English, a more standard variety of Jamaican, and Jamaican patois.

A diphthong is a complex vowel sound consisting of two vowel segments (a vowel + a glide) that form one sound. ex: In Standard English, the vowel sound in the word 'bake' consists of the vowel /e/ that is followed by the off-glide /j/ (or /y, i/ depending on one's method of transcribing). /bejk/

A direct object is a noun phrase complement of a transitive/intransitive verb that generally receives the action of the verb directly, often answering the question 'what' or 'who' after an action verb. ex: The student read what? The student read the book.  Batman invited who to the party? Batman invited Spiderman to the party.

Dissimilation is a phonological process in which the features of one or more phonemes are altered to become less similar to adjacent/surrounding similar phonemes. ex: In modern Greek when adjacent stops occur in a word, one will become a fricative. /epta/ --> [efta] 'seven'

A distinctive feature is a value or property of a phoneme that will distinguish it from other similar phonemes.  ex: In Standard English, the distinctive feature of [voice] distinguishes /t/ [-voice] from /d/ [+voice].

A ditransitive verb is one that requires both a direct and an indirect object. ex: John gave the gift to his sister. dir. obj. ind. obj.

Dittology is a phonological process by which a syllable is intentionally or unintentionally repeated in a word. ex: 'preventive' is pronounced 'preventitive'.

In the lexical retrieval processing of ambiguous words, the dominant meaning will be the first to be accessed.

Dynamic semantics encompasses a theoretical viewpoint that states that the meaning of an utterance (sentence, phrase) will change according to the discourse context in which it is uttered. The speaker may have a specific meaning intended that could be altered by the listener based on the context of the conversation.

Dysarthria is a characteristic of motor speech disorders caused by neuromuscular weakness, paralysis, or dis-coordination. Dysarthria impacts respiration, phonation, resonance and articulation.

According to the International Dyslexia Association (IDA), dyslexia is a specific learning disability characterized by difficulties with accurate and/or fluent word recognition and spelling. The IDA proposes that these difficulties typically result from a deficit in the phonological component of language and are unexpected in relation to age and other cognitive academic abilities.