Glossary

Identical shift is a morphological process of word formation in which two or more lexical entries share an identical phonological form. No overt affixation occurs however meaning and/or part of speech are effected. Ex: change (v.) and 'change' (n.)

An ideogram is a graphic symbol (picture, icon, emoticon) that represents a concept or idea. This term is often used in referring to hieroglyphs, cuneiform, and Chinese characters.  

The specific and unique manner in which an individual speaks his/her language/dialect. No two individuals share an ideolect.

An idiom is a phrase in which the parts do not equal the whole. i.e., the meaning of the phrase does not depend on the meaning of the individual words. Ex: The meaning of the idiom 'let the cat out of the bag' does not refer to an actual cat or bag. These phrases are stored in the lexicon as a single entry and cannot be translated into other languages.

In lexical retrieval, items (words) that are more easily visualized (more imageable) are more easily accessed, thus more easily retrieved.

This is a theory that claims that children basically  imitate the language they hear around them to acquire their own native language. Serious challenges to this theory have shown that imitation has very little impact on L1 acquisition.

The imperative isood that expresses an order or command and in which the subject is understood but not expressed. Ex: Pass the salt, Don't stand so close to me, Shut the door on the way out.

An implication is a concept or idea that implies others of the same. Ex: 'Mary wants to see another film.' This sentence implies that she has already seen at least one other film. 

A language universal that states that if a language has a feature X, then it also have a feature Y, but the reverse is not necessarily true. Ex: If a language has voiced stops, it will have voiceless stops. However, a language with voiceless stops doesn’t necessarily have voiceless stops.

An implosive is a consonantal sound, mostly a stop/plosive, as implosive affricates are found in very few languages, that is produced by lowering the glottis while quickly exhaling. These phonemes do not exist in English other than in producing onomatopoeic or idiomatic utterance such as the disapproving sound a grandmother makes when you've done something unacceptable.

Impoverished data is a term used to describe the incomplete or impoversihed nature of the language to which children are exposed while acquiring their native tongue, which is noisy, ungrammatical, and includes slips of the tongue and false starts.

An infinite verb is one that is not conjugated with a subject, or inflected for tense, person, number, or gender. In English they are often preceded by 'to' or have the morpheme '-ing' attached. Ex:  Francis wants 'to build' his own house. Francis wants to be 'finishing' construction by May.

An infix is an affix, a bound morpheme, that is inserted into a root or stem. This is not common in English other than using explitives such as 'un-fricking-believable'.  However, in certain languages, infixes are commonly used as derivational and inflectional morphemes. ex: Philippines (Tagalog) The focus marker -um- is a infix which is added after the first consonant of the root. bili: root ‘buy’ -um-: infix ‘AGT’ bumili: word ‘bought’ SIL International

An inflectional morpheme is a bound grammatical marker (versus lexical).  Eight exist in English. ex: '-ed' past tense as in -'barked' '-en' past participle as in - 'hidden' '-s' plural marker as in - 'lights' '-s' third person singular verbal marker as in - 'she 'reads' '-'s' showing possesstion as in - 'Harriet's' tennis ball '-ing' present/past progressive as in - Harriet was 'watching' the parade. '-er' the comparative as in - 'slower' '-est' the superlative as in - 'slowest'

An ingressive consonant, also referred to as an implosive, is produced with airflow moving inward through the oral or nasal cavities. There are four types: pulmonic, glottalic, velaric, and lingual.

This theory was first proposed by Lennenberg (1967) and later formalized by Chomski (1988). It states that humans are genetically predisposed to learning language.

Insertion is a phonological process in which a phoneme not present in the underlying representation is added to a word or group of sounds. ex: Standard English /tɛns/ is actually articulated with a /t/ inserted between the /n/ and the /s/. [tɛnts] This is a formalized rule in Standard English.

This term refers to a thematic role attributed to a noun phrase whose referent is used to bring about the action of a verb. ex. Superman hit the ball with the bat.  In this sentence, the instrument 'the bat' is the noun used to carry out the action of the verb 'hit'.

This term refers to a place of articulation in which the tip of the tongue is placed between the upper and lower teeth. ex: [θ] as in 'think' and [ð] as in 'this'

An interlanguage is a transitional grammar that is created by L2 learners and that incorporates forms from an individual's L1 during the acquisition of an L2. ex: An English speaker learning French may misplace adjectives until s/he has learned the grammatical position. *une blanche maison (influence of L1) vs. une maison blanche (target form in French) a white house a house white

This term refers to the theta role assigned to any direct or indirect object since each is dominated by, thus internal (as opposed to external) to its VP. ex: Darth Vader bought a cape. 'A cape' is the direct object of the verb 'bought' and found within the VP.

The International Phonetic Alphabet, or IPA, is a system of symbols that represent all sounds found in human languages. (This is not to be confused with the North American Phonetic Alphabet.)

An interrogative sentence is one that requires a response. There are four types: yes/no - Those that can only be responed to by 'yes' or 'no' - 'Do you eat tomatoes?" alternative - Those that give the listener a choice - 'Are the tomatoes green or red? WH - Those that require content - 'Where did you purchase these tomatoes?' tag questions - Those that are added to a statement - 'You love tomatoes, don't you?'

The intonation of a phrase gives lexical or grammatical information. It is also referred to as the pitch contour of a word or phrase. Questions in English are often marked by a rising tone on the final word.

An intransitive verb may not select a direct object as a complement, and whose only argument is a subject. There are two types discussed in English grammar: 1. unnaccusative - the noun in subject position is the theme or patient undergoing the action of the verb: Superman fell. 2. ergative or optionally transitive - the object of the verb may be overt 'Harriet baked cakes all day' or covert 'Harriet baked all day.' The latter is an ergative verb. 3. unergative - the verb selects an agent who carries out the action however may not select a ditrect object/theme: Sally ran. Ex: Georgia is sleeping. 

This term refers to the ability of a native speaker to judge whether an utterance is grammatical or ungrammatical based on syntactic and semantic information. English speakers know that a sentence such as 'Superman gave' is ungrammatical, even when not certain of why this is the case.

This term refers to the fact that any given phoneme may be perceived differently based on variation in the acoustic signal such as different phonetic environments, rate of speech, and individual differences in pronunciation.

An isogloss is a geographic boundary between two dialects of a language.

An isomorphism is the idea of ‘one form, one meaning.’ Any two linguistic forms that are identical in meaning or structure are referred to as isomorphs. ex: A phrase or sentence which is spoken and written in an identical fashion. Homophones are sometimes considered isomorphs since they share the same phonetic form. /tu/ 'two' /tu/ 'to'

The iterative is a grammatical aspect that indicates the repetition of the action of a verb. Ex: In English the verb 'knock' as in 'Charles knocked on the door' implies a repetition of knocking. In Russian, reduplication may be used for iterative aspect: < брал да брал > "(he was) taking and taking".