Glossary

The language which is being acquired or that some type of discourse, written or spoken is being translated into.

A tautology is a sentence whose parts render the sentence always true, regardless of the context. These types of sentences are often referred to as redundant. ex: I am my father's daughter.

A means of teaching language by prescribing a set of grammatical rules.

A common symptom of many types of aphasia. Describes the dropping of all or most function words and relying on content words when speaking.

A stage in L1 acquisition in which children have not yet incorporated certain grammatical forms (plurals or tense markers) or functional morphemes.

telicity/telic aspect- This term refers to the lexical aspect of a verb/predicate, which denotes the completion of an action. 1) Harriet painted the fence pink. Telicity can be tested for in English by adverbial modification. 2) Harriet painted the fence pink yesterday/all week/for 6 hours. These adverbial phrases communicate that the action of the verb has been completed.

A vowel sound which is longer in duration and produced with the tongue in a higher position in the vocal tract than its lax counterpart. ex: [i], [e], [u], [o]

Refers to a stop which is [-voice] [-aspiration] thus displaying a 0 VOT (voice onset timing).

A consonant, usually a stop of affricate, which bears no distictive features such as voicing, aspiration, or glottalization and whose voice onset time is close to zero. Some examples from English are [p], [k], [t] after an [s] as in 'spar' 'scar' star.' Some examples from French are [t], [p], [k] as in 'tout' 'poux' 'coup.'

The node with no branching below it. ex: N, V, P

Semantic content assigned to noun phrases which show their relationship to the verb. ex: agent, theme, experiencer, instrument, source, goal.

The thematic role of a noun phrase whose referent receives the action of the verb. ex: John hit Mary. (where Mary is the theme)

States that in a sentence, a noun phrase may only receive one thematic role, and that each thematic role may only be assigned once.

A reference to a moment in time whose interpretation or meaning relies on the context of the discourse. ex: I will buy a new dress today. (Without knowing the date, today cannot be clearly interpreted.)

The pitch (i.e., high, mid, low, etc.) of a syllable or word which, in certain languages, distinguishes it from another. Chinese and Bantu languages are a highly tonal.

Advanced and retracted tongue root is a 2- way contrast for vowels; Tongue root advancement is also known as tense and tongue root retraction is known as lax.

The analysis of language which uses contextual clues from larger parts of speech (sentence, context) to interpret the smaller parts (words, morphemes).

A syntactic rule which, when applied to the deep structure, derives the surface structure. ex: yes/no questions Ken is finishing his paper. --> move aux --> Is Ken __ finishing his paper?

A verb which must be accompanied by an objet. ex: to hit

Also referred to as a Semitic root, the tri-consonantal root consists of three (in mostcases) consonants which serve as the basic element of a lexeme. A well-known example from Arabic is 'k-t-b' from which many words are derived including 'ketab' book. Words are formed by adding vowels around and between the consonants of the root.

A speech sound in which the tip of the tongue vibrates against the alveolar ridge. ex: Spanish [r]

The context of discourse which determines the truth of a statement.

A system used for putting things into groups according to how they are similar: the study of how things can be divided into different types.