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From Asterisk to Umlaut: 40 Common Linguistic Terms

Word List with 40 words
By Dictionary.com

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ambiguous

adjective

an expression exhibiting constructional homonymity or having two or more structural descriptions

syntax

noun

the study of the rules for the formation of grammatical sentences in a language

semantics

noun

the study of linguistic development by classifying and examining changes in meaning and form

meaning

noun

the cultural correlate, reference, or denotation of an expression separate from linguistic content

hierarchy

noun

the system of levels according to which a language is organized, as phonemic, morphemic, syntactic, or semantic

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contrast

to differ in a way that can serve to distinguish meanings: The sounds (p) and (b) contrast in the words "pin" and "bin."?

lexicon

noun

the total inventory of morphemes in a given language plus their combinations with additional and derivative morphemes

tone

noun

a movement in pitch serving to distinguish two words otherwise composed of the same sounds

acquisition

noun

the act or process of achieving mastery of a language

strident

adjective

characterized acoustically by noise of relatively high intensity, as sibilants, labiodentals and uvular fricatives, and most affricates

adjective

distinctive feature analysis articulated in the region extending from the alveolar ridge to the lips; alveolar, dental, labial

asterisk

noun

a star (*) used to mark utterance that would be considered ungrammatical or otherwise unacceptable by native speakers of a language

comment

noun

the part of a sentence that communicates new information about the topic

morphology

noun

the patterns of word formation in a particular language, including inflection, derivation, and composition

cognate

adjective

descended from the same language or form

blend

noun

a word made by putting together parts of other words; motel, brunch, guesstimate

morph

noun

a sequence of phonemes constituting a minimal unit of grammar or syntax, and, as such, a representation, member, or contextual variant of a morpheme in a specific environment

utterance

noun

any speech sequence consisting of one or more words and preceded and followed by silence

umlaut

noun

a mark (?) used as a diacritic over a vowel, as ?, ?, ?, to indicate a vowel sound different from that of the letter without the diacritic

typology

noun

the classification of languages according to structural features such as patterns of phonology, morphology, and syntax, excluding their histories

informant

noun

a native speaker of a language who supplies utterances and forms for one analyzing or learning the language

lexeme

noun

a unit within a language, such as a word or base; vocabulary item

signified

noun

the thing or concept denoted by a sign

idiolect

noun

a person's individual speech pattern

allomorph

noun

one of the alternate contextually determined phonological shapes of a morpheme; ox, oxen

focal area

noun

an area whose dialect has exerted influence on the dialects of surrounding areas, as reflected in an geography more or less concentrically surrounding it

unmarked

adjective

characterized by the absence of a distinctive phonological feature, such as (p) in contrast to (b), which lacks the distinctive feature of voicing

distinctive feature

noun

a component or phonetic form characterizing a phoneme

semantic field

noun

an area of human experience or perception that is delimited and subcategorized by a set of interrelated vocabulary

dialect atlas

noun

a collection of maps of a certain area indicating the distribution of various phonological, morphological, lexical, or other features of the dialects of that area

language death

noun

the complete displacement of one language by another in a population of speakers

matrix sentence

noun

a sentence in which another sentence is embedded: In 'The man who called is waiting,' 'The man is waiting' is a matrix sentence

citation form

noun

the spoken form a word has when produced in isolation, such as for illustration, as distinguished from the form it would have when produced in the normal stream of speech

phrase structure tree

noun

a structural representation of a sentence in the form of an inverted tree, with each node of the tree labeled according to the phrasal constituent it represents

generative phonology

noun

a theory of phonology that uses a set of rules to derive phonetic representations from abstract underlying forms

well-formed

adjective

conforming to the rules of a language

phrase structure

noun

the hierarchical arrangement of the constituent words and phrases of a sentence

consonant shift

noun

a set of changes that take place in the articulation of one or more consonant phonemes between an earlier and a later stage of a language