Glossary: morphology and phonology

The vocal folds moving apart. Contrast adduction.

An inflectional value of the feature case, with the meaning ‘(away) from’.

Vowel alternation resulting from a change in grammatical function, e.g. drive vs. drove in English (cf. umlaut). Also called apophony.

The elimination of an underlying phoneme in all contexts, so that it always merges with some other phoneme. See also neutralization.

In ergative case systems, the case associated with the object of a transitive verb or the subject of an intransitive one.

A syllable made prominent by pitch (commonly a pitch peak). In English intonation, a stressed syllable made prominent by being accompanied by the start of a new trend in the pitch contour of the utterance.

The morphological case of nouns, pronouns, adjectives, and participles that occupy the position of object to the verb or some prepositions. Nouns and pronouns are typically assumed to receive accusative case by government, while adjectives and participles receive it by agreement with the noun.

The study of physical vibrations (sounds).

A word derived by taking the initial letter of all or most words in a string and pronouncing them together, e.g., scuba < selfcontained underwater breathing apparatus. Cf. alphabetism.

See voice (morphology).

The articulator that moves to form a constriction in the vocal tract. For example, in palatal sounds the active articulator is the front of the tongue which moves towards the hard palate (cf. passive articulator).

Bringing the vocal folds together. Contrast abduction.

A word that can function as the head of an adjective phrase (AdjP). Adjectives qualify or describe the referents of nouns. Examples of adjectives include the English words large, quiet, indispensable, and ambiguous.

A term that refers collectively to prepositions and postpositions.

Produced slightly further forward in the vocal tract. For instance, the first consonant in the English word keen is an advanced velar and is produced with a closure towards the front of the velum (cf. retracted).

Phonological feature, abbreviated as [ATR]: Having the root of the tongue pulled forward so as to widen the pharynx (and, often, to raise the body of the tongue nearer to the roof of the mouth). Pharyngeal sounds are [−ATR], as the pharynx is narrowed.

A word that modifies a verb, an adjective, another adverb, or a preposition, or a larger unit such as a phrase or sentence. It often expresses some relation of manner or quality, time, or degree. Examples from English include quickly, often, carefully, soon, and very.

A form which is conjoined with another word (the root) and cannot be used in isolation. Affixes can be prefixes (before the root, e.g. re- in rewrite) or suffixes (after the root, e.g. -ity in nicety). Circumfixes and infixes also exist.

A consonant sound produced with a complete closure between two articulators and with a velic closure preventing air escaping through the nasal cavity. The articulators part relatively slowly and the compressed air escaping between them becomes turbulent, resulting in an audible friction noise [ts t∫ kx] are examples of affricates.

A semantic role; the instigator of an action.

Adjective applied to languages (or to morphology, as in aggutinative morphology) characterized by words containing several morphemes, of which one belongs to a lexical category and the others are clearly identifiable affixes, each with a single semantic function.

The process by which one lexical category is inflected to express the properties of another, or the result thereof, e.g., a verb bearing person and number morphology that reflect those of the subject. Also called concord.

One of a number of ways in which airflow can be created in the vocal tract for the purpose of producing speech sounds. The most common airstream mechanism is pulmonic egressive.

In case systems, one of the cases, with the meaning ‘motion towards, onto’.

The different shapes of a single morpheme which appear in different phonological environments. E.g. the third person singular morpheme in English includes the allomorphs [s] (he cuts), [z] (he digs) and [iz] (he blushes).

The different shapes of a single phoneme which appear in different phonological environments, e.g. different allophones of /t/ in English.

A system of writing, like that used for English, where the symbols that are used represent the individual vowels and consonants of the language. Other languages that use other, different alphabetic writing systems include Russian, Greek and Mongolian.

An abbreviation consisting of initial letters that are read with the letters’ alphabet values, e.g. English CD [si:di:]. Contrast acronym.

The phenomenon that morphemes or phonemes have different shapes when they appear in different phonological contexts (see also allophones, allomorphs).

The name of a place of articulation. The active articulator is the tip or blade of the tongue. The passive articulator is the alveolar ridge. [t s n l] are examples of alveolar sounds.

The front part of the roof of the mouth, just behind the upper front teeth.

See alveopalatal.

A consonant produced by placing the tongue on the hard palate behind the alveolar ridge. Also alveolopalatal.

Noise in the environment which may interfere with the recording of sounds.

A consonant that belongs to two syllables simultaneously (e.g. perhaps [d] in Eng. ladder). The existence of ambisyllabicity is disputed.

A measure of the up-and-down extent of a waveform (as distinct from its frequency). For a sound wave, the extent of pressure variation above or below atmospheric pressure.

The creation of linguistic forms based on a proportion A : B :: C : X. Mostly associated with historical changes, e.g. the replacement of irregular forms, such as chicken - chickens :: cow - kine (the old plural of 'cow'). Kine was replaced by cows.

A language whose words usually contain only one morpheme, such as Vietnamese.

See host.

A semantic property of nouns that has to do with whether a noun denotes a living (or sentient) thing.

Gender In languages that divide nouns into classes on the basis of animacy, the noun class that consists primarily of words denoting living things. Animate gender contrasts with inanimate gender.

The second but last position (usually in "antepenultimate stress"). E.g. in the English word confidential, the syllable 'fi' is antepenultimate.

Anterior sounds are defined articulatorily as sounds that are produced with a stricture in front of the palato-alveolar region in the mouth. Labial and dental consonants are therefore [+ant] (in SPE) while non-anterior sounds are produced with a stricture further back, e.g. velars and glottals. In current phonological theory, the feature anterior is only used to make a distinction between coronals.

An event-changing operation signalling that there is no ‘cause’ element and no agent role in the derived event structure.

An action in which one of the speech organs that is not involved in making a particular sound moves toward its position for a subsequent sound. For example, the rounding of the lips during [ s ] in swim is due to the anticipation of the lip action required for [ w ].

A function-changing operation that backgrounds the patient.

In tense systems, a tense that indicates the occurrence of an action in the past, without indicating whether the action is completed.

Americanist Phonetic Alphabet (an unofficial name given to a particular set of transcription symbols).

Of a waveform: one that does not have a regular repeating pattern.

A language or speech disorder caused by brain damage.

An articulation involving the tip of the tongue.

See ablaut.

A valence-changing operation that creates a new object argument.

A consonant sound made with a constriction between two articulators which is not narrow enough to cause air turbulence (=friction). [w l j] are examples of approximants.

A theoretical segment which is only partially specified for phonetic properties, omitting some properties such as voicing or nasality, which may be determined by rule.

A semantic role that is assigned to a noun by the verb.

A constriction in he vocal tract.

The parts of the vocal tract involved in the production of speech sounds (the lips, teeth, tongue, alveolar ridge, hard palate, soft palate, uvula, pharyngeal wall and vocal folds).

Two small cone-shaped cartilages located on the upper surface of the cricoid cartilage. The vocal folds are attached at the back of the arytenoids and the positioning of the cartilages is largely responsible for the position and the tension of the vocal folds.

An inflectional category that encodes the relationship of an event or action to the passage of time, especially in reference to its duration, completion, or repetition. For example, the perfect is a verb form that expresses an action or state that has ceased or been completed at the time of speaking or a time spoken of.

A short period of voicelessness following the release of a plosive sound. The noise is caused by air moving at high speed through the vocal tract. Aspiration is associated with plosives that have a long Voice Onset Time.

Assimilation occurs when two consecutive sounds become more alike, e.g. in place of articulation, or voicing. There are (generally speaking) two possibilities: The first one adapts its place of articulation to the second one (regressive or anticipatory assimilation) or the second phoneme adapts its place of articulation to the first (progressive assimilation). (see also: dissimilation, vowel harmony)

Lines which indicate that two autosegments are in an association relation, thus are produced at the same time.

See Advanced Tongue Root

The idea that distinctive features (such as tone features, place of articulation features, etc.) may behave independently from other features that make up a segment.

A verb that co-occurs with a main verb in a phrase to indicate values of verbal features such as tense or mood.

The part of the tongue below the soft palate.

Vowel in which the body of the tongue is in the back part of the oral cavity (mouth). The vowels [ u, o] are examples of back vowels.

A morphological process in which a real or imagined affix is removed from an existing word to create another, e.g., editor > edit, liaison > liaise.

A scale in which equal intervals of pitch as perceived by listeners are represented by equal distance on the scale.

The root or stem to which an affix attaches.

A valence-changing operation that creates a new direct object argument for the participant who is the beneficiary of the action.

An aerodynamic principle involved in vibration of the vocal folds. Air pressure from the lungs opens the glottis during each vibration. The folds come together again during each vibration because of their inherent elasticity and the sudden pressure drop between the folds as the air streams through the open glottis.

The name of a place of articulation. The articulators are the upper and lower lips. [p b m] are examples of bilabial sounds.

Of phonological features: taking one of two opposite values. For example, speech sounds may be classified as [+nasal] if they are made with the velum lowered or [-nasal] if they are not.

The part of the tongue that lies behind the alveolar ridge when the tongue is at rest.

A word derived by combining parts of two or more other words, e.g., English smog < smoke and fog.

The process by which a potential word is prevented from occurring in a language because another form with the same meaning and function already exists.

A process in which lowerlevel processes are carried out without influence from higher-level processes (for example, perception of phonemes being uninfluenced by the words in which they appear).

A morpheme that may not stand on its own and must be attached to a stem.

A type of phonation in which the pattern of vocal fold vibration allows the escape of relatively large amounts of air in each cycle of vibration, producing audible noise along with voicing. Sometimes referred to as murmur.

An aphasia characterized by deficits in language production. Also called expressive aphasia.

A brain region in the frontal lobe of the left hemisphere. Damage to this region leads to Broca’s aphasia.

See Optimality Theory.

Typical, most representative, e.g. a canonical iamb.

A set of agreed vowel qualities, first defined by Daniel Jones, that can be used as a language-independent reference for the purpose of describing vowels encountered in speech.

In phonetic or psycholinguistic research, a short sentence in which the target word is embedded. Example: "I said X two times", where X is the target word. Among other things, the goal is to ensure consistent focus, and avoid assimilation across word boundaries as well as list intonation.

A morphological category that encodes information about a word’s grammatical role, e.g., subject, direct object, indirect object, possessor.

A characteristic of the perception of speech sounds. Sounds are said to be perceived categorically if there is a sharp cross-over from one perceptual category (e.g. /t/) to another (e.g. /d/) and if, in addition, human listeners are unable to distinguish between acoustically different sounds that fall in the same category.

A morphological process which turns the meaning of a verb x into a verb 'make, cause x'. E.g. English 'to lay' is an old causative derived from 'to lie'.

A vowel formed with the tongue horizontally positioned in the center of the space for vowel articulation, between front and back (compare mid for the vertical axis).

Speech addressed to children. See also motherese.

A bound morpheme made up of two parts, one that occurs before and one that occurs after the root. E.g. German ge-schrieb-en 'written'.

Term that refers to the form of a lexeme’s paradigm that is used by linguists to refer to the lexeme. Morphologists often give the citation form in small capital letters.

See primary affixes.

See secondary affixes.

A stop consonant produced by creating a vacuum inside the mouth with a raised back of the tongue and tongue tip or closed lips, i.e. having an ingressive velaric airstream mechanism. Employed linguistically in a limited number of African, especially Khoisan, languages. Extralinguistically, clicks occur in many languages, including English, e.g. to express disapproval (tut, tsk) or to spur on animals.

A word-formation process by which a word is created by lopping off part of another word, e.g. English Will < William.

A phonologically weak form that corresponds to a function word or another morpheme (e.g. genitive 's in English, 't (< het 'it'), 'm (< hem 'him'), etc. in Dutch, or -que 'and' in Latin) which becomes attached to a preceding or following word (called host or anchor), sometimes through a process of resyllabification.

An expression formed by one or more clitics and the host.

A higher variant of a vowel, as in close-mid [e] as opposed to open-mid [ε]. Contrast with open.

See mid.

A syllable that has a consonant at the end, such as English tick. Contrast open syllable.

Coalescence is the phonological process in which two segments merge. The change of /np/ to [m] may be described as coalescence (taking nasality from /n/ and labiality from /p/), just like vowel nasalization and monopthongization (/ai/) --> /e/).

Coarticulation happens when the movements in the vocal tract necessary to produce one sound also influence another neighbouring sound. Coarticulation is sometimes regarded as an automatic phonetic effect (distinct from assimilation, which is regarded as a phonological rule). See also anticipatory coarticulation and perseverative coarticulation.

The organ of hearing. A spiral structure in the inner ear where mechanical vibrations are converted to nerve impulses, which are then sent to the brain.

Binaural hearing (using both ears) helps us to separate interesting sounds from a background of irrelevant noise. In a room where several conversations are taking place, one can focus on one of them and ignore the rest: the cocktail party effect.

The consonant(s) in a syllable that follow the vowel. E.g. in the syllable /pak/, the /k/ forms the coda.

A model of auditory word recognition in which listeners are assumed to develop a group of candidates, a word initial cohort, and then determine which member of that cohort corresponds to the presented word.

The shared understanding of those involved in the conversation.

The skill associated with using a language appropriately and effectively in various social situations.

In degree systems, the degree with the meaning ‘having a higher degree, more’.

Sometimes when a consonant is deleted (especially if it is in the coda, and especially if it is a sonorant), a (usually preceding) short vowel becomes long; this is referred to as compensatory lengthening. This process usually takes place historically, i.e. in language change.

The knowledge that speakers have of their language. Contrasts with performance.

Two sounds are said to be in complementary distribution in a particular language if they can never appear in the same phonetic environment. For example, aspirated stops in English always appear in absolute syllable-initial position in a stressed syllable, while unaspirated stops appear in other positions. Thus, these two types of allophones are in complementary distribution.

A morphological form that consists of more than one morpheme, whether it be two or more stems (compound word) or a stem plus one or more affixes, e.g., bookstore, optimality.

Defined (e.g., a word) entirely in terms of its parts.

A derived form resulting from the combination of two or more lexemes, e.g., space + ship > spaceship.

The rise in air pressure in an enclosed space caused by a decrease in the size of the space without outflow of air.

Term that describes morphology that builds words by the linear addition of morphemes (contrast non-concatenative).

See agreement.

In mood systems, the mood that indicates a hypothetical, unrealized action.

The environments in which different allomorphs of the same morpheme occur.

The set of forms associated with a verbal lexeme.

A model of cognitive/linguistic processes that assumes (1) a vast interconnected network of information nodes in which each node influences and is influenced by a large number of adjacent nodes and (2) parallel processing of information. Also called parallel distributed processing.

Sounds made with a relatively close constriction or complete closure in the vocal tract, which typically occur alone or in clusters at the beginning or end of syllables.

Agreement with respect to one or more features between consonants that are not adjacent to one another (cf. vowel harmony). Consonant harmony is uncommon in adult languages but frequently reported in child language.

The set of contrastive consonants found in a particular language.

A unit within the structure of a syllable, word or sentence.

A well-formedness condition on phonological structure. Constraints (instead of rules) form the basis of Optimality Theory.

A word such as calendar, sadness, die, speak, quiet, quickly, or tomorrow that refers to objects, events, and abstract concepts; contrasts with function word. Also called lexical word.

See environment.

Said of inflection that involves a simple directional mapping between a morphosyntactic feature and a particular phonological string. An example is the suffix -ing on present participles in English, because all present participles bear the same suffix. Contrasts with context-sensitive inflection.

Said of inflection when the realization of a morphosyntactic feature varies. An example is past tense in English, which may be realized by ablaut, suppletion, or the addition of a suffix. Contrasts with context-free inflection.

A lexical tone that displays a change in pitch.

The situation where a phonetic difference is capable of signalling a difference in word meaning in a particular language. For instance, vowel nasalization in French can change the identity of a word, as can be seen in the pair of words (a minimal pair) mot [mo] 'word' and mon [mõ] 'my'. This pair of words shows that there is a contrast between oral [o] and nasal [õ] in French (in other words, /o/ and /õ/ are different phonemes in French). English also has oral and nasalized vowels phonetically, but these vowels never contrast (in other words, they are allophones of the same phoneme).

See zero-derivation.

The most frequent syllable in languages; the CV syllable. All languages are believed to have this kind of syllable (as opposed to more complex syllable structures, such as CCV or CVC).

A term for sounds articulated with the tip or blade of the tongue raised toward the teeth or the alveolar ridge (or, sometimes, the hard palate), such as [ θ, s, t ].

A noun that can refer to individual entities, and can have both singular and plural forms (e.g. English table) (cf. mass noun).

A type of phonation in which the vocal folds vibrate at a low frequency (and usually somewhat irregularly) with a very low rate of airflow through the glottis. Sometimes referred to as laryngealization or as 'vocal fry'.

A ring-shaped cartilage at th top of the windpipe. It is attached to the thyroid cartilage; the arytenoid sit on its upper surface at the rear.

Part of the acoustic signal that is used (by listeners) for identifying a sound.

The presence of more acoustic cues than are logically necessary to signal a perceptual distinction between speech sounds.

See exponence.

A representation of the structure of a word or phrase in terms of the sequence of consonant and vowel sounds it contains. C is used to represent consonants and V to represent vowels. For instance, CVCV will be the CV-skeleton for English words such as below, city or data.

This is an approach to morphology-phonology interaction. Whenever an affix is added (for instance to a stem), a phonological rule applies. E.g. the English word cyclicity itself consists of [cyclic] + [ity]. When -ity is attached, the final [k] changes into [s]: we call this cyclic rule application, or we can refer to -ity as a "cyclic" affix. (Note that the word cyclic itself can also be analysed as morphologically complex: [cycle] + [ic])

In languages with case, the one likely to be assigned to indirect objects.

A formation whose base is an adjective.

A logarithmic measure of sound power connection to the notion of “loudness.” The decibel (abbreviated Db) is the minimum difference in sound power necessary for the average human to hear a difference.

In mood systems, the mood that indicates that the proposition expressed is an unqualified statement of fact.

In some languages, the inflection of nouns, pronouns, and adjectives for categories such as case, gender, and number.

Gradual intonational pitch fall over the course of an utterance. See also downdrift.

A default rule is a rule that applies in the general case, when no other, more specific rule applies.

A default vowel is a vowel that is inserted, for instance, to break up a consonant cluster. Default means: what happens if no other, more specific circumstances interfere. The quality of such a vowel may differ from language to language (it is often schwa, or barred i, but may also be /e/, or even other vowels).

A type of vowel system, found in relatively few languages, that does not conform to the Vowel Dispersion Principle, either because it lacks open vowels, or because there is an asymmetry of front and back vowels in the mid vowel system.

A phonological rule or process which reduces the length of a geminate consonant to that of a single consonant.

An inflectional feature of adjectives having to do with comparison of gradable properties (see also: comparative, superlative).

The narrowness of the space between the active articulator and the passive articulator during the production of a sound.

Stress is said to have a demarcative function in the sense that it is often used to signal word boundaries. In such cases, stress occurs on a fixed syllable at the edge of the word. When in such languages listeners hear stressed syllables, they know that there must be a word boundary.

A formation whose base is a noun is called denominal.

Place of articulation of a consonant produced by contact with the teeth.

An element in a compound or syntactic phrase that modifies the head.

The creation of a new lexeme from one or more other lexemes through the application of some morphological process, such as affixation or compounding. Also called lexeme formation and word formation. Derivation contrasts with inflection.

A formation whose base is a verb.

Of a sound normally voiced, produced without vocal fold vibration for part or all of its duration.

Related to language change over time (cf. synchronic).

A small mark placed near or attached to a phonetic symbol which is used to indicate that the sound the phonetic symbol indicates is modified, or to supply further phonetic detail. For instance, a small circle below the phonetic symbol /m/ indicates the nasal is voiceless. Other diacritics include symbols for aspiration, nasalization or syllabicity.

Denoting a smaller (or otherwise pragmatically special) version of the base, usually a noun, e.g. English piglet from pig.

A diphone is a unit of speech that consists of the second half of one phoneme followed by the first half of the next phoneme, cut out of the word in which they were originally articulated. In this way, diphones contain the transitions from one sound to the next. Diphones form building blocks for synthetic speech.Do not confuse with diphthong.

A combination of two vocoids within the syllable nucleus.

A phonological process which makes two identical segments less alike, e.g. marbre in French corresponds to marble in English. It is thus the opposite of assimilation. Dissimilation often occurs as a historical process (i.e. in language change).

A set of phonetic properties, hypothesized to be universal and the basis for all human language sounds.

A distinctive feature to express variations in place of articulation in fricative sounds. Distributed sounds ([+dist]) are defined articulatorily, as those produced with a stricture that extends for a considerable distance along the direction of the airflow, as in bilabial and palato-alveolar fricatives. Non-distributed sounds ([-dist]) are produced with a relatively short stricture, as in dental and retroflex fricatives. Example: some languages (e.g. Ewe) have a distinction between bilabial and labio-dental fricatives. These are both [labial] but the former are [+dist] and the latter [-dist].

The environments in which a speech sound may occur in a particular language.

Describing a sound articulated with the back (=dorsum) of the tongue.

The back of the tongue.

An articulation in which there are two simultaneous constrictions of the vocal tract. The two constrictions are of equal narrowness (unlike secondary articulation, in which one constriction is narrower than the other). The labial-velars /w kp/ are examples of double articulation.

The tendency for the pitch to fall throughout an intonational phrase.

A contrastive lowering of tone register, notated with a raised exclamation mark or down-arrow (see also upstep).

See number.

A membrane stretched across the auditory canal and dividing the outer ear from the middle ear. The eardrum converts pressure variation into mechanical movement.

A phonetic force that impacts linguistic sound systems so that patterns that are easier to produce are more likely than difficult patterns.

Of an airstream: one that pushes air out of the vocal tract.

A stop consonant produced by raising the larynx with the glottis closed, which creates pressure in the oral cavity. When the oral constriction is released, relatively powerful plosion noise is heard. Also referred to as glottalization.

In case systems, the case that expresses the meaning ‘motion away from’.

An instrumental technique for investigating the pattern of contact of the tongue with the roof of the mouthduring speech sounds. Tongue contact is recorded by electrodes embedded in an artificial palate worn by the speaker.

The deletion of one sound under the influence of another (e.g. French ce est --> c'est).

A clitic which occurs on the right side of its host, e.g. English 'em in brand 'em (cf. proclitic). English possessive 's (Jack's) is also an enclitic.

See suffix.

Said of compound words that have a head. For example, the head of school bus is bus; a school bus is a type of bus. See also head.

Another word for the velar nasal.

The sounds preceding and following some other sound.

Insertion of a segment.

A structure in the larynx that covers the entrance to the trachea during swallowing.

The case associated with the subject of a transitive verb. In ergative case systems, subjects of intransitive verbs are assigned absolutive case.

In case systems, the case that indicates a state of being.

Said to occur when phonological material takes on a new function unrelated to its original and obsolete function.

Said of first person plural pronouns whose reference excludes the addressee. Contrast inclusive.

The theory that phonetic categories (and words) are represented in the mind as a set of all of the examples of the category that the speaker has produced and/or heard.

Said of compound words without a head. For example, a hot dog is not a type of dog. See also head.

The relation between a morpheme and its signified meaning, which is simple if the meaning is a single concept, cumulative if the meaning is complex, or extended if more than one morpheme combine to denote a single concept.

The marker of a given morphosyntactic feature. For example, [s] is the exponent of plural in the word kits.

See exponence.

The notion of leaving a syllable (on the left or right edge of a word) unparsed (i.e. excluded from the foot structure), to reflect the fact that it is never stressed. In Macedonian, for instance, stress is antepenultimate, which can be analysed by leaving the final syllable extrametrical and assigning a trochaic foot.

See fundamental frequency.

See formant.

See formant.

Faithfulness constraints (in Optimality Theory) encode the tendency to change as little as possible to the input: it is best (e.g. for word recognition) not to insert any segment, not to delete any segment, not to switch segments around, not to assimilate, not to coalesce, etc. If this does happen, there must be a markedness constraint triggering this. Related to correpondence, e.g. base-reduplicant correspondence.

Also called 'ventricular folds'. The false vocal folds form a second constriction, just above the true vocal folds. When the true vocal folds do not function properly (as in some pathological voices), the false vocal folds may be caused to vibrate.

See phonological features.

Refers to a number of theories that argue that distinctive features are organized hierarchically, i.e. in a tree structure.

In gender systems, one of the genders (cf. masculine, neuter).

In a person system, referring to the speaker, or including the speaker.

A language where the position of the primary stress is the same for the vast majority of words. For example, Polish is a fixed stress language because nearly all words have primary stress on the penultimate syllable.

A consonant produced by rapidly striking one articulator with another. Flaps are usually produced with the tongue.

A tone which is not associated with a segment.

Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging, see Magnetic Resonance Imaging.

Indicates prominent or new information in a sentence or discourse.

A process by which the form of a word is altered to make it resemble a word or words which are better known and with which speakers may believe the word has a semantic relationship. For example, English cockroach comes from Spanish cucaracha. The term also refers to speculative or false etymologies based on superficial resemblance between forms.

A unit of (usually) two syllables, one of which is stressed (the 'head' or 'strong' syllable) and one of which is unstressed (the 'dependent' or 'weak' syllable). See also iamb, trochee, which are the most typical foot types.

Resonant frequency of the vocal tract. The formants correspond to the peaks in the envelope of the spectrum. That is, low vowels have a relatively high F1 (compared to non-low vowels), and front vowels have a relatively high F2 (compared to non-front vowels). F0 corresponds to pitch.

'Fortis' is a term used for voiceless consonants. They are strongly articulated, and sometimes aspirated (cf. lenis consonants).

A phonological proess, the opposite of lenition, which involves a change from a weaker sound to a stronger one that has a more radical obstruction to airflow. An example is the change of fricative to a stop e.g. after a nasal consonant. Also called hardening.

A morpheme that can stand alone and/or whose position is not entirely fixed by neighboring elements, e.g., berry.

See variable stress.

A pair of pronunciations, either of which can be used: the choice is not governed by grammatical factors.

Rate of repetition of a (semi-)periodic function. Frequency is measured in Hertz (Hz; 1000 Hz=1 kHz). 1 Hz is one cycle per second, so, if, for instance, a periodic waveform repeats 100 cycles per second, its frequency is 100 Hz. Compare word frequency.

A sound produced by forcing air through a narrow constriction, which creates turbulence, resulting in audible friction noise. Examples of fricatives are [f s x].

An older term for median approximant.

A vowel formed with the tongue horizontally positioned in front of the space for vowel articulation, closest to the mouth opening.

A word, such as a determiner, conjunction, or modal, that has a grammatical function and is best characterized by this function. Contrasts with content word.

The rate of vibration of the vocal folds. Also called F0.

Characterized by the combination of two or more morphosyntactic features in a single morpheme; adjective applied to morphological systems where this type of morphology is pervasive.

In tense systems, a tense that expresses the meaning ‘occurring later than the moment of speech’.

Adjacent segments that are the same, such as the two consonants in the middle of Italian folla [ 'folla ] ‘crowd’.

A grammatical grouping of nouns in a language on the basis of semantics, phonological shape, arbitrary characteristics, or a combination thereof. For example, Spanish and French have two noun classes, or genders, referred to as masculine and feminine. The term gender is sometimes also applied to a pairing of a singular and plural noun class.

Morphological case that denotes possession, measurement, or source.

Abstract representation of the motor control plans for linguistically significant vocal tract actions.

An older term for median approximant.

The name of a place of articulation. The articulators are the vocal folds. [? h] are examples of glottal sounds.

The sound symbolised as [?]. It is produced by closing the vocal folds tightly, blocking airflow from the lungs.

Name of an airstream mechanism. Air in the pharynx is compressed or rarefied by, respectively, raising or lowering the glottis. Ejectives and implosives are produced with a glottalic airstream mechanism.

See ejective.

The opening in the larynx between the vocal folds, through which air passes.

Term referring to the ability of some elements of a sentence to require other elements in the sentence to bear a certain morphosyntactic feature although the first element itself does not seem to possess this feature, e.g., case assignment by verbs.

A word that plays a distinct grammatical role within an utterance. Distinct grammatical words can belong to a single lexeme. For example, the grammatical words sing and sings both belong to the lexeme sing. Also called morphosyntactic word.

In aspect systems, the aspect that expresses that an event is repeated regularly.

See mid.

See mid.

A form that occurs only once in a corpus (plural: hapax legomena). Comes from the Greek for ‘said once’.

Process by which a segment or a sequence of segments is deleted if it immediately precedes or follows the same segment or sequence of segments.

The bony structure that forms the roof of the front part of the mouth.

See fortition.

A multiple of the fundamental frequency; also called overtone.

A word in a syntactic construction or a morpheme in a morphological one that determines the grammatical function or meaning of the construction as a whole. For example, house is the head of the noun phrase the red house, and read is the head of the word unreadable.

Syllables which consist of more than one mora. In stress theory, heavy syllables contain either a long vowel (as the first syllable in bacon) or a short vowel followed by a tautosyllabic consonant (as the first syllable in bunker). Heavy syllables attract stress (cf. light syllables, mora).

(of vowels). The degree of raising of the highest point of the tongue during the production of  vowel. Vowel height is usually divided into three or four degrees: high, mid, low or close, close-mid, open-mid and open.

The unit of frequency measure: 1 cycle per second.

Refers to a consonant cluster in which both consonants belong to different syllables, e.g. [kt] in octopus [ok.to.pus]. Contrast tautosyllabic.

A situation in which two vowels, typically in different words or morphemes, come up against each other (as in the word hiatus). Eliminated in many languages by epenthesis or other means.

The constituent structure of and dominance relations between elements in a syllable (onset, nucleus, coda, rhyme, segments), word (morphemes, bases) or sentence (words, phrases).

Sounds produced with a raised tongue body. For vowels, [i, u] as contrasted with [e, o].

One of two or more forms that sound the same but have different meanings, e.g., pear, pare, pair. Also called homophones.

See homonym.

Sharing the same place of articulation, e.g. the two consonants [mp] in the word impossible are homorganic.

The element to which a clitic attaches.

"Over-articulation": speaking with much articulatory effort. Contrast hypo-articulation.

The semantic relation between a more general word and a more specific word. Tree is a hyperonym of oak, because the set of trees includes the set of oaks. Hyperonymy is the converse of hyponymy.

"Under-articulation": speaking with reduced articulatory effort. Contrast hyper-articulation.

Diminutive or affectionate forms of proper names, e.g. Betty for Elizabeth in English.

The semantic relation between a more specific word and a more general word. Dog is a hyponym of animal, because all dogs are also animals, but not vice versa. Hyponymy is the converse of hyperonymy.

See zero-derivation.

A foot type that dislays a weak-strong stress pattern, as in the Engl. word balloon (cf. trochee).

A group of words whose meaning is not compositional.

Sentence type (or morphological mood) expressing an order, or request.

In contrast to the perfect aspect (see aspect), which expresses the completedness of an action or state, the imperfective is a verb form that expresses an action or state that has not ceased or been completed. In many languages, the imperfective is used only to refer to actions or states in the past, and thus it encodes both tense and aspect.

The relation where the presence of one property in a language is a necessary precondition for the presence of some other property.

A stop consonant formed by creating a vacuum within the mouth, by constricting and lowering the larynx. When the oral constriction is released, with audible plosion, air rushes into the mouth.

Indicates a relationship such that the possessor of an object cannot be changed; body parts are classic examples of inalienably possessed objects.

A deadjectival verb expressing the derivational meaning ‘begin to be Adj., become Adj.’, e.g. English whiten from the adjective white.

Said of first person plural pronouns whose reference includes the addressee. Contrast exclusive.

In mood systems, the mood that expresses that an event is considered as occurring in reality.

In case systems, the case that expresses the meaning ‘inside of’.

A nonfinite verb form that can often be used a subject or object of a sentence (e.g. 'Partir, c'est mourir un peu').

An infix is a type of affix that does not occur exactly at the beginning of a word (like a prefix) or the end of a word (like a suffix) (i.e. precisely at one of the edges of a morphological root or stem), but rather inside a root or stem (e.g. Tagalog um in gr-um-adwet 'graduates').

The formation of grammatical forms of a single lexeme. Is, are, and being are examples of inflected forms of the lexeme be.

Low frequency vibration below the lower frequency limit of normal human hearing.

Of an airstream: one that pulls air into the vocal tract.

The case that expresses the means by which an action is accomplished.

The amount of acoustic energy in a sound.

A semantically empty affix that occurs between the two members of a N + N compound (especially in German and some other European languages), e.g. the [ s ] in English swordsman or Dutch schaapsherder 'shepherd'.

In mood systems, the mood that questions the veracity of a statement.

Sentence rhythm.

The part of an utterance over which a particular intonation pattern extends. There may be one or more tone groups in an English sentence.

A verb that does not take a direct object, e.g., English fall.

International Phonetic Alphabet, or International Phonetic Association.

Term applied to languages with little morphology, where grammatical concepts such as tense are expressed by separate words.

An approach to morphology in which words are broken up into their component morphemes.

A processual approach to morphology. Instead of seeing complex words as arrangements of morphemes, item-and process sees a complex word as arising out of a simple form that has undergone one or more processes or functions.

"Repeating" - an iterative stress system is one in which a secondary stress appears on every other syllable (e.g. the first, third, fifth, etc.). This indicates that multiple feet are assigned, not just one. Rules can also apply iteratively, indicating that they apply more than once.

An intonational feature that affects the pitch characteristics of a whole intonational phrase. If an intonational phrase is produced with high key, then all the pitch values are higher. Similarly, low key makes all pitch values in a phrase lower.

A segment involving at least one lip as an articulator. Cf. bilabial and labiodental.

The name of a double articulation with simultaneous articulation at the lips and the hard palate. [H] is an example of a labial-palatal sound.

A double articulation involving simultaneous action of the back of the tongue forming a velar closure and the lips forming a bilabial closure. Sometimes called labiovelar.

A secondary articulation involving the rounding of the lips.

The place of articulation of a sound articulated with the upper teeth and lower lip, e.g. [f].

An articulation made with the blade of the tongue.

The region of the vocal tract at the glottis in which consonantal articulations such as [ h, ? ] are made.

See creaky voice.

An electronic device that records vocal fold vibration by means of two electrodes placed externally on a speaker's neck. A small electric current is passed through the neck and the laryngograph measures the changing resistance of the neck to the passage of the current. When the vocal folds are in contact, the resistance is lower than when they are apart.

The cartilaginous structure that houses the vocal folds. Plural: larynges.

Of an approximant or fricative: produced with a complete closure on the midline of the vocal tract, but with one or both sides of the tongue lowered and not contacting the side teeth or guns, so that the air escapes over the side or sides of the tongue. [l] is an example of a lateral sound.

Vowel produced with a less deliberate, more central or lower articulation. In English, these vowels can occur in monosyllables closed by [ N ], such as sing, length, hang, long, hung. Contrast with tense.

The linguistic use of physical duration to distinguish words. See also geminate.

A term that is applied to voiced consonants in some languages, reflecting the fact that such consonants are pronounced with weak muscular tension and not always fully voiced (e.g. in languages like English, where e.g. initial /b/ in bank is only partially voiced). Lenis consonants are sometimes referred to as lax consonants (cf. fortis consonants).

A change of a consonant to reduce the degree of constriction, e.g. the change from a stop to a fricative or glide.

See primary affixes.

See secondary affixes.

A diachronic, or historical, process by which members in a paradigm become more similar to each other. See also analogy.

A word with a specific sound and a specific meaning. Its shape may vary depending on syntactic context. See also citation form.

The mental process of looking up a word in the lexicon.

Said of notions such as noun, verb, adjective, adverb, and preposition.

The entry for a word in the mental lexicon, with all its phonological, morpho-syntactic, semantic and other information. Lexical entries are usually words but can also be affixes, particles, or idiomatic expressions.

See lexical entry.

The use of a small number of contrasting pitch patternsto distinguish words from each other.

See content word.

The collection of morphemes which a speaker knows: a mental dictionary, including phonological, morphological, semantic, syntactic, and pragmatic information. Also mental lexicon.

A syllable that consist of only one mora (i.e. one weight unit). In phonological theory light syllables are syllables that contain a short vowel and no coda (as in the first syllable of the word beckon). Light syllables can have stress but usually only when there are no heavy syllables available (cf. heavy syllables).

Pertaining to the tongue.

Articulated with the tongue near or contacting the upper lip.

Liquids is the traditional term for the natural class of l plus r-sounds. Most languages have just one l-sound and one r-sound, and it is sometimes possible to show that they are a natural class (e.g. in Latin). In other languages (e.g. Korean) l and r are allophones of the same phoneme.

A word borrowed from one language into another, e.g., English words laissez-faire from French and cognoscenti from Italian.

(of vowels) The part of the tongue (front, centre, or back) that is raised highest in the oral cavity for the production of a vowel sound.

The case that expresses location.

Of a writing system, such as that of Chinese, where the symbols used represent whole words, rather than the sounds of syllables that make up the word.

A vowel of relatively long duration when compared to a vowel of similar or identical quality in the same vowel system.

The subjective impression of the magnitude of a sound. Loudness corresponds to the amplitude of the waveform of the sound.

Sounds produced with a lowered tongue: vowels like [a] and pharyngeal consonants.

See mid.

A non-hazardous technique for producing images of the interior of the body. The technique involves applying a very strong magnetic field to the body, followed by a radio-frequency pulse specific to hydrogen.

The set of features [sonorant], [syllabic], [consonantal], or their equivalents.

The way in which the articulators interfere with and direct the airstream for the purposes of producing speech sounds. That is, the properties of a consonant other than its place of articulation and laryngeal properties.

Markedness constraints (in Optimality Theory) express "unfavoured" segments or syllable structures, e.g. nasalized vowels as opposed to oral vowels, front rounded vowels as opposed to front unrounded vowels, coda consonants (as opposed to open syllables), complex onsets, etc. If a language has the marked object (e.g. nasalized vowels) the language also has the unmarked object (i.e. oral vowels), while the reverse does not hold. Markedness is also relevant in morphology, e.g. passive voice is marked compared to the active voice; plural is marked compared to singular, etc.

In gender systems, one of the genders (cf. feminine, neuter).

A noun that refers to a group of objects as a collective entity, rather than as a group of individual member entities, e.g. English information, furniture (cf. count noun).

A perceptual effect demonstrating that visual cues influence speech perception. A video of a speaker's face is overdubbed with the soundtrack of an utterance that is different from the one the viewer is seeing. The visual and auditory cues may be integrated by the hearer and the resulting perception can differ from both of the speaker's utterances.

Of a fricative or approximant sound: articulated in such a way that the air escapes down the midline of the vocal tract.

A phonological rule that switches around two contiguous sounds.

Vowel sounds such as [e, o] produced with the tongue around the midpoint on the vertical axis. Sometimes languages have two mid vowels, like [e] and [ε]. In such a case the former vowel is referred to as upper-mid (or 'half-close' or 'close-mid') and the latter vowel is referred to as lower-mid (or 'half-open' or 'open-mid'). See also high, low, front, central, back.

A view of the midline vocal tract as if the head was cut down the middle from the forehead to the chin.

See voice (morphology).

A pair of distinct words differing solely in the choice of a single segment.

An auxiliary verb that expresses grammatical mood.

A phonation type in which the vocal folds snap shut rapidly and peel apart relatively slowly. Most speech is produced with modal voice.

Describes a word that consists of a single (i.e., unaffixed) morpheme.

A vowel in which there is no appreciable change in quality during a syllable, as in English [ a: ] in father. Contrast diphthong.

A word consisting of a single syllable.

A set of morphological categories that express a speaker’s degree of commitment to the expressed proposition’s believability, obligatoriness, desirability, or reality.

A subsyllabic unit which expresses weight. Usually two degrees of weight are distinguished: light (one mora) vs. heavy (two moras [or morae]). E.g. a long vowel is said to have two moras, and a short vowel counts as one mora.

The smallest grammatically significant part of a word. Generally used to refer to the form itself rather than to a set of forms with meaning and function.

The smallest unit of word-analysis, such as a root or affix. The smallest meaning-bearing unit.

A restriction on the co-occurrence of sounds within a morpheme (cf. phonotactics).

A formal description of a morphological pattern.

The branch of linguistics that deals with internal word structure and word formation; the mental system involved with word formation.

Phonological alternations, especially nonallophonic changes.

An area of linguistics that deals with the relationship and interactions between morphology (the structure of words) and phonology (the patterning of sounds).

Notions which are relevant to both morphology and syntax, such as case.

An area of linguistics that deals with the relationship and interactions between morphology (the structure of words) and syntax (the structure of larger utterances, such as phrases and sentences).

Of phonological features: a feature such as Height that can be used to classify sounds in terms of more than two possibilities. Cf. unary and binary.

See breathy voice.

A sound produced with air flowing through the nasal passages. An example of a nasal consonant is [m] and an example of a nasal vowel is [ã].

The large cavity above the roof of the mouth, connected to the upper part of the pharynx at the rear and having the nostrils at the front.

A vowel sound produced without velic closure so that air escapes simultaneously though the oral and the nasal cavity. Also nasalised vowel.

See nasal vowel.

A set of speech sounds that behaves similarly, for instance in a historical sound change or synchronic process (e.g. all obstruents, all voiceless stops, all front vowels, etc.).

A new lexeme that is attested, but had not previously been observed in the language.

The study of how language is represented and processed in the brain.

In gender systems, one of the genders (cf. feminine, masculine).

If a language has two sounds which are distinct in one environment (e.g. word-initially), and not distinct in another environment (e.g. word-finally, or when not stressed, or in another particular position), then the distinction between the sounds is said to be neutralized in that environment. For instance, English has distinct t and d word-initially (as proven by minial pairs, such town and down) as well as word-finally (e.g. sent and send). After /s/, however, the distinction between the two sounds is neutralized: only /t/ appears (stem vs. *sdem).

In languages with grammatical case, the one typically used for subjects.

A morphological operation that cannot be straightforwardly described as stringing together of two morphemes.

Of airstream mechanisms: not involving air from the lungs. The two non-pulmonic airstream mechanisms used for speech are glottalic and velaric.

See nonsense word.

A word that appears only once in a given corpus or that was created on the fly and used only once.

A word that could have been a word in a particular language (i.e. which observes the language's phonotactics), but happens not to be. E.g. plim in English.

A word that can function as the syntactic head of a noun phrase (NP). For example, book is the head of the noun phrase this excellent book about Mars. In many languages, nouns inflect for number, gender, and case.

See gender.

Noun + verb compounding in which the verb is the head; found especially in polysynthetic languages.

(=peak). The vowel or diphthong in a syllable, which, usually, is the only obligatory part of the syllable. E.g. in the syllable /pak/, the vowel /a/ forms the nucleus.

The morphological categories that express contrasts involving countable quantity, which may be singular if the category is associated with nouns with a single referent; dual if associated with two referents; trial if associated with three referents; paucal if associated with a small number of referents; or plural if associated with more than one referent. Languages vary in which of these categories they encode.

Oblique cases are all morphological cases apart from the most basic ones (e.g. all but the nominative and accusative).

A non-sonorant consonant like fricatives and stops (including implosives, ejective stops, clicks, fricatives, ejective fricatives, affricates, ejective affricates, affricated clicks). All obstruents have a major constriction of the airflow in the oral tract.

A doubling of the fundamental frequency.

Coda, especially word coda.

The part of the syllable preceding the vowel, e.g. in the syllable /pak/, the consonant /p/ forms the onset.

A lower variant of a vowel, as in open-mid [ε] as opposed to close-mid [e]. Contrast close.

A syllable without a consonant at the end, like the first syllables in English beehive, bylaw, sawing. Contrast closed syllable.

See mid.

In mood systems, the mood that is used to express a desire or wish for some event to occur.

Optimality Theory argues that inputs (underlying forms) and outputs (phonetic forms) are related through a mechanism that evaluates how well different possible outputs (called candidates) satisfy the constraint hierarchy of a language.

Term that refers to the use of a word to refer to objects or individuals that are typically covered by the word, as well as to others that are perceptually similar. For example, a child might use the word dog to refer to all animals that walk on all fours. Contrast underextension.

See harmonic.

Referring to the hard or soft palate. As a primary articulation, a consonant produced at the boundary between the hard and soft palate.

Either a secondary articulation made by superimposing a y-like articulation on a consonant, or a wholesale change of a consonant’s place of articulation to alveopalatal.

An articulation between the tongue blade and the back of the alveolar ridge.

A paradigm consists of a base word (e.g. a noun or a verb) with all its inflected (and sometimes derived) forms, e.g. the paradigm of the English verb "to ponder" includes [ponder], [ponders], [pondered], [pondering], etc.

In phonology, parallelism refers to the idea (explored in Optimality Theory, for instance) that rules are not sequentially ordered (one applying after another) but that different aspects of a representation (phonological, morphological, semantic) are evaluated at the same time.

See suppletion.

In case systems, the case that denotes a subpart of a collective entity.

See voice (morphology).

A semantic role; the participant that undergoes an action.

See number.

(or syllable peak) The part of the syllable that is occupied by the vowel or diphthong. E.g. in the syllable /pak/, the vowel /a/ occupies the peak.

The one but last (=prefinal) position (as in "penultimate stress"). E.g. in the English word confidential, the syllable 'den' is penultimate.

See aspect.

See aspect.