Chapter 2 & 3 - Typology & lexicon Flashcards
What is a strictly isolating language
one in which every word consists of one and only one morpheme
What is fusion (language)
the degree to which units of meanings are “fused” into single morphemes. In a highly fusional language one morpheme can simultaneously express several meanings, e.g., the personal pronouns
What are agglutinative languages
languages in which most morphemes express only one meaning
What is a clause
one or more noun phrases combined with a predicating element, usually a verb phrase of some sort, to express a complete information unit
What are constituents
the noun phrases and predicating element
Adposition
cover term for words that are typically called prepositions and postpositions in particular languages
Auxiliary
small word that combines with a verb to express the tense, aspect, and/or mode of a clause
Comparative construction
a clause that compares some item, the Subject, to another item, the standard, according to some property, usually expressed in an adjective. Also contain a marker of comparison that marks the clause as comparative. E.g. than
What is a lexical entry
(lexeme) a unit consisting of the smallest version of a word
What is an assembly comprised of
two or more distinct units
What is lexicalisation
an assembly of any number of distinct items combine to form a single unit (a “chunk”)
Clipping
abbreviated versions of useful longer words, usually with a special new sense. E.g., fax (facsimile), zine (magazine), cords (corduroy trousers)
Compound
two or more words combined into one lexical item to express a new, useful and specific idea. E.g., mallrat, road rage, snail mail, soccer mom
Blend
like compounds, but the words are combined in such a way that one or more syllables are blended to result in one word. E.g., fantabulous (fantastic fabulous), brunch (breakfast lunch), emoticon (emotion icon)
Acronym
words consisting of the initial letters of words in a useful phrase. E.g., dweeb (dim-witted eastern-educated bore), wasp (white, Anglo-Saxon protestant)
What is a functor
a word that is useful for describing smaller categories of lexical items that include affixes, clitics and certain well-defined classes of free morphemes such as pronouns, prepositions, auxiliaries, conjunctions, and particles
Nouns
words that typically refer to entities that have clear boundaries and are easily distinguished from their environments, e.g., tree, king, mausoleum
Verbs
the best examples of verbs are words that describe visible events that produce changes in the world, e.g., die, run, break, cook, explode
Adjective
a word that refers to an attribute, such as colour, size, shape, temperament, or other property concepts
Adverbs
any full lexical item that isn´t clearly a noun, a verb, or an adjective is often considered to be an adverb. Semantically, forms that have been called adverbs cover an extremely wide range of concepts, and they have correspondingly varied syntactic properties
MANNER adverb
the way in which some activity is carried out
TIME adverb
the time when some activity happens, or the frequency with which it happens
EXTENT adverb
the degree to which some variable quality is asserted
EPISTEMIC adverb
how likely or possible some situation may be, or how the speaker obtained the info
LOCATION adverb
the place where a situation occurs
Hedging adverb
disclaimers of responsibility
Prepositions
grammatical functors that precede determined noun phrases (DPs) to specify a semantic role of the DP to the rest of the clause. They include words like above, at, in, with, around, on, under, beside, through, inside, before, and opposite.
Some prepositions are made up of more than one piece, including out of, by means of, in spite of, instead of, up to, up against, on top of, upon, etc.
Many prepositions also function as post-verbal particles, as in get in, pick up, switch off
Pronouns
Pronouns are Anaphoric words, which means that they are tools that speakers use to refer to (or “mention”) paricipants and props on the discourse stage. They are sometimes treated as a subclass of nouns, because pronouns distribute like DPs in phrases, clauses, and discourses
Coordinating conjunctions
conjoin two units that are “equal” in terms of their syntactic status, i.e., they must be of the same word class or phrasal category, and they must have the same syntactic function. There are six words that can function as coordinating conjunctions: and, but, or, for, then, and yet. There are also three or four complex coordinating conjunctions, either … or, neither … nor, and yet, and and then. Coordinating conjunctions always occur in between the two structures that are conjoined
