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title: Glossary of Linguistics Terms
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<font size="6"> **Glossary of Linguistics Terms <br> 語言學詞彙索引**</font>

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:::spoiler <font size="4">**Entries 條目**</font>
> [TOC]
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## Morphology 構詞
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### Word 字
- **Freestanding** unit of meaning.
- Composed of [morphemes](#Morpheme-詞素).

### Morpheme 詞素
- The smallest meaningful unit.
- There are [bound](#Bound-morpheme-規範詞素) and [free](#Free-morpheme-自由詞素) morphemes.

> ##### Bound morpheme 規範詞素
> - Cannot be a word per se.
> - Ex. *-s* (plural), *-ed* (past tense; participle), *-們*、*-子*、 *小-*
> ##### Free morpheme 自由詞素
> - Can stand alone as a word.
> - Ex. *吃*, *兔*, *in*, *moon*

### Root 字根
- The core of a [word](#Word-字).
- Can be either [bound](#Bound-morpheme-規範詞素) (ex. *-sent* in *consent*) or [free](#Free-morpheme-自由詞素) (ex. *main* in *mainly*).

### Stem 詞幹
- The part of the word affix attaches to.
- Can be the [root](#Root-字根) per se or the [root](#Root-字根) plus [affixation](#Affix-詞綴).
- Ex. *ruler* in *rulers* is the stem of *-s*, while *rule* is the stem of *-er*. *rule* itself is a root that cannot be further decomposed.

### Affix 詞綴
- Morphemes that are not the [root](#Root-字根) of a [word](#Word-字).
- Adds to/modifies the meaning of the [root](#Root-字根).
- Always [bound](#Bound-morpheme-規範詞素).
> #### Position
>> ##### Prefix 前綴
>> - Affixes that precedes the [root](#Root-字根) (ex. *pre-* in *prefix*).
>> ##### Infix 中綴
>> - Affixes in the [root](#Root-字根) (ex. *\<fucking\>* in *abso-fucking-lutely*).
>> ##### Suffix 後綴
>> - Affixes that follows the [root](#Root-字根) (ex. *-ly* in *mainly*).
>> ##### Circumfix 環綴
>> - Affixes that preced the [root](#Root-字根) (ex. *ge-t* in *gesagt* 'said (German)').
> #### Inflectional vs. derivational affixes
>> ##### Inflectional affix 屈折詞綴
>> - Does not change the [syntactic category](#Syntactic-category-詞性) after affixation
>> - Ex. *girl* (N) + *-s* → *girls* (N)
>> ##### Derivational affix 派生詞綴
>> - Changes the [syntactic category](#Syntactic-category-詞性) after affixation
>> - Ex. *main* (Adj) + *-ly* → *mainly* (Adv)

### Compound 複合詞
- Formed with [free morphemes](#Free-morpheme-自由詞素) (ex. *classmate*, *blackboard*).

### Reduplication 疊字
- Word formation where parts of the word are repeated.
- Ex. *紅* 'red', *紅紅* 'reddish', *紅紅紅* 'very red' (Taiwan Southern Min); *vurasi* 'sweet potato', *vurasirasi* 'sweet potatos' (Paiwan).

## Syntax 句法

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### Sentence 句子
- A linguistic expression formed with words.

### Syntactic category 詞性
- Also conventionally known as parts of speech, word class.
- Usually corresponds to traditional parts of speech.
- Some defining criteria:
- Meaning: the meaning of the [word](#Word-字) can sometimes be used to infer the syntactic category of it.
- ex: 跳躍 as an action is likely a verb.
- Distribution: the position of the [word](#Word-字) in a [sentence](#Sentence).
- ex. In a SVO language, the words before and after the verb are lieky nouns.
- Affixation: the affixes the [word](#Word-字) takes.
- ex. In English, words ening with *-tion* or *-ment* are likely nouns (e.g., *creation*, *enhancement*).

### Word order 詞序
- In typology, word order describes the sequential order of subject (S), verb (V), and object (O) of a certain language.
- Distribution:

| Word Order | Number (2005)[^1] | Percentage (2005) | Number (2013)[^2] | Percentage (2013) |
|:----------:|:-------------:|:-----------------:|:-------------:|:-----------------:|
| SOV | 497 | 40.5% | 565 | 41.0% |
| SVO | 435 | 35.4% | 488 | 35.4% |
| VSO | 85 | 6.9% | 95 | 6.9% |
| VOS | 26 | 2.1% | 25 | 1.8% |
| OVS | 9 | 0.7% | 11 | 0.8% |
| OSV | 4 | 0.3% | 4 | 0.3% |
| Others | 172 | 14.0% | 189 | 13.7% |

[^1]: Dryer, M. S. (2005). Order of Subject, Object, and Verb. In Haspelmath, M. (ed.). *The World Atlas of Language Structures*.
[^2]: Dryer, M. S. (2013). Order of Subject, Object and Verb. In Dryer, M. S.; Haspelmath, Martin (eds.). *The World Atlas of Language Structures Online*. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.

### Generative rules 生成規則
- In generative grammar, a certain constituent can be formed/generated with other constituents. The formula with which these constituents are genertaed are generative rules.

*[N]: Noun
*[D]: Determiner
*[V]: Verb
*[Adj]: Adjective
*[P]: Preposition
*[NP]: Noun phrase
*[PP]: Preposition phrase
*[VP]: Verb phrase

- Some generative rules:
- NP ← D + Adj + N
- ex. the beautiful house
- PP ← P + NP
- ex. in the beautiful house
- VP ← V + PP
- ex. sleep in the beautiful house

### Recursion 遞迴
- One of the unique properties of human language.
- Describes the fact that sentences ar constituents can be recursively generated.
- This can be illustrated with the [generative rules](#Generative-rules-生成規則):
- Ex., given the following two rules:
> NP ← NP + PP
> PP ← P + NP
- we can get:
> NP ← NP + P + NP
- and then:
> NP ← NP + P + NP + P + NP
- and so on. This is recursive.
- Therefore, we can generate an infinite NP:
- the boy on the roof of the house on the mountain near the building after the river ...

### Constituent 成分結構
- The part in a sentence that can stand alone.
> #### Tests for constituency
> 1. Can serve as the answer to a question:
> - ex.
> *Who likes Tom?*
> *His classmate at school*. (A constituent)
> **His classmate at*. (**NOT** a constituent)
> 2. Can be conjoined with another constituent
> - ex.
> the dog and the cat
> **the dog and his classmate at*

## Semantics 語意

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### Lexical semantics 詞彙語意
- Sense: the mental representation of its meaning.
- Reference: the entity in the world that corresponds to its sense.
> #### For examples,
> - The president of Taiwan has sense and also referent (for now is Tsai Ing-wen).
> - The queen of England has sense and also referent (for now is Queen Elizabeth II).
> - The queen of the U.S. has sense but no referent (there's no such a real person in the world).
> - Unicorn has sense but no referent (there's no such a living creature in the world).
> - Taipei, as one referent, can also have different senses, for example, the most populated city and the capital of Taiwan.

- Prototype: the default mental image associated with a word tends to be of a typical or ideal example of the kind of thing the word represents.
- For example, when it comes to the word 'bird', in Taiwan, the prototype could be sparrows.

- 上下位詞關係: If the set that is the reference of X is always included in the set that is the reference of Y,
> - a word Y is a hypernym (上位詞) of a word X.
> - a word X is a hyponym (下位詞) of a word Y.
> - For example, 'color' is the hypernym of 'red', 'blue', 'yellow', 'green', etc. 'Red', 'blue', 'yellow', 'green', etc. are the hyponyms of 'color.'

- Synonyms (近義詞): two words denotes very similar meanings.
- Near synonyms: two words denotes very similar meanings with only subtle differences.
> - Near synonyms can differ in several ways (but not restricted).
> - Degrees: fog vs. mist; 溫 vs. 暖
> - Aspect: amble vs. stroll; 逛 vs. 晃
> - Association: brave vs. courageous; 流汗 vs. 出汗; sweat vs. perspire
- Antonyms (反義詞): they must have meanings that are related, yet these meanings must contrast with each other in some significant way.
> - Different types of antonyms
> - Complementary: there is nothing in the world that is a part of both X's reference and Y's reference, i.e., it is either X or Y.
E.g., married vs. unmarried; alive vs. dead; win vs. lose
> - Gradable: they represent points on a continuum, saying "not X" does not imply "and therefore Y."
E.g., wet vs. dry; easy vs. hard; old vs. young; love vs. hate.
> - Reverse: pairs of words that suggest some kind of movement.
E.g., put together vs. take apart; expand vs. contract; ascend vs. descend.
> - Converse: two opposing points of view or a change in perspective.
E.g., lend vs. borrow; send vs. receive; employer vs. employee; over vs. under.

### Composition

- Principle of compositionality: the meaning of an expression (i.e., a proposition) is determined by BOTH the meanings of words it contains AND its syntactic structure.
- Where compositionality fails:
- Colorless green ideas sleep furiously.
- Idomatic expressions, e.g., kick the bucket, it does not really mean the action of kicking the bucket but refers to 'death.'

### Thematic role

- The kind of semantic relation that holds between the arguments of the verb and the type of situation that the verb describes.
> - Agent: the doer of the verb action.
> - Theme: the undergoer of the verb action.
> - Goal: the endpoint of a change in location or possession.
> - Source: where the action originates.
> - Experiencer: one who receives sensory input.
> - Instrument: the means/methods used to accomplish
the action.
- Examples form active and passive
- I hit you.
- You are hit by me.
- Different grammtical roles (subjects/objects) but they still carry the same thematic role.
- 2SG (you) is the theme(undergoer or patient); and 1SG (I/me) is the agent(doer).

### Truth value

- Proposition: the claim expressed by a sentence.
- Truth values: the crucial characteristic of a proposition is that it can be true or false.
- Truth conditions: the conditions that would have to hold in the world in order for some proposition to be true.
- Entailment: the proposition expressed by (a) entails the proposition expressed by (b), i.e., if a is true, then b will be true.

## Articulatory phonetics 語音（發音）

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>### Key concepts in this chapter
> - What is speech production?
- Feedforward
- Feedback
>- How do we produce sounds?
- Aerodynamic mechanisms: egressive, ingressive, pulmonic
- Place of articulation (articulators in vocal tract)
- Airflow mechanisms: aspiration
- Vocal folds vibration: voicing and phonation type
>- How do we measure speech sounds?
- Lingual measurements
- Laryngeal measurements

### Speech production 語言產出
- The process by which thoughts are translated into speech. This includes the selection of words, the organization of relevant grammatical forms, and then the articulation of the resulting sounds by the motor system using the vocal apparatus.
- Speech chain: **not unidirectional**!
- Feedforward:
Thought (brain) →
Linguistic representation (lexeme, morpheme, phoneme, etc.) coding →
Articulation (vocal tract) →
Sounds (acoustics) →
Auditory perception →
Linguistic representation decoding →
Understand meaning (brain)
- Feedback: auditory, haptic, aerotactile, etc.

### Aerodynamic mechanisms
- Egressive (out-going)
- Ingressive (in-coming)
- Pulmonic (related to lung): most of the speech sounds

### Vocal tract
- Larynx (喉) / Glottis (聲門)
- Pharynx (咽)
- Palate (hard (硬顎)vs. soft (軟顎))
- Tongue
- Teeth
- Lips

### Place of articulation (發音部位)
- Labial [b, p, m]
- Labiodental [f, v]
- Dental: [θ, ð]
- **Alveolar** (齒齦音): [t, d, n, s, z, l, ɾ, ɹ, ʃ]
- Velar: [k, g, ŋ]
- Glottal: [ʔ]

### Airflow mechanism
- Aspiration (送氣): marked by the diacritic [$\sf^h$]
- English: *school* [k] vs. *cool* [k$\sf^h$]
- Mandarin: ㄅ [p] vs. ㄆ [p$\sf^h$]
- Aspiration does not contrast meaning in English but it does in Mandarin.

### Vabration of vocal folds
- Voicing: Where symbols appear in pairs in IPA chart, the one to the right represents a voiced consonant.
- Voiced: [m, b, z]
- Voiceless: [p, p$\sf^h$, s]
- Phonation types
- Modal: most common form of voising
- Breathy: combines voicing with glottal frication
- Creaky: low *F0*
- Whisper: voiceless speech
- Falsetto: makes the vocal fold very thin and high-frequency

### Measuring speech
- Lingual (related to tongue)
- Linguograpy / palatography
- X-ray
- Electromagnetic articulometry (EMA)
- Ultrasound
- Laryngeal (related to larynx)
- Electroglottography (EGG)
- Endoscopy
- Photoglottography (PGG)
- Ultrasound

## Acoustic phonetics 語音（聲學）

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>### Key concepts in this chapter
> - What is consonant? How do we characterize consonants?
- Place of articulation
- Manner of articulation
>- What is vowel? How do we characterize vowels?
- Height
- Backness
- Roundedness
- Tense/Lax
>- What is sound?
- Essential constituents of sound
- Frequency, F0, harmonics
- Amplitude
>- What is spectrogram?
- Fast Fourier transformation
- Formant
- Voice onset time

### Consonant
- For [place of articulation](#Place-of-articulation-(發音部位)), please see the previous section or click the text hyperlink.
#### Mannar of articulation (發音方式)
- Stop (塞音): Airstream is blocked completely in the oral cavity.
- Nasal (鼻音): Airstream passes through the nasal cavity (by lowering the velum).
- Fricative (擦音): Airstream is obstructed that it causes frication.
- Affricate (塞擦音): Sounds with complete obstruction followed by a slight release; affricate = stop + fricative.
- Liquid (流音): One type of approximants that involves turbulence (e.g., [l]).

### Vowel
- Sounds (with vocal folds vibrating) produced with at most only a slight narrowing somewhere in the vocal tract, allowing air to flow freely through the oral cavity.

#### Characteristics
- Height
- Backness
- Roundedness
- [i] is [-round], [y] is [rounded]
- [ɯ] is [-round], [u] is [rounded]
- Tense vs. Lax
- E.g. *feet* [fit] vs. *fit* [fɪt]
- Differs in many aspects, including muscular tension, vowel space, duration, amplitude, etc. (see the table in p.37 of slide)

#### Diphthongs (雙母音)
- Vowel quality changes substantially during its articulation and turns into a different vowel. Usually the first vowel in a diphthong is considered more dominant.
- Canadian raising (see p.40)
- Great vowel shift (see p.41)

### Basics of sounds
- Essential constituents of sound
- A source of energy
- A vibrating source
- A medium of transmission
- Types of waves
- Longitudinal wave (縱波): the direction in which the molecules oscillate is **the same** as the direction of the wave itself.
- Transverse wave (橫波): the direction of movement of the individual molecules is **perpendicular** to the direction in which the wave itself travels.
- Frequency: rate of occurrence. The unit is Hertz.
- Fundamental frequency (F0): the basic frequency that the sound source vibrates at. It is perceived as **pitch**.
- Harmonics: frequqncy that is (positive) multiple integer of the F0.
- Fast Fourier transform (FFT): a complex wave can be decomposed into a fundamental frequency and harmonics.
- Amplitude: difference between (air) pressure maxima and minima. It is perceived as **loudness**.

### Spectrogram
- A graphic representation of sounds in terms of their component frequencies, in which time is shown on the horizontal axis, frequency on the vertical axis, and the intensity of each frequency at each moment in time by the darkness of the mark.
- **Formant**: (Spectral) Peaks of pressure. Different vowels can be characterized by different formant profiles.
- **Voice onset time (VOT)**: voicing onset - release time

## Phonology 音韻

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### syllable 音節
- made up with a syllable nucleus (usually a vowel, or a sound with high sonority), and optional marignal units
- a syllable can be divided into the onset and the rhyme
- a rhyme can be divided into the nucleus and the coda

### sonority 響度
- resonance of a phoneme
- sonority hierarchy:
- vowels > glides > liquids > nasals > fricatives > affricates > stops
- sonority profile:
- states that in a given syllable, a pyramid-like sonority contour is preferred, that is, the snority from the beginning of the syllable should be rising to the nuceuls, and then falling to the end.

### phoneme 音素
- a sound that is meaningfully contrasted from other sounds in a language
- Ex. in English, bull \[bul] and pull \[p^hul] are two different words, while you cannot find such a pair of words (minimal pairs) for /p/ and /p^h/. Therefore, /p/ and /p^h/ are two different phonemes in English. They are allophones.

### allophones 同位音素
- sounds that do not create meaningful contrasts in a language
- allophones are in usually complementary distribution

### complementary distribution 互補分佈
- if A happens only in one condition and B happens only in another condition, that is A and B are never found in the same condition, then they are in complementary distribution
- usually, if two items are in complementary distribution, they are thought to be the same thing

### minimal pair 最小辨意組
- two pairs that meaningfully contrasted with each other and are only different in the parts we are interested in.
- can be used to see whether two sounds are phonemes or allophones of a phoneme in a language
- Ex.
- /p/ & /p^h/ have minimal pairs in Mandarin but not in English:
- 飽 /paw/ and 跑 /p^haw/
- minimal paris can be used in other fields in linguistics (e.g. syntax, morphology, etc.)
- Ex.
- 是他。/是他嗎？
- therefore we know the presence of 嗎 is meaningful in Mandarin


### Free variation 自由變異
- When two sounds are both acceptable in a given context, they are in free variation
- Ex. for the word *stop*, \[stop] and \[stop^h] are both acceptable

### phonological rules 音韻規則
- grammar on the sound level
- for example, in Manndarin when two words with the third tones are next to each other, the first word's tone becomes a second tone (老3→2虎3)

### natural class 自然音集
- a set of words that share some features
- /p, t, k/ share the same manner of articulation (stop)
- /b, p, p^h, m/ share the same place of articulation (bilabial)