Linguistic terminology terms | LETTER - L

What is labialization?

Labialization is a way of pronouncing a sound or sounds (consonants and vowels by using one or both lips.

What is a language associate?

A language associate is a person who

• teaches you how to speak a language
• provides you with language data, and
• helps you do linguistic research.

Language associates should be

• easy to work with
• interested in the work
• available to work on a regular basis
• a fluent speaker of the language, and
• a mother tongue speaker, if possible.

What is a lapse?

A lapse is a relatively long silence between turns that is due to none of the participants taking a turn.

• What is a switching pause?

Levinson 1983 299

Sacks, Schegloff, and Jefferson 1978 25

What is lative case?

Lative case is a case that expresses motion

• up to the location of, or
• as far as the referent of the noun it marks.

The term lative case is used especially in studies of Finno-Ugric grammar.

• What is case?

Pei and Gaynor 1954 121

Gove 1966 1277

What is length?

Length is the amount of time it takes to produce a sound.

What is a lenis consonant?

A lenis consonant is a “weak” consonant produced by the lack of tension in the vocal apparatus. These weak consonants tend to be short, weakly voiced or voiceless, aspirated, low, and the following vowel tends to be lengthened.

What is a lexeme?

A lexeme is the minimal unit of language which

• has a semantic interpretation and
• embodies a distinct cultural concept.

It is made up of one or more form-meaning composites called lexical units .

A lexical database is organized around lexemes, which include all the morphemes of a language, even if these morphemes never occur alone. A lexeme is conventionally listed in a dictionary as a separate entry.

What is a lexical category?

A lexical category is a syntactic category for elements that are part of the lexicon of a language. These elements are at the word level.

Lexical categories may be defined in terms of core notions or 'prototypes' . Given forms may or may not fit neatly in one of the categories (see

Analyzing lexical categories

There are major and minor lexical categories.

Major categories:

Every language has at least two major lexical categories:

• noun
• verb

Many languages also have two other major categories:

• adjective
• adverb

Minor categories:

Many languages have minor lexical categories such as:

• conjunctions
• particles
• adpositions

What is a lexical database?

A lexical database is an organized description of the lexemes of a language.

A lexical database attempts to approximate the lexicon of a native speaker.

It includes an inventory of known morphemes and information about their meanings .

For each sense of a morpheme, it includes such things as

• a part of speech designation
• a definition
• sample sentences to illustrate this sense
• cultural annotations to indicate its significance, and
• identifiction of semantic relationships with other morphemes.

What is a lexical form?

A lexical form is an abstract unit representing a set of

wordforms

It is a component part of a lexical unit .

• The lexeme, brooch n. 'a large ornamental pin with a clasp, worn by women' has a single lexical unit with a single lexical form representing the two

  wordforms

  , brooch and brooches.
• The primary sense of the lexeme ignite vt. 'to set fire to' is a single lexical unit with a single lexical form representing several wordforms such as, ignite, ignited, ignites and igniting.

What is lexical phonology?

Lexical phonology is an approach to phonology that accounts for the interactions of morphology and phonology in the word building process.

The lexicon plays a central, productive role in the theory. It consists of ordered levels, which are the domain for certain phonological or morphological processes.

Here is a diagram of the overall structure of the lexical phonology model:

The following are crucial components of lexical phonology:

• Lexical and post-lexical rules

  Here is a table that compares lexical and post-lexical rules:

  Lexical rules …	Post-lexical rules …
  Apply only within words.	Apply within words or across word boundaries.
  Are prone to exceptions.	Do not have exceptions.
  Require morphological information.	Require syntactic information, or no grammatical information at all.
  Must be structure-preserving.	Are not necessarily structure-preserving.
  Will not be blocked by pauses.	Can be blocked by pauses.
  Apply first.	Apply later.

• Levels

  English has between two and four levels of morphology in the lexicon. The levels within the lexicon are ordered so that, to get to Level 3 from Level 1, a word must pass through Level 2. A word cannot go back to a previous level once it has left one level and gone on to another level.

  Halle and Mohanan propose the following four levels of morphology in the lexicon:

  Level 1: Class 1 derivation, irregular inflection
  Level 2: Class 2 derivation
  Level 3: Compounding
  Level 4: Regular inflection

  We will consider the first two levels of affixation because they differ significantly. Here is a table that compares affixation on Levels 1 and 2:

  Level 1	Level 2
  Affixes include: -ate, -ion, -ity, -ic, sub-, de-, in-	Affixes include: -ly, -ful, -some, -ness, re-, un-, non-
  Affixation causes stress shift: photograph / photographic	Affixation does not affect stress: revenge / revengeful
  Trisyllabic shortening occurs: divine / divinity	No trisyllabic shortening occurs: leader / leaderless
  Nasal assimilation occurs: in + legal -> illegal	Nasal assimilation is blocked: un + ladylike -> unladylike, not *ulladylike
  Affixes may attach to stems: re-mit, de-duce	Affixes attach only to words: re-open, de-regulate
  Affixation is less productive and more exception ridden.	Affixation is more productive and less exception ridden.

  Source:

  Durand 1990 178

• Bracket erasure convention

  The bracket erasure convention is an important convention in lexical phonology. It ensures that the morphological brackets introduced within a certain level are erased before entering the next level.

  Example:

  Here is an example of the bracket erasure convention. The brackets in pressurize are erased before it enters Level II. Level I [press] [-ure] [-ize] +sfx [press] [-ure] +sfx [[[press] [-ure]] [-ize]] Level II [re-] [pressurize] (Bracket erasure) +pfx [[re-] [pressurize]]

Here is an example of an application of lexical phonology:

Durand 1990

Katamba 1989

Mohanan 1986

What is a lexical relation?

A lexical relation is a culturally recognized pattern of association that exists between lexical units in a language.

Here is a table showing some common paradigmatic lexical relations in English with example sets and underlying structure:

Each lexical relation has an underlying structure that describes the relationship that senses within a lexical relation set have with each other.

Here are some underlying structures of lexical relations:

• simple set
• scale
• set of pairs
• tree

• paradigmatic
• syntagmatic

What is a lexical relation elicitation frame?

A lexical relation elicitation frame is a set of words of a particular lexical relation that is an example for eliciting more lexical relations of the same type for other words.

What is a lexical relation set?

A lexical relation set is a grouping of senses that are lexically related to each other.

What is a lexical relation with a scale structure?

A lexical relation with a scale structure is a pattern of association between lexical units in a fixed order or progression. They represent successive values of some variable property.

A scale can be represented mathematically as

Here are some examples of lexical relations with a scale structure in English arranged in decreasing order of discreteness:

• Rank

  • {private, corporal, sergeant, general}
  • {Kindergarten, Grade 1, Grade 2 …}

• Hierarchy

  • {county, state, country}
  • {phoneme, word, sentence, discourse}

• Numeric

  • {one, two, three …}
  • {first, second, third …}
  • {single, double, triple …}
  • {singleton, twins, triplets …}

• Units of measurement

  • {inch, foot, yard, mile}
  • {millimeter, centimeter, meter, kilometer}
  • {second, minute, hour, day, week, month, year, decade, century, millennium}

• Calendar

  • {Sunday, Monday, Tuesday … Saturday}
  • {January, February, March … December}

• Development

  • {newborn, infant, toddler, child, adolescent, adult}
  • {planning, design, implementation, production, evaluation}

• Scalar properties

  • {cold, cool, lukewarm, warm, hot}
  • {minuscule, tiny, small, big, huge, gigantic}
  • {slightly, moderately, fairly, very, extremely}

What is a lexical relation with a set of pairs structure?

A lexical relation with a set of pairs structure is a pattern of association between lexical units which is characterized by a binary contrast, correlation, or correspondence between two sense sets.

A set of pairs can be represented mathematically as

• Opposites

  • {(true, false), (dead, alive), (open, shut)}
  • {(long, short), (good, bad), (hot, cold)}

• Individual-group

  • {(lion, pride), (wolf, pack), (buffalo, herd)}
  • {(flower, bouquet), (banana, bunch)}

What is a lexical relation with a simple set structure?

A lexical relation with a simple set structure is a pattern of association between lexical units that share one or more semantic components .

A simple set can be represented mathematically as

The most common lexical relation of this type in English is a

synonym

Here are some examples of synonym sets:

• {assembly, gathering, meeting}
• {just, equitable, lawful, fair}
• {happy, joyful, glad}

What is a lexical relation with a tree structure?

A lexical relation with a tree structure is a pattern of association that is characterized by a set of lexical units which both have an inclusion relationship with and are dominated by one lexical unit. These sets may form a taxonomy or a meronymy.

• Generic-specific

  animal

  horse

  appaloosa

  arabian

  Tennessee walker

  dog

  cow

• Whole-part

  arm

  elbow

  forearm

  wrist

What is lexical tone?

Lexical tone is the distinctive pitch level carried by the syllable of a word which is an essential feature of the meaning of that word.

An inventory of minimally distinctive pairs and sets in the lexicon will give you some idea of the

functional load

These are examples of lexical tone in nouns.

• mbo@ka village’
• mboka@ ‘field’
• mbo@ka ‘civet cat’
• kusu ‘termite hill’
• ku@su@ ‘species of tree’
• m&u0254k&u0254 ‘evening’
• m&u0254k&u0254@ ‘kind of honey’
• m&u0254@k&u0254 ‘ceinture degrimpage’

These are examples of lexical tone in verbs:

• tanga ‘to drip’
• ta@nga ‘to count, to read’
• ka@la ‘to take all in one go’
• kala ‘to escape’

These are examples of lexical tone in pronouns:

• ma
• ma& ‘we’
• ny&u0268 ‘you’ (singular)
• ny&u0268ô ‘you’ (plural)
• a$badhi ‘he’
• aba@dh" ‘they’

A lexical tone is a kind of

tone

• Analyzing tone

• What is grammatical tone?

What is a lexical unit?

A lexical unit is a form-meaning composite that represents a

• lexical form , and
• single meaning of a lexeme .

What is a lexical verb?

A lexical verb is a member of the open class of verbs which form the primary verb vocabulary of a language.

The adjective lexical is applied generally to the vocabulary of a language, especially to distinguish content words from function words.

• What is a verb? (Linguistics)

Crystal 1985 326

Mish 1991 687

Quirk, Greenbaum, Leech, and Svartvik 1985 96

What is a lexicon?

A lexicon is the knowledge that a native speaker has about a language. This includes information about

• the form and meanings of words and phrases
• lexical categorization
• the appropriate usage of words and phrases
• relationships between words and phrases, and
• categories of words and phrases.

Phonological and grammatical rules are not considered part of the lexicon.

What is a link schema?

A link schema is an image schema that consists of two or more entities, connected physically or metaphorically, and the bond between them.

• A child holding her mother’s hand
• Someone plugging a lamp into the wall
• A causal “connection”
• Kinship “ties”

• What is an image schema?

Johnson 1987 117–119

What is a literal meaning in a lexical database?

The literal meaning is used to give the glosses of the individual components of a multi-morpheme expression, such as a compound or an idiom , where the meaning of the whole is different from the sum of its parts.

You only need to fill in the literal meaning if the entry is a compound or an idiom.

The literal meaning of the word for "train" in Chinese is "fire car."

What is a literal translation?

A literal translation is a translation that follows closely the form of the source language.

Larson 1984 10

What is litotes?

Litotes is the use of a negated antonym to make an understatement or to emphatically affirm the positive.

• In John 6:37 in the Bible, the clause I will in no wise cast out means "I will certainly receive."

• An expression of the form not unX, as in the following:

  Moreover, the attempt is not unsuccessful. (Eduard Schevardnadze)

• What is a trope?

Pei and Gaynor 1954 125

Beekman and Callow 1974 183

What is locative as a semantic role?

Locative is a semantic role which identifies the location or spatial orientation of a state or action.

A locative semantic role does not imply motion to, from, or across the location.

• The paper is in the folder.
• The ship sank at sea.

• What is a semantic role?

Longacre 1983 161

What is locative case?

Locative case is a case that expresses location at the referent of the noun it marks.

The term adessive case, a synonym of locative case, is used especially in studies of Finno-Ugric grammar.

• What is case?

Crystal 1980 214–215

Mish 1991 701

Lyons 1968 299

Crystal 1985 7

Gove 1966 25

What is a logical relation?

A logical relation is an interpropositional relation in which a proposition is related to another, in reasoning, as

• a premise to a conclusion, or
• an antecedent to a consequent.

• What is a concession relation?
• What is a conditional relation?
• What is an evidence relation?
• What is a proportional relation?

• What is a causal relation?

Beekman, Callow, and Kopesec 1981 102

Longacre 1983 101

Halliday and Hasan 1976 257

Johnson 1987 63–64