Linguistics 150, Glossary of terms, abbreviations, and symbols

{ } Curly brackets enclose alternatives. For instance, (a) abbreviates the two examples in (b).
(a)     They do { not, so } like your brother.
(b) i.   They do not like your brother.
ii. They do so like your brother.

Curly brackets may be combined with parentheses. For instance, (a) abbreviates the three examples in (b).

(a)     They do ({ not, so }) like your brother.
(b) i. They do like your brother.
ii. They do not like your brother.
iii. They do so like your brother.
( ) Parentheses enclose optional elements. For instance, (a) abbreviates the two examples in (b).
(a)     They do (not) like your brother.
(b) i. They do like your brother.
ii. They do not like your brother.
Parentheses may be combined with curly brackets.
3 third person
acc accusative
adposition Any P, regardless of whether it is head-initial or head-final. See Chapter 3 for examples.
See also postposition.
anaphor A cover term for reflexive pronouns and the reciprocal pronoun each other.
bar What's with these 'bars', inquiring minds want to know, when representations like (20) in Chapter 2 contain nothing remotely resembling a bar? Well, originally, the various projection levels were distinguished by horizontal bars over a syntactic category. Heads had no bars, intermediate projections had one, and maximal projections had two. But back in the days of typewriters, such overbars were cumbersome to type (you typed the symbol, –* rolled up the platen a bit, backspaced, typed an overbar *–, repeated from –* to *– for each overbar, and then rolled the platen down again). Overbars were also expensive to typeset. For convenience and economy, therefore, prime symbols were often substituted for overbars. In addition, 'XP' was often used for X'' (= X-double-bar). However, linguists failed to update their terminology (terminological inertia), and so the old term 'bar' is still with us.
clitic A phonologically or syntactically dependent form. The term comes from the Greek work klinein 'to lean'. Clitics come in two varieties, enclitics and proclitics. Enclitics 'lean on' a preceding word or phrase, whereas proclitics 'lean on' a following word or phrase. Which category a particular clitic belongs to is not always evident from standard orthography. For instance, the orthography suggests that the contracted forms of auxiliaries in English are enclitics, but the contrast in (b) shows that they are in fact proclitics.
I know { you are, you're } coming, …
(a)     … but not if { he is, he's } coming.
(b)     … but not if { he is, *he's. }
dat dative
ditransitive Traditionally used of verbs that takes two noun phrase objects. Here used in a more general sense to refer to any syntactic category that takes two complements. All three of the italicized verbs in (a)–(c) are ditransitive in this sense, though only (a) is in the traditional sense.
(a)   I gave my sister a solar-powered radio.
(b)   I gave a solar-powered radio to my sister.
(c)   I put the radio on the porch.
See also double-object verb.
double-object verb A subcategory of ditransitive verbs that takes two noun phrase objects. Give is ditransitive in both (a) and (b), but a double-object verb only in (a).
(a)   I gave my sister a solar-powered radio.
(b)   I gave a solar-powered radio to my sister.
empirical Concerning or pertaining to data. In the context of this course, the relevant data are linguistic (that is, they have to do with the grammatical status or the interpretation of phrases and sentences). When you are asked to give an empirical argument, your argument must be based on actual phrases or sentences; it can't be based on purely conceptual considerations like, say, theoretical simplicity.
full noun phrase Any noun phrase that is not an ordinary pronoun or a reflexive pronoun. All of the following examples are full noun phrases: John, the boy next door, the dog that ate the homework, a lame excuse, the problem with them, and Annabelle's confidence in herself. As the last two examples show, a full noun phrase can contain an ordinary or reflexive pronoun; it just can't entirely consist of one.

Be careful not to use the term to refer to the higher of two nested noun phrases. Thus, the dog that ate the homework in the example above is a full noun phrase, but so is the homework.

gen genitive
intransitive Traditionally used of verbs that take no object. Here used in a more general sense to refer to any syntactic category that takes no complement. For instance, the italicized heads are transitive in the (i) examples, but intransitive in their (ii) counterparts.
(a) verb i.   We have eaten the pizza.
ii.   We have eaten.
(b) preposition i.   They crawled underneath the table.
ii.   They crawled underneath.
(c) determiner i.   I like that radio.
ii.   I like that.
lexical See discussion in Chapter 3.
m masculine
nom nominative
O object
OED Oxford English Dictionary
ordinary pronoun Synonymous with personal pronoun. The following table lists the English ordinary pronouns.
  Nominative Oblique Possessive
Prenominal
(That's        book). 		Absolute
(That book is       .)
1 sg I me my mine
2 you you your yours
3 he, she, it him, her, it his, her, its his, hers, its
1 pl we us our ours
2 you you your yours
3 they them their theirs

It is worth noting that like most other languages, English used to have two separate forms of address, one for a single addressee (thou, thee, thy, thine) and another one for more than one addressee (the forms of you). Around the 1300's, the forms of you began to be used in addressing social superiors, whether one or several. The later extension of this polite use (cf. the use of the 2pl pronoun vous in French) to equals and ultimately (after the 1600's) to social inferiors has rendered the forms of thou obsolete in modern standard English. Some nonstandard dialects of modern English have carried the development of 2nd person pronouns even further by reintroducing an explicitly 2pl form (e.g. y'all, youse, you-uns).

personal pronoun See ordinary pronoun.
pl plural
postposition A head-final P. Coined in order to avoid the expression 'head-final preposition', which offends the etymologically aware as a contradiction in terms. See Chapter 3 for examples.
See also adposition.
pro-form Expressions like do so and one are often referred to as pro-forms (< Latin pro 'instead of'). More specifically, do so is a pro-V', whereas one is a pro-N'. Notice that the traditional term 'pronoun' is misleading, since pronouns substitute for entire noun phrases, not just for their heads. A more accurate term for pronouns would therefore be pro–noun phrases. We nevertheless continue to use the traditional term, at least where there is no danger of confusion.
ps (grammatical) person.
See ordinary pronoun for examples.
recursive In a recursive structure, some syntactic category dominates another instance of itself. The relation between the two categories may be immediate domination (= the parent-child relation), but needn't be (a simple ancestor-descendant relation is sufficient). The recursive category in (a) is N'.
(a)    
Note that PP is not a recursive category in (a) since neither of the PPs contains the other. In other contexts, however, PP is perfectly capable of functioning as a recursive category.
reflexive pronoun The English reflexive pronouns are easy to identify because they all contain a form of the morpheme self, as laid out in the following table.
  1 ps 2 ps 3 ps
sg myself thyself himself
herself
itself
pl ourselves yourselves themselves
S subject
sentence negation An instance of negation that negates an entire proposition without necessarily focusing contrastively on a specific constituent. Distinct from constituent negation, which must do so.
(a) Sentence negation: i.   We { did not, didn't } see John.
ii. We { did not, didn't } see John, but Tim.
(b) Constituent negation: i. * We saw not John.
ii.   We saw not John, but Tim.
sg singular
transitive Traditionally used of verbs that take a single object. Here used in a more general sense to refer to any syntactic category that takes a single complement.
See also intransitive.