Glossary

377

A
Ablative, case indicating origin.
Accusative, case notably used to indicate the direct object.
Adverb, a word used to qualify a verb, adjective or other adverb.
Affix, a bound morpheme, i.e. a morpheme not appearing independently.
Allomorph, a variant of a morpheme. For instance, Lat. hon-ōs, hon-ōr-is, -ōs- and -ōr- are
allomorphs.
Anaphoric, referring back to another word already mentioned.
Aspect, the expression of the progress of an action (in verb forms).
Attributive, adjunct with a substantive, such as the adjective in the big house, or the genitive
(of the neighbour) in the house of the neighbour.

B
Benefactive, it is a grammatical case that expresses that the referent of the noun it marks
receives the benefit of the situation expressed by the clause.

C
Case, in inflected languages the form of a noun, pronoun or adjective indicating its
relationship to other words in a sentence.
Cataphoric, referring ahead to another unit, for example, her to refer to Mary in the sentence.
Near her, Mary saw a snake.
Causative, verb indicating that an action results in another action, for instance to fell is
‘to cause something to fall’.
Concord, agreement of two words in grammatical category like number, person, etc.
Conjugation, inflexion of verbs according to tense, person and number.
Conjunction, a word used to link together words or parts or a sentence.
Coordinate, of the same grammatical construction, as ‘Jack’ and ‘Jill’ in the phrase ‘Jack and
Jill’, or ‘got up’ and ‘shook’ in the sentence ‘He got up and shook hands’.
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Coordinating conjunction, a conjunction that connects two grammatical elements of identical

construction as ‘and’ in ‘Sue and Andrea’ or ‘or’ in ‘He should decide if he should stay or go.’
Copula, the verb ‘to be’ used to link subject and predicate: he is an officer.
Correlative construction, having a mutual relation or answering and complementing one
another, as either and or, where and there.

D
Dative, case form usually used to indicate the recipient of something.
Declension, inflexion of nouns, pronouns and adjectives.
Deictic, a word indicating or specifying place, time etc. For example here, this, then.
Derivative, a word derived from another word, e.g. manhood from man, teacher from teach.
Diachronic, pertaining to changes over a period of time. Por ejemplo, diachronic linguistics,
as opposed to synchronic, pertaining to one point in time.
Direct object, a word or group of words representing the person or thing upon which the
action of a verb is performed or toward which it is directed: In English, generally coming
after the verb, without a preposition. In He saw it the pronoun it is the direct object of saw.
Double Marking, double marking is a grammatical construction made up of two marks
which convey the same relationship. A second is added to the primary mark because the
latter has become unproductive and therefore irregular. Examples of this can be seen in the
history of English. Historically, the general English plural markers were not only -s or -en
but also (in certain specific declensions) –ra / -ru. The ancient plural of child was cildra /
cildru, to which an -en suffix was later added when the –ra / -ru became unproductive.

E
Expletive, a word considered as regularly filling the syntactic position of another, as it in It
is his duty to go, or there in There is nothing here.

F
Finite verb, a verb form which distinguishes person, number, and tense, and also mood or
aspect, as opens in she opens the door.
GLOSSARY 379

G
Gender, in many languages, a set of classes that together include all nouns, membership
in a particular class being shown by the form of the noun itself or by the form or choice
of words that modify, replace, or otherwise refer to the noun, as, in English, the choice of
he to replace the man, of she to replace the woman, of it to replace the table, of it or she to
replace the ship. The number of genders in different languages varies from two to more
than twenty, often the classification correlates in part with sex or animateness. The most
familiar sets of genders are of three classes (as masculine, feminine, and neuter in Latin
and German) or two (as common and neuter in Dutch, or masculine and feminine in
French and Spanish).
Genitive, case indicating possession and the like; for instance Lat. senátus (gen.) consultum
‘senate´s decision’.
Gerund, a verbal noun; for example, Lat. Modus vivendi (ger.) ‘way of living’.

I
Imperative, mood indicating a command.
Inchoative, verb indicating a beginning.
Indicative, mood which states an action as a fact.
Indirect object, a word or group of words representing the person or thing with reference
to which the action of verbs is performed, in English generally coming between the verb
and the direct object or else following both and introduced by a preposition, as to or for.
The boy is the indirect object of the verb gave in He gave the boy a book and in He gave a book
to the boy.
Inflexion, declension and conjugation.
Instrumental, a case indicating the instrument with which an action is carried out.

L
Locative, case whose distinctive function is to indicate place in or at which; for example,
Romae ‘in Rome’ or domí ‘at home’.
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M
Masculine, pertaining to male.
Matrix verb, it refers to the main verb of a sentence as opposed to the verb of a subordinate sentence.
The matrix verb determines whether an object complement may be used and it also determines
which type of object complement may be used. All matrix sentences will have one main verb and
may have other verbs which are embedded in subordinate clauses within that matrix sentence.
Morphology, the study of the changes that morphemes undergo in word formation and
inflexion.
Mutation, changes caused by the influence of other sounds.

N
Noun, all non-verbal forms. Mostly only the substantive is meant.

O
Object, in many languages, as English, a noun, noun phrase, or noun substitute representing
by its syntactical position either the goal of the action of a verb with which it combines to
form a verb phrase or the goal of a preposition in a prepositional phrase, as ball in John hit
the ball, Venice in He came to Venice, coin and her in He gave her a coin.

P
Paradigm, the group of various inflected forms of a declinable word.
Participle, an adjective formed from a verbal stem.
Partitive genitive, The Partitive Genitive is used to show the relationship of part to whole,
e.g.: Old English, nemo eorum, “none of them.”
Periphrastic, a category expressed with an auxiliary; for instance, Lat. Laudatus est ‘he has
been praised’ as opposed to laudavit ‘he has praised’.
Phoneme, a sound which distinguishes words. In English b and p are separate phonemes
(compare big and pig), but the phonetic differences which may be heard in the realization of
one phoneme (say r) are irrelevant.
GLOSSARY 381

Phonetics, the study of the production (articulatory phonetics), the physical characteristics
(physical or acoustic phonetics) and the perception of sounds by the listener (auditive or
perceptive phonetics).
Postposition, a word placed after the word it governs as opposed to the preposition; for
example, honōris causá ‘for the sake of honour’.
Predicate, a verb or syntagm with a verb.
Predicative, a noun or noun group used as a complement of a verb; for example, a lot of
work in that is a lot of work.
Prepositional object, they occur in sentences in which the predicate partly consists of a
verb and a preposition to go with that verb. The preposition connects the prepositional
object to the predicate.
Preterite, the past tense in languages that do not oppose several past tenses (like imperfect,
aorist, perfect).

R
Recipient, one who or that which receives, receiver.
Referent, an entity to which a form refers.

S
Subjunctive, mood of the verb, expressing will, expectation and the like (developing on the
language).
Subordinate clause, a clause that modifies the principal clause, as ‘when he arrived’ in the
sentence ‘I was there when he arrived’.
Subordinating conjunction, a conjunction introducing a subordinate clause, as when in
They were glad when I finished.
Syntagm, any group of words forming a unity; for example, on the hill.
Syntagmatic relationship, the relationship between the parts of a sentence or a group of words.

V
Vocative, case for the person addressed.