ADW            Grammar, parts of speech, and related words

Disclaimer

Some of the definitions below may vary from the definition known to a reader.  As with much of English, there are regional and academic opinions on word meanings.  It is left to the reader to study a reference book to be certain of the true meaning of any word given below.  And reference books do not always agree!  One example is the two meanings of “acronym” that vary between US English and UK English

I can’t believe that the list below is complete.  I will try to improve it in time and I will be pleased to hear from any reader who has a suggestion to improve the list

Acrolect                 Language having a high status in society

Alliteration             A phrase where all the words start with the same sound

Analogy                A comparison between words or ideas

Anaphora              Use of a word such as a pronoun previously used in the same discourse.  eg  John wrote the essay in the library but Peter did it at home

Antonym               A word meaning the opposite of another word

Apostrophe           A digression from a discourse, especially an address to an imaginary or absent person, or a personification

Aspirate                A glottal fricative.  In English, to sound a letter ‘h’

Basilect                 Language spoken by the lower-levels of society.

Battology              Awaiting a definition

Bilabial                  Of a speech sound articulated using both lips.  Eg the letter’p’

Bull                       See “Irish Bull” below

Catachresis            The incorrect use of words.  eg “luxuriant’ for ‘luxurious’

Cataphora             Using a word such as a pronoun that has the same reference as a word used subsequently in the same discourse. Compare “anaphora”

Clitic                     A word incapable of being stressed, usually pronounced as if part of the word that follows or precedes it.  eg in French ‘me’. ‘te’ and ‘le’ are clitic pronouns

Collocate              To group or place together in some system or order.  eg words may be collocated into a sentence

Concrete               Relating to, or characteristic of, things capable of being perceived by the senses.  Compare “abstract”

Copula                  A verb such as ‘seen’ or ‘taste’ that is used merely to identify or link the subject with the complement of a sentence

Creole                   A language incorporating a considerable range of features from one or more unrelated languages bas a result of contact between language communities

Decussate             To cross or cause to cross in the form of the letter “X”.  To intersect.

Diacritic                A sign placed above or below a character or letter to indicate that it has a different phonetic value.

Diachronic            Relating to the study of a development of a phenomenon through

Diaeresis               A mark in writing (like an umlaut) placed over the second of two adjacent vowels to indicate that it is to be pronounced separately  rather than forming a diphthong with the first, as in some spellings of cooperate.  The mark may be used for other pronunciation uses.

Diminutive             Denoting an affix added to a word to convey the meaning ‘small’ or ‘unimportant’ eg  ‘ette’ in French is a diminutive.  Also denoting a word that has such an affix

Diphthong             A vowel sound, occupying a single syllable during the articulation of which the tongue moves from one position to another causing a continual change in vowle quality, as in the pronunciation of ‘a’ in British ‘late’during which the tongue moves from the position of’ ‘e’ to wards ‘I’

Elision                  The omission of a syllable or vowel at the beginning or end of a word especially when a word ending with a vowel is next to one beginning with a vowel.  Also, Any omission of a part or parts

Ellipsis                  or ‘elipsis’.  Omission of parts of a word or sentence.  In printing, the use of dots to indicate that words have been omitted

Emordnilap           see "palindrome" below

Enclitic                 Denoting or relating to a monosyllabic word or form that is treated as a suffix of the preceding word

Epicene                 Denoting a noun that may refer to male or female.  eg  ‘teacher’ as opposed to ‘businessman’

Epigram                A witty, often paradoxical  remark, concisely expressed.  Also, a

                            short, pungent, and often satirical poem, especially one having a

                            witty ingenious ending

Epithet                  A descriptive word or phrase added to or substituted for a person’s name.

Eponym                 A name, especially a place name or a disease, that derives from a real or mythical character.  e.g. Constantinople is an eponym from Constantine.  e.g. ”Down’s Syndrome” is derived from Dr Langdon Down who had a sone with the ailment and studied the condition.

Ergative                Denoting a type of verb that takes the same noun S EITHER DIRECT OBJECT or as subject with equivalent meaning.  Thuis ‘fuse’ is an ergative verb “he fused the lights” and “the lights fused” have equivalent meaning

Etymology            The study of the sources and development of a word and morpheme

Euphemism           An inoffensive word or phrase substituted for one considered offensive or hurtful, especially one concerned with religion, sex, death, or excreta.

Euphony               The alteration of speech sound especially by assimilation so as to make them easier to pronounce..  Also, pleasing sound especially in speech

Homograph           One of a group of words that is spelled the same way but has a different meaning

Homonym             One of a group of words that are pronounced or splet the same way but do not have the same meaning

Homophone          One of a group of words that is spelled the same way but has a different meaning

Idiolect                  The language specifically used by a person.  This will include any

                              personal idiosyncrasies of speech of that person

Irish Bull                 Sometimes just “bull”.  A self contradictory statement.  e.g. Don’t come up the ladder Mick, ‘cos I’ve just taken it away

Labial                    Relating to, or near the lips or labia

Lapsus calami         A slip of the pen

Lapsus linguae        A slip of the tongue

Lexeme                 A minimal meaningful use of language the meaning of which cannot be understood from that of its component morphemes.  e.g.  ‘take off’ in the sense ‘to mimic’.  ‘To become airborne’ is a lexeme.

Metaphor              A figure of speech which is a word or phrase is applied to an objector action which it does not literally denote in order to imply a resemblance.  eg  “he is a lion in battle”,  Compare ‘simile’

Metathesis             The transposition of two sounds or letters in a word.  The word also has a chemical definition

Meme                   An idea or element of social behaviour passed on through generations in a culture, especially by imitation

Mesolect              Language spoken by the middle-status members of society

Morpheme            A speech element having a meaning or grammatical function that cannot be subdivided into further such elements

Neologism            A newly-coined word or phrase, or familiar word used in a new sense.

Nonce                   The present time or occasion (now only in the phrase ‘for the nonce’. 

Non sequitur        Statement having little or no relevance to what has preceded it.

                            A conclusion that does not follow from the premise

Oxymoron            an epigrammatic effect by which contradictory terms are used in conjunction.  e.g an educated moron.

Palindrome            A word or phrase that reads the same when the letters are

                             reversed.  The word "emordnilap" appears to be a special case of

                             a palindrome in that when the letters of the word are reversed, the

                             word reads the same as it did before

Pleonasm              The use of more words than necessary.  e.g. tiny little child

Proclitic                Relating to, or denoting a monosyllabic word or form having no stress or accent, and pronounced as a prefix of the following word, as in English ‘t for ‘twas

Rheme                  A constituent of a sentence  that adds most new information, in addition to what has already been said in the discourse.  A “rheme” is usually, but not always, associated with the subject.  Compare “theme”

Royal we              A style of speech resembling the way that Queen Victoria included others as if the agreed with  her own personal view..  One person acting as a spokesman for others without their agreement or knowledge

Simile                   A figure of speech that expresses the resemblance of one thing to another of a different category, usually introduced by ‘as’ or ‘like’.  Compare ‘metaphor’

Sociolect              The language spoken by a particular social group.

Syllepsis               The use of a single sentence construction in which a verb, adjective, etc is made to cover two syntactical functions, as the verb form ‘have’ in ‘she and they have promised to come.  Another word for ‘zeugma’

Syllogism              A deductive inference consisting of two premises and a conclusion, all of which are categorical propositions.  The subject of the conclusion is the minor term and its predicate the major term; the middle term occurs in both premises but  not the conclusion,

There are 256 such arguments  but only 24 are valid

Some men are mortal; some men are angelic

So ‘some mortals are angelic’ is invalid,

While ‘some temples are in ruins; all ruins are fascinating,

So ‘some temples are fascinating’ is valid.

Here ‘fascinating’, ‘in ruins’ and ‘temples’ are respectively major, middle, and minor terms

Synonym               A word having the same or similar meaning

Tautology               The use of words that merely repeat major elements of the meaning already conveyed.  e.g. Will these supplies be adequate enough?

Theme                   An idea or topic expanded in a discourse, discussion et cetera.

Tmesis                  The interpolation of a word or group of words between the parts of a compound word.  e.g.  Not so, bloody, likely

Umlaut                  the mark like a colon on its side over a vowel in some languages, such as German and Finnish, indicating modification in the quality of the vowel

zeugma                 A figure of speech in which a word is used to modify or govern two or more words although appropriate to only one of them, or making a different sense with each, as in the sentence ‘Mr Pickwick took his hat and his leave’

Decussated

Chiasmus

Cheville