Linguistic Terminology

(1. Fachprüfung, Linguistik)

General Concepts

· diachronic vs. synchronic

· langue vs. parole vs. langage

· competence vs. performance

· prescriptive vs. descriptive

· sign

· signifier/signifiant (signified/signifié)

· types of signs

- iconic sign

- indexical sign

- symbolic sign

· code

· arbitrariness

Historical & Comparative Linguistics

· etymology

· cognates

· types of linguistic change

- phonological change: sound changes (e.g. velar softening) vs. sound shifts (e.g. Great Vowel Shift)

- grammatical change (e.g. regularization of irregular past tense forms)

- semantic change (widening/extension, narrowing, metaphoric/metonymy shift, derogation/pejoration, amelioration)

· language types & language families

- synthetic vs. analytical languages

- Indo-European languages

- Centum vs. Satem languages

- Germanic languages (vs. Romance languages, Slavic languages, etc.)

- West Germanic languages (vs. North Germanic & East Germanic)

· historical periods of the English language

- Old English

- Middle English

- Early Modern English

- Modern English (Present Day English)

· weak vs. strong verbs

Phonetics & Phonology

· voicing

· place of articulation (consonants)

- bilabial

- labiodental

- (inter)dental

- alveolar

- palatal

- velar

- uvular

- glottal

· manner of articulation (consonants)

- plosive/stop

- fricative

- affricate

- nasal

- lateral

- approximant

- aspiration

· tongue position (vowels)

- front

- central

- back

· tongue height (vowels)

- close (high)

- open (low)

- close-mid

- open-mid

· length (vowels)

· lip rounding (vowels)

· diphthong

· vowel chart

· phoneme

· minimal pair

· allophone

- free vs. complementary distribution

· phonological processes

- weakening

- elision

- assimilation

· suprasegmentals/prosody:

- stress (word stress vs. sentence stress)

- intonation

Morphology

· word form vs. lexeme

· content vs. function word

· morpheme

· neologism

· word formation processes:

- compounding

- derivation

- conversion

- clipping

- blending

- acronym

- borrowing/loan word

- loan translation (calque)

- back formation

- reduplication

- coinage

· allomorph

- lexically vs. phonologically conditioned

· free vs. bound morpheme

· lexical vs. grammatical morpheme

· open vs. closed class

· derivational vs. inflectional morpheme

· prefix vs. suffix

Semantics

· conceptual meaning/denotation vs. connotation

· sense vs. reference

· collocation

· semantic prototypes

· componential analysis

· lexical semantics

· sense relations

- synonymy (synonym)

- antonymy (antonym)

- hyponymy (hypernym/superordinate & hyponym; co-hyponym)

- meronymy (holonym & partonym)

- homonymy (homonym)

- homophony (homophone)

- homography (homograph)

- polysemy (polyseme)

- semantic field

· figurative meaning

- metaphor

- metonymy

Syntax/Grammar

· formal vs. functional grammar

· deep structure vs. surface structure

· tree diagram

· phrase structure rules

· transformation

· sentence vs. clause vs. phrase

· word classes (parts of speech)

- noun

- verb

- adjective

- adverb

- preposition

- conjunction

- determiner

- auxiliary verb

- modal verb

- (definite & indefinite) article

- (personal, possessive, demonstrative, indefinite) pronouns

- quantifiers

- cardinal vs. ordinal numbers

· types of phrases

- noun phrase

- verb phrase

- adverbial phrase

- adjective phrase

- prepositional phrase

· sentence types

- declarative

- interrogative

- imperative

· finite vs. non-finite

· infinitive vs. participle

· tense vs. aspect

· mood

- indicative

- subjunctive

- imperative

· voice

- active vs. passive

· syntactic functions

- subject

- (direct & indirect) object

- head vs. modifier (pre-modifier & post-modifier)

· subordination vs. coordination

· ellipsis

Pragmatics, text linguistics and discourse analysis

· sentence vs. utterance

· competence vs. communicative competence

· schema & script

· context

- participants: addresser/addressee

- setting

- channel

· features of textuality

- cohesion

- coherence

- intentionality

- acceptability

- situationality

- informativity

- intertextuality

· functional varieties

- register

- genre

- style

- mode (spoken vs. written)

· speech act

- locutionary act

- illocutionary act

- perlocutionary effect

· types of speech acts

- assertive

- rogative (question)

- commissive

- directive

- expressive

- declarative

· information structure (theme/rheme)

· exchange

· turn-taking

· adjacency pair

· Cooperative Principle (Grice)

- Maxim of Quality

- Maxim of Quantity

- Maxim of Relation

- Maxim of Manner

· (Linguistic) Politeness

Sociolinguistics

· variety

· dialect

· sociolect

- social class

- gender (genderlect)

- ethnicity

- age

· idiolect

· standardization & standard vs. non-standard language

· accent vs. dialect

· RP vs. General American

· rhotic vs. non-rhotic English accents

· isogloss & isophone

· speech community

· code switching

· diglossia

· pidgin

· creole

Psycholinguistics

Neurolinguistics (language and the brain)

· cerebral cortex

· right & left hemisphere

· (hemispheric) dominance

· lateralization

· critical period

· Broca’s & Wernicke’s area

· language disorders

- aphasia (Broca’s & Wernicke’s aphasia)

Language acquisition

· nature vs. nurture

· language universals & Universal Grammar

· acquisition strategies

- imitation

- reinforcement & parental correction

- analogy

- (over)generalization

- (over)extension

· acquisition stages

- pre-language stages (crying, cooing, babbling)

- one-word stage

- two-word stage

- multi-word stages

· acquisition order

· caretaker speech/child-directed language

· foreign language vs. second language

· language acquisition vs. language learning