Common Terms
Conjuctions
A conjunction is a word that
- syntactically links words or larger constituents, and
- expresses a semantic relationship between them.
A conjunction is positionally fixed relative to one or more of the elements related by it. Examples:
Coordinating conjunctions: and, or, but
Subordinating conjunctions: because, when, unless (Crystal 1980; Hartmann & Stork 1972; Pei & Gaynor 1954; Mish 1991)
Figurative Language
A figurative sense shares one or more supplemental semantic components with the primary sense of a lexeme, but it often negates one or more of the obligatory semantic components. As a result, it is only related to the primary sense in an abstract or generalised way.
A figurative sense will often bring to mind a picture of the primary sense. However, a literal interpretation of the figurative sense will be strange, nonsensical, or wrong. Figurative senses often have few collocates and limited contexts of usage. Examples:
The word jungle has a primary sense meaning "land covered with dense growth of trees, tall vegetation, and vines, typically in tropical regions, and inhabited by predatory animals".
The meaning of jungle can further be extended in a figurative sense to include non-plants and refer to any tangled, disorganized set of objects, as in "You can find it if you dig through the jungle in my closet."
It may be even further extended in a more abstract way to mean anything that confuses by its tangled or complex nature, as in "Life can be a jungle sometimes."
Morphology
Morphology is the study of the internal structure of words. Morphology can be thought of as a system of adjustments in the shapes of words that contribute to adjustments in the way speakers intend their utterances to be interpreted. (Payne, T.1997a 20-21)
Phonemic Awareness
A phoneme is the smallest contrastive unit in the sound system of a language.
Phonology
Phonology is the study of how sounds are organised and used in natural languages. The phonological system of a language includes
- an inventory of sounds and their features, and
- rules which specify how sounds interact with each other.
Pragmatics
Pragmatics is the study of the aspects of meaning and language use that are dependent on the speaker, the addressee and other features of the context of utterance, such as the effect that the following have on the speaker’s choice of expression and the addressee’s interpretation of an utterance:
- Context of utterance
- Generally observed principles of communication
- The goals of the speaker (Levinson 1983; Crystal 1985; Leech 1983)
Semantics
The general definition of semantics is the study of meaning of linguistic expressions. A more narrow defintion, is the study of the meaning of linguistic expressions apart from consideration of the effect that pragmatic factors, such as the following, have on the meaning of language in use:
- Features of the context
- Conventions of language use
- The goals of the speaker
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