Linguistics Stack Exchange
Linguistics Stack Exchange

Questions tagged [terminology]

Words, phrases, and acronyms specific to the study of linguistics.

This tag is used for two main types of questions:

  1. Seeking the correct term used in the field of linguistics to cover a concept explained in the question.

  2. Seeking a definition or clarification of a given term used in the linguistics field.

But the tag can be used for any questions about linguistics terminology, such as seeking to know the difference between two terms which at first glance appear similar, etc.

This tag should not be used for questions about terminology which is not used in linguistics. Such questions would be general language questions and as such off-topic here. They may belong on English Language & Usage though.

For question about the terminology (study of terms) as subfield of applied linguistics, use .

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Is there a linguistics term meaning "it's grammatically correct, but nobody says that"?

This happens a lot when learning a foreign language: You learn some grammar structure, and insert some nouns, verbs, adjectives, etc., in the appropriate places, only to find out that no-one would ever say what you've come up with. It's not wrong,…
Rebecca J. Stones
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Meaning of star/asterisk in linguistics

In some dictionaries/lexica, I've seen the asterisk in front of old words. What does it mean/stand for? Example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto-Germanic#Pre-Proto-Germanic *ǵʰóstis "stranger" > *gʰóstis > *gastiz "guest"
feeela
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Rudeness by being polite

When talking to learners of my mother tongue, Swedish, I've sometimes had to explain how using too polite language can be taken as rude or insulting, as it creates a certain distance between the speakers. I guess this is a mechanism in many…
leo
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What do you call it when you write the next word in a sequence twice instead of the current and next word?

I'm not sure how to phrase it, but I'll give an example. Let's say I want to type "Think this will be the last instruction?" While typing this out, I recite the phrase in my head, but I type the following: "this this will be the last…
Matthew Polak
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What are the criteria for deciding whether a language is "natural"?

I read in the Linguistics section on the Wikipedia page for American Sign Language that ASL was "proven [to be a natural language] to the satisfaction of the linguistic community by William Stokoe, and contains phonology, morphology, semantics,…
Niel de Beaudrap
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What is the hierarchy for studies inside linguistics, or: How many different kinds of error can one make in language?

At least in my mind, language can be generally considered as a sequence of paragraphs, each being a sequence of sentences, each being a sequence of words, each being a sequence of letters. I understand that there is a science for each level of this…
badp
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Argot vs Jargon

I'm stuck understanding the difference between argot and jargon. According to many sources, e.g. Wikipedia: Argot is a secret language used by various groups—including, but not limited to, thieves and other criminals—to prevent outsiders from…
Be Brave Be Like Ukraine
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Is there a term for the phenomenon of linking the end of a word to the beginning of the next word?

Is there a word to describe the phenomenon where a final sound of a word is linked to the starting sound of the next word? A couple of examples: "hold on" sounds like "whole Don" "this guy" sounds like "the sky" The Wikipedia article of "liaison"…
pamplemousse
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Is there a difference between the terms `plosive` and `stop`?

A sound like the voiceless retroflex stop get's sometimes called a stop and sometimes a plosive. Are the terms completely synonymous or do they have a slightly different meaning?
Christian
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Relation between some linguistics terms

I am trying to draw a diagram to show relationship between these terms but I am not sure what is correct position of them is diagram. Can you please help to do that? What is relation of following term (is-a, has-one, has-many, is-consist-of,…
Real Dreams
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What's the opposite of a pejorative suffix?

Many languages have a suffix (or some other alteration) that gives a pejorative meaning to a word. For example, in Spanish: pájaro "bird" + -aco → pajarraco "big, ugly bird" What do you call a suffix that gives an "anti-pejorative" meaning to a…
Joe
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What's the linguistic term for the words used when addressing someone?

What is the linguistic term for words like sir, mam, miss, pal, bro, dude, buddy, son, mom/mum, dad etc.? Although I understand that there is a fair degree of overlap, I'm not looking for the term "title". Titles are used with the addressee's name.…
cyco130
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What is the difference, if any, between "ungrammatical" and "infelicitous" as linguistic terms?

What is the difference, if any, between "ungrammatical" and "infelicitous" as linguistic terms? I haven't had much luck finding an answer to this question on the 'net. We all know that a phrase or sentences is ungrammatical if it violates the…
James Grossmann
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What is the linguistic explanation of the phenomenon in "affirmative action"?

The phrase "affirmative action" does not tell you what it is about. Even though the literal meaning of this phrase can be very broad (in theory it could be referring to affirmative action of achieving anything), but it is commonly used to refer to a…
Feng Jiang
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What's the difference between word vectors, word representations and vector embeddings?

I have seen word vectors, word representations and vector embedding in those papers (and in a few other places): https://www.cs.toronto.edu/~amnih/papers/wordreps.pdf : words embeddings http://arxiv.org/abs/1301.3781 : word…
user48665
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