‫االسم \ هدير مجدي محمد عبد الطلب سعد‬

‫رابعة – عام – انجليزي‬

Linguistics

Definitions & Examples:

1. Agent: An entity that performs an action. Example: "The dog (agent) chased the
cat."
2. Antecedent: The word or phrase to which a pronoun refers. Example: "John
(antecedent) loves his car. He (pronoun) washes it every day."
3. Antonyms: Words with opposite meanings. Example: "Hot" and "cold" are
antonyms.
4. C-command: A syntactic relationship where one element controls another.
Example: In the sentence "He saw her," "he" c-commands "her."
5. Co-operative principle: A principle of conversation that assumes speakers will
cooperate in communication. Example: Being truthful and providing relevant
information.
6. Componential analysis: Analyzing the meaning of words by breaking them
down into smaller semantic components. Example: Analyzing "bird" as
[+animate], [+flying], and [+feathered].
7. Connotation: The emotional or cultural associations of a word. Example: "Slim"
and "skinny" have similar denotations but different connotations.
8. Conversational implicature: An implied meaning that arises in conversation.
Example: "Some students didn't pass the test" implies "not all students passed."
9. Conversational maxims: Guidelines for effective communication, including
quantity, quality, relevance, and manner:
• Maxim of Quantity: Be as informative as necessary, but not more.
Example: Answering "What time is it?" with "It's 2:30" rather than "It's 2:30
and 15 seconds".
• Maxim of Quality: Be truthful. Example: Saying "The sky is blue" when
asked about the color of the sky, instead of saying it's green just for fun.
• Maxim of Relation: Be relevant. Example: Discussing the weather when
someone asks about weekend plans would violate this maxim.
• Maxim of Manner: Be clear and avoid ambiguity. Example: Saying
"Please pass the salt" instead of "I think I need some of that stuff over
there."
10. Denotation: The literal or dictionary definition of a word. Example: "Cat"
denotes a small carnivorous mammal.
11. Discourse: refers to extended spoken or written communication on a
particular topic, often involving multiple connected sentences or utterances. It
 can include conversations, speeches, essays, or any other form of
communication that involves more than just individual sentences.
Example: A political debate where candidates discuss various issues such as
healthcare, education, and the economy, presenting arguments, counterarguments,
and evidence to support their positions, constitutes a discourse.
12. Entailment: The relationship between sentences where the truth of one
necessitates the truth of another. Example: "Jane is married" entails "Jane is not
single."
13. Extension: The set of entities to which a term applies in the real world.
Example: The extension of "dog" includes all individual dogs.
14. Functional categories: Grammatical categories that express relationships
between words in a sentence, such as tense, aspect, and mood.
15. Fuzzy concepts: Concepts with unclear or borderline boundaries.
Example: "Tall" is a fuzzy concept because there is no precise height that defines
it.
16. Goal: The purpose or aim of an action. Example: "She ran to the store
(goal) to buy milk."
17. Graded membership: Membership in a category that can vary in degree.
Example: "Good" can describe things with varying degrees of goodness or
consider the category "fruit." While apples, oranges, and bananas are typically
seen as prototypical examples of fruits due to their common characteristics (e.g.,
being sweet, having seeds), other items like tomatoes and avocados may have a
less clear-cut status.
18. Grammaticized: When a word or phrase becomes a grammatical element.
Example: "Gonna" is a grammaticized form of "going to."
19. Homonyms: Words that are spelled and pronounced the same but have
different meanings. Example: "Bank" (of a river) and "bank" (financial institution).
20. Homophones: Words that sound the same but have different meanings
and often different spellings. Example: "Their," "there," and "they're."
21. Lexicalization: refers to the process by which words or expressions
become part of a language's lexicon, or vocabulary, often through repeated use
and acceptance by speakers. It involves the adoption and incorporation of new
words, phrases, or meanings into the linguistic repertoire of a community.
Example: The word "googling" is an example of lexicalization. Originally, "Google"
referred specifically to the search engine company, but over time, people started using
"googling" as a verb to describe the act of searching for information on the internet,
regardless of the search engine used
22. Location: A place or position in space. Example: "The book is on the
table."
 23. Motion verbs: Verbs that describe movement. Example: "Run," "walk," and
"jump."
24. Non-lexical categories: Grammatical categories that are not expressed by
specific words but by syntax or morphology, such as tense and aspect.
25. New information: refers to content that is being introduced or presented
for the first time in a conversation or text.
Example:
Consider the following conversation:
A: "I went to the store."
B: "What did you buy?"
A: "I bought a new laptop."
In this example, the phrase "a new laptop" represents new information because it
introduces a specific item that was not previously mentioned in the conversation.
26. Old Information: refers to content that has already been introduced,
mentioned, or established within a conversation or text.
Example:
Consider the following conversation:
A: "I went to the store."
B: "What did you buy?"
A: "I bought milk and bread."
In this example, the phrases "milk and bread" represent old information because they
were previously mentioned by person A.
27. Paraphrases: Expressions that have the same meaning but are phrased
differently. Example: "The cat is on the mat" and "The mat has a cat on it."
28. Polysemy: The phenomenon where a word has multiple related meanings.
Example: "Bank" can refer to a financial institution or the side of a river.
29. Pragmatics: is the branch of linguistics concerned with the study of
language in use and how context influences meaning. It deals with the
interpretation of language beyond the literal meaning of words and phrases,
considering factors such as speaker intention, social context, and conversational
implicature.
Example: In the sentence "It's cold in here," the literal meaning suggests a low
temperature. However, in a conversation where someone says this while pointing at a
window, the pragmatic meaning could imply that the window should be closed to keep
out the cold.
30. Presupposition: An assumption that is taken for granted in a conversation.
Example: "Have you stopped beating your wife?" presupposes that the person
being asked has beaten their wife.
31. Principle A: refers to one of the core principles proposed by linguist Noam
Chomsky as part of the Binding Theory. Principal A states that an anaphor (a
pronoun that refers back to another expression) must be bound within its local
domain by a co-indexed element (usually a nominal phrase) that matches it in
reference.
Example: In the sentence "John saw himself in the mirror," "himself" is the anaphor,
referring back to "John." According to Principal A, "himself" must be bound within its
local domain, meaning it must be co-indexed with "John”.
32. Principle B: is one of the core principles proposed by Noam Chomsky's
Binding Theory. Principle B states that a pronoun must not be bound by a co-
indexed element within its local domain.
Example: Consider the sentence "John saw himself in the mirror." Here, "himself" is
a reflexive pronoun referring back to "John." According to Principle B, "himself"
cannot be bound by another co-indexed element within its local domain.
33. Principle of compositionality: The principle that the meaning of a
complex expression is determined by the meanings of its constituent parts and
how they are combined.
34. Pronominal: refers to a word or phrase that functions as a pronoun,
representing or referring to a noun or noun phrase. Pronominals are used to
avoid repetition of nouns and can stand in for them in sentences. Pronominals
can include personal pronouns (e.g., he, she, they), possessive pronouns (e.g.,
his, her, their), demonstrative pronouns (e.g., this, that), and other types of
pronouns.
Example: In the sentence "She is reading a book," the word "she" is a pronominal,
representing or referring to a specific female person.
35. Pronouns: Words that substitute for nouns. Example: "He," "she," "it."
36. Prototypical: The most representative or typical member of a category.
Example: A robin is a prototypical bird.
37. Reflexive pronouns: Pronouns that refer back to the subject of the
sentence. Example: "He hurt himself."
38. Semantic features: Characteristics or attributes that contribute to the
meaning of a word. Example: [+animate], [+human], [+female] for "woman."
 39. Semantics: Semantics refers to the study of meaning in language,
encompassing the interpretation and understanding of words, phrases,
sentences, and larger units of discourse.
Example: In the sentence "She lost her keys," semantics examines the meaning of
each word ("she," "lost," "her," "keys") and how they combine to convey the idea that a
female individual misplaced her set of keys.
40. Setting: The context in which communication occurs, including the physical
environment, social situation, etc.
41. Source: The origin or starting point of something. Example: "The river's
source is in the mountains."
42. Spatial metaphor: Metaphorical use of spatial relationships to convey
abstract concepts. Example: "Up" is often associated with good or positive
things, while "down" is associated with bad or negative things.
43. Spatial deictics: Words or expressions that indicate spatial relationships,
such as "here," "there," "this," "that."
44. Structural ambiguity: Ambiguity that arises from the structure of a
sentence rather than the words themselves. Example: "I saw the man with the
telescope."
45. Synonyms: Words with similar meanings. Example: "Big" and "large" are
synonyms.
46. Thematic roles: The different roles that noun phrases can play in a
sentence or are the set of abstract concepts that describe the relationship
between verbs and their arguments in a sentence. These roles help determine
the semantic roles of nouns or noun phrases in relation to the action described
by the verb, such as agent, theme, goal, etc.
47. Theme: refers to the element of a sentence that serves as the starting
point or topic of a clause or sentence. It often involves what the sentence is
about or what is being described.
Example: In the sentence "The cat chased the mouse," the theme is "the cat," as it is
the subject of the action (chasing) described in the sentence.
48. Topic: refers to the subject or theme being discussed or addressed. It's the
main focus of communication at a particular moment.
Example:
Topic: Travel
In a conversation about travel, people might discuss their favorite destinations, travel
experiences, tips for packing, or upcoming trips.
 49. Truth conditions: refer to the conditions under which a statement or
proposition is considered true or false. They are often used in formal semantics
to analyze the meaning of sentences.
Example:
Statement: "The cat is on the mat."
Truth conditions: This statement is true if and only if there is a cat and it is located on
the mat. If there is no cat on the mat, the statement is false.