AGENT-BASED MODELING

1. (Sociolinguistics) A technique where you have a screen full of hundreds of little creatures we call "agents". The idea is that they interact with each other on the screen, and each agent is independent in the sense that it has its own dialect features and language abilities, but then as it comes into contact with another agent, it can change. Its dialect may change.
    It's a powerful tool that's been used in medicine and social science, and so we're applying it to dialect and language research as a way to model how languages change and even possibly predict the future of what direction a language might take. | ?
2. (Epidemiology) Computer simulations that are used to study the interactions between people, things, places, and time. They are stochastic models built from the bottom up meaning individual agents are assigned certain attributes. The agents are programmed to behave and interact with other agents and the environment in certain ways. These interactions produce emergent effects that may differ from effects of individual agents. Agent-based modeling differs from traditional, regression-based methods in that, like systems dynamics modeling, it allows for the exploration of complex systems that display non-independence of individuals and feedback loops in causal mechanisms. It is not limited to observed data and can be used to model the counterfactual or experiments that may be impossible or unethical to conduct in the real world.
    However, agent-based modeling is not without its limitations. The data parameters (such as the reproductive rate for infectious diseases) are often difficult to find in the literature. In addition, the validity of the model can be difficult to assess, particularly when modeling unobserved associations. Overall, agent-based models provide an additional tool for assessing the impacts of exposures on outcomes. It is particularly useful when interrelatedness, reciprocity, and feedback loops are known or suspected to exist or when real world experiments are not possible. | Mailman School of Public Health, ?

AGENT FOCUS

1. (Syntax) Morphologically ergative languages display asymmetries in the extraction of core arguments: while absolutive arguments (transitive objects and intransitive subjects) extract freely, ergative arguments (transitive subjects) cannot. This falls under the label syntactic ergativity (see, e.g. Dixon 1972, 1994 Manning 1996, Polinsky 2017). These extraction asymmetries are found in many languages of the Mayan family, where in order to extract transitive subjects (for focus, questions, or relativization), a special construction known as the Agent Focus (AF) must be used. These AF constructions have been described as syntactically and semantically transitive because they contain two non-oblique DP arguments, but morphologically intransitive because the verb appears with only a single agreement marker and takes an intransitive status suffix (Aissen 1999, Stiebels 2006). Some morphologically ergative languages exhibit extraction asymmetries, while others do not. | J. Coon, P. M. Pedro, and Omer Preminger, 2014
2. (Grammar) One of the most discussed issues in Mayan linguistics is a verb form that is restricted to a particular set of constructions, namely relative clauses, content questions and focus constructions. Many Mayan languages feature this so-called Agent Focus (AF) verb form, which is used, roughly speaking, when the agent of a transitive verb is realized in the immediately preverbal position (e.g., Jakaltek [Craig 1979], Tzotzil [Aissen 1999], Ixil [Ayres 1983], Tz'utujil [Dayley 1985], Mam [England 1983], K'iche' [Mondloch 1981, Larsen 1987]). The following focus constructions from K'iche' illustrate the regular transitive and the AF verb form of the predicate ch'ay 'hit'. The focus construction in (1) is formed on the regular transitive predicate where both arguments are cross-referenced: the agent by the prefix aa- '2SG.A' and the patient by the (zero) prefix Ø- '3SG.B'. The focus construction in (2) is formed with the AF verb form which only cross-references one argument (here, the agent) by at- '2SG.B' and it is marked by the suffix -ow. (The examples are from Larsen 1987. The glosses are his.)
   1. aree
      FOCUS

      ri
      the

      achii
      man

      x-Ø-aa-ch'ay-o.
      PERFV-3SG.B-2SG.A-hit-PF

      'It was the man that you hit.'
   2. aree
      FOCUS

      ri
      the

      at
      you

      x-at-ch'ay-ow
      PERFV-2SG.B-hit-FOC.AP

      ri
      the

      achii.
      man

      'You were the one who hit the man.'
    Although the Mayan AF verb form occurs in roughly the same constructions across the Mayan languages that have it, there exists quite some inter-language variation with respect to the particular conditions under which the AF verb form is realized. | Judith Tonhauser, 2003

AGGLUTINATIVE LANGUAGE

1. (Morphology; Typology) A type of synthetic language with morphology that primarily uses agglutination. Words may contain different morphemes to determine their meanings, but all of these morphemes (including stems and affixes) tend to remain unchanged after their unions, although this is not a rule: for example, Finnish is a typical agglutinative language, but morphemes are subject to (sometimes unpredictable) consonant alternations called consonant gradation. Despite the occasional outliers, agglutinative languages tend to have more easily deducible word meanings if compared to fusional languages, which allow unpredictable modifications in either or both the phonetics or spelling of one or more morphemes within a word. This usually results in a shortening of the word, or it provides easier pronunciation. | Wikipedia, 2022
2. (Morphology; Typology) Turkish, like Hungarian and Finnish, is an agglutinating language, building up sometimes extremely complex word forms through an extensive range of suffixes. | Phillip Durrant, 2013
3. (Morphology; Typology) The agglutinating type is indicated by:
   1. Words are formed by a root and a clearly detachable sequence of affixes, each of them expressing a separate item of meaning. Affixes are widely employed to indicate the relationships between words. Therefore, there are few or no independent relational elements (e.g., pronouns, pre-/postposition, articles, etc.), and a wide use of nominal cases.
   2. Very high matching between morphs and morphemes. Morphs are loosely joined together; consequently it is very easy to determine the boundaries between them.
   3. Each affix carries only one meaning: no cases of homonymy or synonymy among affixes; the semantic structure is directly reflected in the morphological articulation of the word; no principled limits to the number of affixes in a word.
   4. Word-class distinction is minimal: the same affixes tend to occur with roots belonging to different parts of speech (e.g., personal endings to nouns, case endings to verbs); almost the same morphology for adjectives and verbs. No inflectional classes, no gender distinction.
   5. Derivational affixes are widely employed in word formation. The distinction between inflectional and deriva￾tional affixes is slight. Many affixes reveal their lexical origin to some extent. The latter feature, together with the tendency of affixes to form autonomous syllables and to be relatively unconstrained in number, results in words that are quite long.
   6. Relatively fixed word order. Agreement is almost completely absent.
    | Gilang Febrian, Ulfa Novitasari, and Arif Hidayat, 2022

AGR

1. (Syntax) The person and number feature complex in finite INFL.
    Since Pollock (1989): a functional head containing agreement features and/or an agreement suffix which projects its own syntactic X-bar schema called Agreement Phrase (AgrP). (Belletti 1991, Chomsky 1981, Ouhalla 1990, and Pollock 1989) | Utrecht Lexicon of Linguistics, 2001
2. (Syntax) The main proposal of Pollock (1989) is that the Infl node be split open, as it were, and that each of the elements contained in this node (Tense, Agr, and Negation) head its own maximal projection. Under this proposal, the structure of the smallest sentence containing negation is as follows:

          TP
          /\
         /  \
        /    \
              T'
              /\
             /  \
            /    \
          T0      NegP
                   /\
                  /  \
                 /    \
                       AgrP
                        /\
                       /  \
                      /    \
                            Agr'
                             /\
                            /  \
                           /    \
                        Agr0     VP
   
   

    One of Pollock's major goals is to provide evidence for the existence of AgrP, a maximal projection below Tense (or Negation, when this is present) and above the VP. | Sabine Iatridou, 1990

AGREE

1. (Syntax) A relation between two matching active categories eliminating the uninterpretable features activating these categories. (Chomsky 1999) | Utrecht Lexicon of Linguistics, 2001
2. (Syntax) In the Minimalist Program, agree allows the checking of features without movement—for example, checking the Case feature on an object DP without moving the object. The checking feature (probe) must c-command the checked feature (goal). | David Crystal, 2008
3. (Syntax) A syntactic operation that is standardly taken to assign a value to an unvalued feature on one element (called the Probe), by copying a compatible value from another element (called the Goal). It is usually defined as follows (compare Chomsky 2000, 2001, 2008):

   Agree (standard definition)
   α can Agree with β iff:

   1. α carries at least one unvalued and uninterpretable feature and β carries a matching interpretable and valued feature.
   2. α c-commands β.
   3. β is the closest Goal to α.
   4. β bears an unvalued uninterpretable feature of its own.

    The fourth of these conditions, often called the Activity Condition, has been shown not to hold universally (see Baker 2008, Halpert 2019, Oxford 2017, a.o.). | Neil Myler, 2023
4. (Syntax) The agreement relation between the arguments and their co-indexing by the verbal morphology has been captured in the generative Minimalist framework by the syntactic operation Agree (Chomsky 2000, 2001). Under Agree, a head and a phrase (or technically, the head of that phrase) share features, typically φ-features: person, number, and gender. The phrase has values for these features, for example the subject in (1) nikhúle 'mouse' is specified as [person: 3], [number: SG], [gender: C]:
   Makhuwa (Southern Bantu):
   1. Ni-khúlé
      5-mouse

      ni-ni-ḿ-vár-á
      5SM-PRS.CJ-1OM-grab-FV

      naphulú.
      1a.frog

      'A/the mouse grabs a/the frog.'
   2. Ma-khúlé
      6-mice

      a-ni-ḿ-vár-á
      6SM-PRS.CJ-1OM-grab-FV

      naphulú.
      1a.frog

      '(The) mice grab a/the frog.'
   3. Ni-khúlé
      5-mouse

      ni-n-aá-vár-á
      5SM-PRC.CJ-2OM-grab-FV

      anaphúlu.
      2a.frog

      'A/the mouse grabs (the) frogs.'
    The head, on the other hand, does not inherently have these features, but "needs" them. This is modelled as uninterpretable unvalued features on the head, which probe the structure for valuation; for uφ-features we indicate this as [person: _], [number: _], [gender: _]. The unvalued features are therefore also called the probe. As soon as the probe encounters a matching goal, namely a DP that can value features of the probe, the two agree, which means that unvalued features on the probe are valued. | Jenneke van der Wal, 2022

AGREEMENT

1. (Grammar) A traditional term used in grammatical theory and description to refer to a formal relationship between elements, whereby a form of one word requires a corresponding form of another (i.e. the forms agree). In Latin, for example, agreement between elements is of central importance, being one of the main means of expressing grammatical relationships in the absence of fixed patterns of word-order. The term concord has been more widely used in linguistic studies, but in generative linguistics "agreement" resurfaced with a new range of application. | David Crystal, 2008
2. (Syntax) A widespread syntactic situation in which a target element agrees with a controller element in some morphosyntactic feature.
    "The term 'agreement' commonly refers to some systematic covariance between a semantic or formal property of one element and a formal property of another." (Steele 1978)
   1. Agreement of article and adjective with noun in number and gender (Spanish examples)
      a. la casa nueva ('the new house')
      b. el libro nuevo ('the new book')
      c. las casas nuevas ('the new houses')
      d. los libros nuevos ('the new books')
   2. Agreement of verb with subject noun phrase (German examples)
      a. ich kaufe ('I buy')
      b. du kaufst ('you(SG) buy')
      c. er kauft ('he buys')
      d. wir kaufen ('we buy')
      e. ihr kauft ('you(PL) buy')
      f. sie kaufen ('they buy')
    (Corbett 2006, Steele 1978) | Utrecht Lexicon of Linguistics, 2001

ALIENABLE/INALIENABLE POSSESSION
(Grammar) Inalienable possession is a type of possession in which a noun is obligatorily possessed by its possessor. Nouns or nominal affixes in an inalienable possession relationship cannot exist independently or be "alienated" from their possessor. For example, a hand implies '(someone's) hand', even if it is severed from the whole body. Likewise, a father implies '(someone's) father'. Inalienable nouns include body parts, kinship terms, and part-whole relations. Many languages reflect this distinction, but they vary in the way they mark inalienable possession. Cross-linguistically, inalienability correlates with many morphological, syntactic, and semantic properties.
 In general, the alienable–inalienable distinction is an example of a binary possessive class system.
 Alienable possession is generally used for tangible items which one might cease to own at some point (e.g. my money) whereas inalienable possession refers to a perpetual relationship which cannot be readily severed (e.g. my mother). | Wikipedia, 2017
See Also INALIENABLE POSSESSION.

ALIGN
(Optimality Theory) A constraint:

ALIGN
The final edge of a Morphological Word (MWord) corresponds to the final edge of a syllable.

ALIGN(GCat-edge(L|R), PCat-edge(L|R) )

ALLATIVE CASE
(Grammar) Abbreviated ALL. A case that expresses motion to or toward the referent of the noun it marks.
 The term allative case has been used in studies of Finnish and Eskimo. Its synonym additive case has been used especially in studies of Basque. (Pei and Gaynor 1954, Lyons 1968, Crystal 1985) | SIL Glossary of Linguistic Terms, 2003

ALLOCUTIVE
(Morphology) In the linguistics of Basque, allocutive verb forms are forms that vary depending on the social status of the addressee.
 "Allocutivity refers to the encoding in the conjugated verb form of an addressee that is not an argument of the verb. Allocutivity is obligatory in Basque main clauses when the addressee is given familiar treatment." (Hualde and Ortiz de Urbina, 2003) (Haase 1994) | Glottopedia, 2007

ALLOCUTIVE AGREEMENT

1. (Syntax) Where a verb or functional element in the clause agrees not with the subject or some other argument, but with the addressee. For example, in certain dialects of Tamil, if you want to say I'm leaving to a single person who you use informal pronouns with, it would be Naan varreen. But if you say it to a group of people or an individual who you would use formal pronouns with, it's Naan varreen-nga.
    Patterns like this are found in a number of languages. | Thomas McFadden, 2019
2. (Morphology) A morphological feature in which the gender of an addressee is marked overtly in an utterance using fully grammaticalized markers (Trask 1997). The term was first used by Louis Lucien Bonaparte in 1862. | Wikipedia, 2016

ALLOMORPH
(Morphology) An allomorph is one of two or more complementary morphs which manifest a morpheme in its different phonological or morphological environments.
 The allomorphs of a morpheme are derived from phonological rules and any morphophonemic rules that may apply to that morpheme.
 Example: The plural morpheme in English has allomorphs [-s] as in hats, [-z] as in dogs, [-əz] as in boxes. (Hartmann and Stork 1972, Crystal 1985, Payne 1997) | SIL Glossary of Linguistic Terms, 2003

ALLOMORPHY
(Morphology) One morpheme surfaces with different phonological content (morph) in different contexts; i.e. one morpheme has multiple allomorphs.
  Many different phenomena fall under the broad umbrella of allomorphy, running the gamut from purely phonological to purely morphological/lexical. | Sam Zukoff, 2021

ALTERNATIVE SEMANTICS
(Semantics) Or, Hamblin semantics. A framework in formal semantics and logic. In alternative semantics, expressions denote alternative sets, understood as sets of objects of the same semantic type. For instance, while the word Lena might denote Lena herself in a classical semantics, it would denote the singleton set containing Lena in alternative semantics. The framework was introduced by Charles Leonard Hamblin in 1973 as a way of extending Montague grammar to provide an analysis for questions. In this framework, a question denotes the set of its possible answers. Thus, if P and Q are propositions, then {P,Q} is the denotation of the question whether P or Q is true. Since the 1970s, it has been extended and adapted to analyze phenomena including focus (Krifka 1993), scope, disjunction (Fox 2007), NPIs (Chiercha), presupposition, and implicature (Cross; Rooth). | Wikipedia, 2022

ALTERNATIVE SET
(Semantics) A term used in relation to the semantics of focus for the set of items with which the denotation of a focused constituent contrasts. For example, in the sentence It was Mary who arrived late, the alternative set for Mary would include individuals other than Mary whom one might have expected would arrive late, but did not. | David Crystal, 2008

Page Last Modified March 23, 2024

 

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