COVERB

1. (Grammar) A lexical category of predicative but non-inflecting elements that can function only in concert with an inflective verb to their right. They originate from the non-rightmost verb in a serial verb construction which gradually loses its ability to function independently. | Jan Ullrich, 2023
2. (Grammar) A crucial feature of Jaminjung (Australian), which is also highly relevant for the structure of spatial expressions, is the division of predicative lexemes into two distinct lexical categories.
   1. Verbs, that is those lexemes carrying verbal inflections, constitute a closed class with around 30 members.
   2. Members of an open class of uninflected elements, termed "coverbs" here, cover a semantic area which is usually covered by verbs, but also by adverbs and adpositions, in other languages.
    The term "coverb"—rather than preverb (e.g. Nash 1986, Tsunoda 1981, McGregor this volume) or verbal particle (e.g. Hoddinott and Kofod 1976, Merlan 1994)—is used here because
   1. It does not suggest a fixed order with respect to the verb, and
   2. It does not have the connotation of a minor word class restricted in size.
   3. It also captures the dependent nature of members of this class: coverbs do not function as the main predicate in a finite clause, but have to be combined with a verb to form a complex predicate. For example, in (i) and (ii), three coverbs, mung 'look at', waga 'sit', and girrb 'be quiet' occur in combinations with different verbs.
      1. pigipigi
         pig

         mung
         look.at

         ga-yu
         3SG-BE.PRS

         yina-wurla-ngining
         DIST-DIR-L.ALL

         manamba-ngining
         upstream-L.ALL

         'a pig is looking that way, upstream' (Max-Planck-Institute for Psycholinguistics, 1990s)
      2. warrgayin-ngunyi
         far-ABL

         ga-ram
         3SG-COME.PRS

         yina,
         DIST

         gamurr
         middle

         waga
         sit

         ga-yu
         3SG-BE.PRS

         girrb
         quiet

         gan-unggu-m
         3SG:3SG-SAY/DO-PRS

         'he comes from a long way over there, halfway he sits down and stops'
    | Eva Schultze-Berndt, 2009

COVERT MOVEMENT

1. (Syntax) The "single-output" model, along with the Copy Theory of Movement (Chomsky 1993, 1995, 2000), allows overt and covert movement to be recast as mere epiphenomena:
    Overt movement describes a situation in which both phonology and semantics interpret the highest copy/link in the movement chain, whereas covert movement describes a situation in which the semantics interprets a higher copy/link than does phonology.
    This contrasts with the traditional Minimalist Program framework (Chomsky 1995 et seq.), in which the difference between overt movement and covert movement derives from features-strength: strong features must be checked prior to spelling out the derivation to PF, and therefore result in movement that is phonologically detectable; checking of weak features, on the other hand, can be deferred until after spell-out, resulting in phonologically undetectable movement. Thus, within traditional minimalism, overt movement and covert movement are essentially primitives, encoded in the form of the feature-strength of those features responsible for triggering each particular instance of movement.
    Crucially, each of the two interfaces (phonological and semantic) is relatively free in choosing which copy it will privilege for interpretation. | Omer Preminger, 2009
2. (Syntax) Or, hidden movement. When movement is involved in the derivation of LF, we speak of hidden or covert movement: the effect is invisible at the level of PF. Thus in a multiple question like Who saw what, the second wh-phrase what is covertly moved to sentence-initial position in the derivation of LF. (Chomsky 1965, 1973, 1986, 1993) | Utrecht Lexicon of Linguistics, 2001

CP
(Syntax) Abbreviation for Complementizer Phrase. CP is the maximal projection of COMP (C⁰). CP is in part a "reconstruction" in X-bar theory of the category S' (or S-bar).
 Thus the (anomalous) structure generated in (1) is replaced by the X-bar structure generated in (2).

1. Chomsky 1981

           S'
           /\
          /  \
         /    \
     COMP      S
   

2. Chomsky 1986

              CP
              /\
             /  \
            /    \
     spec,CP      C'
                  /\
                 /  \
                /    \
               C      IP
   

CRASH
(Syntax) Notion in the Minimalist Program. A derivation crashes if it does not converge. (Chomsky 1993, 1995) | Utrecht Lexicon of Linguistics, 2001

CRASIS
(Phonology) From Greek κρᾶσις 'mingling'. The contraction of a vowel or diphthong at the end of a word with a vowel or diphthong beginning the following word. | Herbert Weir Smyth, 1916

CRAZY RULE
(Phonology) The basic distinction between phonological items below and above the skeleton: the former have a phonetic correlate, the latter do not; the former have arbitrary labels and may enjoy crazy computation (crazy rules), while the latter are drawn from a small set of cross-linguistically stable items (onset, nucleus etc.) which do not produce any crazy rules and whose labels are not interchangeable.
 A crazy rule is one that does not make sense phonetically speaking, that is, which is not "natural". Since Bach and Harms (1972), a small literature on crazy rules has arisen that documents particular cases such as (1).

1. i → u / d__ (for Southern Pomoan, see Buckley 2000, 2003) (Vennemann 1972, Hyman, 2001).

2. A → B / C

3. p → r in coda position
4. p → r after tonic vowels

CROSS-CLAUSAL A-DEPENDENCY

1. (Syntax) Traditional theories of case and agreement treat these phenomena as bound to contexts in which the elements involved originate within the same clause, unless a clause is considered to be incomplete—i.e., deficient or reduced in some way. This view captures the distribution in (1) vs. (2) in languages like English. (1a) and (2a) are cases of so-called raising to object or exceptional case marking (ECM—a configuration in which the case of the embedded subject is determined by the matrix predicate); in (subject) raising configurations like (1b) and (2b), the subject originates in the embedded clause and raises to matrix subject position; and in (1c) and (2c), the matrix verb agrees with the embedded subject. As shown in (1) vs. (2), these A-dependencies are only possible in (certain) infinitives and not across finite clause boundaries. A common view is that the complements of ECM and raising verbs do not embed full clauses (e.g., they only combine with IPs / TPs and not CPs), hence cross-clausal A-dependencies (CCA) are possible.
   1. a. I believe her to have won the triathlon.
      b. She seems to have won the triathlon.
      c. There seem to be some misconceptions.
   2. a. * I believe (that) her won the triathlon.
      b. * She seems that won the triathlon.
      c. * It / There seem that (there) are some misconceptions.
    While such an approach works well for English, it raises many questions once we look beyond English. | Susi Wurmbrand, 2019
2. (Syntax) 
   1. A-dependencies: thematic licensing, case, agreement (Move, Merge, and Binding related to these properties).
   2. Cross-clausal: Case and/or agreement are determined by / within a different predicate/clause than the Q-role of the DP involved.
   3. Phenomena: Raising, Exceptional Case Marking [ECM], raising to object, "long-distance" agreement.
    | Susi Wurmbrand, 2018
3. (Syntax) CCA are A-dependencies (e.g. raising to subject/object, agreement, case assignment) between a matrix element (e.g. predicate) and a DP inside an embedded CP complement clause, namely Hyperraising [HyR], Hyper-ECM or long-distance agreement [LDA] (summarized under the term CCA, following Wurmbrand 2019). In languages like English or German, instances of CCA are ungrammatical:
   1. * I believe that her won the triathlon.
   2. * She seems that won the triathlon.
    A wide variety of unrelated languages, however, does not rule out CCA categorically. For example, Mongolian allows HyR to object in (3), and Cantonese allows HyR to subject in (4).
   3. Mongolian HyR to object (Fong 2019)
      Bat
      Bat

      nokhoi-g
      dog-ACC

      chang-aar
      loudly

      [
      [

      t
      t

      gaikhal-ta
      wonder-with

      gej
      COMP

      ]
      ]

      khel-sen.
      say-PST

      'Bat said loudly that dogs are wonderful.'
   4. Cantonese HyR to subject (Lee and Yip 2023)
      Coeng
      CL

      jyu
      rain

      gamgok/tengman
      feel.like/hear

      [
      [

      waa
      COMP

      t
      t

      m-wui
      not-will

      ting
      stop

      ].
      ]

      'It is felt/heard that the rain will not stop.'
    | Magdalena Lohninger and Ka-Fai Yip, 2023

CROSS-CLAUSAL DEPENDENCY
(Syntax) Case and agreement dependencies that are established across finite clause-boundaries have been documented in many languages. | Susi Wurmbrand, 2018

CROSS-SPEAKER ELLIPSIS

1. (Syntax) E.g., simple bare fragment answers to wh-questions. | Ruth Kempson and Matthew Purver, 2004
2. (Syntax) Examples:
   1. Fragment answer
      A: What did Alex design?
      B: A kaleidoscope.
   2. VP ellipsis
      A: A policeman who arrested Bill read him his rights.
      B: The policeman who arrested Tom did too.
    | Nikolina Koleva, 2011

CSC
See COORDINATE STRUCTURE CONSTRAINT.

CULMINATIVITY
(Prosody) Stress and tonal accent both instantiate it.
 In his discussion of the prototypes for lexical prosodic systems, Hyman (2006, 2009) demonstrates that the common understanding of the notion of "culminativity" requires the separate statement of two criteria.

1. Obligatoriness: Every lexical word has at least one syllable which is marked for the highest degree of metrical prominence. The typical property to fill this function is primary stress, as in the Germanic languages and e.g. Greek. Obligatoriness is neutral as to whether there is one or several markers for the highest degree of metrical prominence.
2. Culminativity: Every lexical word has at most one syllable which is marked for the highest degree of metrical prominence. This notion narrows the possibilities down to one or zero stresses per lexical word.

CULTURAL TRANSMISSION
See TRADITIONAL TRANSMISSION.

CYCLE OF THE DEFINITE ARTICLE

1. (Diachronic) Greenberg (1978) describes a cycle in which demonstratives first become articles (stage I), then non-generic markers (stage II), and finally noun class markers (stage III). After this stage, the erstwhile demonstrative can be seen as an agreement marker. Greenberg's examples come from Niger-Congo languages, Semitic, and many other languages. He emphasizes that the cycle "constantly generates concordial phenomena". Diessel (1999), Lyons (1999), and Hawkins (1994) expand on these stages and see the initial loss of the deictic aspect as crucial (distance from the speaker/hearer). What is left is an anaphoric reference to something in the text.
    The definiteness cycle can be represented as below. Using a DP structure, the descriptive Greenbergian cycle of (1) translates into (2). The specifier becomes a head, which subsequently disappears and is replaced by a new specifier. In (3), the changes involving the features are listed.
   1. demonstrative > def. art. > case/non-generic > class marker
   2. specifier > head  > affix > zero
   3. iF > uF > zero
    | Elly van Gelderen, 2007
2. (Diachronic) Joseph Greenberg (2005) describes: Definite articles (Stage I) evolve from demonstratives, and in turn can become generic articles (Stage II) that may be used in both definite and indefinite contexts, and later merely noun markers (Stage III) that are part of nouns other than proper names and more recent borrowings. Eventually articles may evolve anew from demonstratives. | Wikipedia, 2022
3. (Diachronic) Greenberg (1978), in defining his "cycle of the definite article", argues that "[t]he point at which a discourse deictic becomes a definite article is where it becomes compulsory and has spread to the point at which it means 'identified' in general". | Richard Epstein, 2011

CYCLIC AGREE
(Syntax) We propose that agreement displacement phenomena sensitive to person hierarchies arise from the mechanism of Agree operating on articulated φ-feature structures in a cyclic syntax. Cyclicity and locality derive a preference for agreement control by the internal argument. Articulation of the probe determines (a) when the agreement controller cyclically displaces to the external argument and (b) differences in crosslinguistic sensitivity to person hierarchies. The system characterizes two classes of derivations corresponding empirically to direct and inverse contexts, and predicts the existence and nature of repair strategies in the latter. The properties of agreement displacement thus reduce to properties of syntactic dependency formation by Agree. | Béjar and Rezac, 2009
See Also MULTIPLE AGREE.

CYCLIC(AL) PRINCIPLE:

1. (Generative Grammar) We assume that the rules are linearly ordered and that they are applied in the given order in forming a derivation. Furthermore, this order is cyclical, in the following sense. The syntactic component generates a string with surface structure that is represented by labeled bracketing. The sequence of phonological rules is first applied to all innermost constituents of this string. Innermost brackets are then deleted, and the sequence applies to the new innermost constituents. This cyclical application is repeated until the maximal domain of phonological processes is reached. (The maximal domain is the phonological phrase, which we assume to be marked in the surface structure.) | ?
2. (Generative Grammar) By which a set of rules applies first to the smallest constituents which are of a given type or types, then to the next largest such constituents, and so on. | ?

CYCLICITY
(Syntax) Basic notion of subjacency that movement is bounded, i.e. can only cross one bounding (or: cyclic) node at the time. In general S (or S') and NP have been singled out as being bounding nodes. Originally, "cyclicity" was considered a property of rules or rule systems: a set of rules are to be applied cyclically to successively larger dominating constituents. Presently, cyclicity is subsumed under the barriers theory. (Chomsky, 1977, 1986, 1993) | Utrecht Lexicon of Linguistics, 2001

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