INTENSIFIER
(Grammar) An adverb or adverbial phrase that strengthens the meaning of other expressions and shows emphasis. Words that we commonly use as intensifiers include absolutely, completely, extremely, highly, rather, really, so, too, totally, utterly, very and at all:

1. She was so upset. I felt extremely sorry for her.
2. She has a very strict teacher.
3. Don't work too hard. Sometimes you'll get more done by relaxing a bit.
4. I don't think she understood the topic and her essay was rather a mess.
5. She's really offended her sister.

6. Are there no suitable DVDs at all?
7. I'm afraid I'm not at all interested.

8. What on earth is he doing? (suggests disapproval)
9. Why did I ever invite them to stay with us? (suggests that there were problems)

INTENTIVE PARTICLE

1. (Grammar) Fujii (2010) appropriately describes the Japanese "intentive particle" ‐yoo to be associated with "essentially internal monologue-like utterances". Typically, the particle is used in an utterance to oneself to stay resolute on something. For example, a school child may mutter (1) to himself/herself coming home from school to avoid the temptation to put it off until the next day.
   1. Kyoo
      Today

      shukudai
      homework

      si-yoo.
      do-INT

      'I'll do my homework today.'
    Since the intentive particle is used in a monologue or to show overhearers that one is resolute on doing something, it only appears with a subject that refers to the speaker, hence the ungrammaticality of (2).
   2. *Anata/*Kare-wa
      you/he-TOP

      kyoo
      today

      shukudai
      homework

      si-yoo.
      do-INT

      Intended: 'You'll/He'll do your/his homework today.'
    | Asako Matsuda, 2015
2. (Grammar) Should occur only with a volitional subject: a subject whose referent has the ability to intend or make a decision, such as a human being. | Ryoko Hattori, 2012

INTERACTIONALITY
(General) A modal characteristic of language. Language as an activity, namely socialization, between the speaker and the interlocutor.
 Clearly at the foundation of Vygotsky's (1962) psychological theory lies a strong view that interactionality is the essence of language. Vygotsky's view directs us to the conclusion that for language to be recognized and to function as such, it must be understood to possess its social and dialogic nature—that is to say, interactionality—as the most fundamental characteristic. | Senko K. Maynard, 1993

INTERGENDER
(Grammar) Or, neutral. Used between genders.

1. Stoney Nakoda:
   Declarative enclitic -ch is used:
   • Between genders.
   • In generic situations.

INTERLINGUAL IDENTIFICATION
(Sociolinguistics) A mechanism (Weinreich 1964) known in contact linguistics. The establishment of equivalence relations between structural elements in different languages. Interlingual identification is not a fully predictable process, but reflects a partially creative activity of the speakers: equivalence is not pre-determined by formal or functional properties of the relevant elements, but rather emerges as a result of speakers' communicative practice in multilingual communities. Hence, two elements are perceived, increasingly used, and eventually conventionalized as interlingual equivalents. Yet, interlingual identification is not fully arbitrary either, as it is usually motivated by similarity on the formal and/or functional side, including such different (and potentially conflicting) criteria as phonic, semantic, morphosyntactic, pragmatic, and frequential properties. | Steffen Höder, 2018

INTERLOCUTOR
(Discourse) Or, conversation partner (Thomas 2011), or, hearer (Buchstaller and Van Alphen 2012), or, addressee (Whitlee 2002). A person involved in a conversation or dialogue. Two or more people speaking to one another are each other's interlocutors (Merriam-Webster's 2003, Meyerhoff 2013). | Wikipedia, 2021

INTERNAL ARGUMENT
(Syntax) The argument of a verb that has to be realized inside the maximal projection of that verb. Each verb may have one or more internal arguments. The argument which is closest to the verb is sometimes called the direct internal argument, while the others are called the indirect internal arguments.
 The argument structure of the English transitive verb open contains an external argument (Agent) and two internal arguments (Theme and Instrument) as can be inferred from the sentence Tom opened the door with his key, where the door is the direct internal argument, and with his key the indirect internal argument. (Levin and Rappaport 1986, Spencer 1991, Williams 1981) | Utrecht Lexicon of Linguistics, 2001

INTERPERSONAL METAFUNCTION

1. (Systemic Functional Grammar) One of the two main functions of discourse, according to Halliday: "it provides a way to enact interpersonal relationships (interpersonal metafunction)". The other is ideational metafunction.  | ?
2. (Systemic Functional Grammar) Represents "the idea that language can be used as a means of communicating information" (Halliday 1975). The fundamental nature of any communication process is that of dialogue (Halliday 1975); hence the interpersonal resources of language designate "the area of the language in which choices are made which assign communication roles to the performer (whether speaker or writer) and to the addressee (whether listener or reader)" (Fawcett 2011). In this way, the interpersonal resources (both the lexicogrammatical and semantic resources) reflect and construe an intersubjective aspect of semiosis; as Halliday (2002 [1992]) points out, "[m]eaning is intersubjective activity, not subjective". | Thomas Hestbæk Andersen, 2017

INTERPRETABLE FEATURES
(Syntax; Minimalism) Economy of derivation is a principle stating that movements (i.e., transformations) only occur in order to match "interpretable features" with uninterpretable features. An example of an interpretable feature is the plural inflection on regular English nouns, e.g., dogs. The word dogs can only be used to refer to several dogs, not a single dog, and so this inflection contributes to meaning, making it interpretable. English verbs are inflected according to the number of their subject (e.g., Dogs bite vs. A dog bites), but this information is only interpretable once a relationship is formed between the subject and the verb, so movement of the subject is required. | HandWiki, 2022

INTERROGATIVE PRO-FORM
(Syntax) A pro-form that is used in questions to stand for the item questioned, e.g., who, what, when, where, why. | SIL Glossary of Linguistic Terms, 2003

INTERSUBJECTIVITY

1. (Psychology) A term originally coined by the philosopher Edmund Husserl (1859-1938). The interchange of thoughts and feelings, both conscious and unconscious, between two persons or "subjects," as facilitated by empathy. | Pamela Cooper-White, 2014
2. (Psychology) The sharing of subjective experience between two or more people. Intersubjectivity is seen as essential to language and the production of social meaning. The term is often applied to the relationship between a therapist and a client. | APA Dictionary of Psychology, 2023

INTERVENTION EFFECTS

1. (Syntax) When a feature or a morpheme is separated from its semantic restriction by an intervening scope-bearing element, "intervention effects" arise.
    The presence of intervention effects is seen in many languages like Hindi, German and Japanese. Intervention effects appear when a focus element (NPI/ Focus) precedes an "in-situ" wh-phrase in these languages. Consider the following representative example from Hindi (1).
   1. * John-hi
       John-only

      kyaa
      what

      khariide-gaa?
      buy-FUT

       'What will only John buy?'
    | Shiti Malhotra, 2009
2. (Syntax) Starting in the 1980s, a phenomenon of "intervention effects" has been observed in questions in wh-in-situ languages. When a certain class of operators (called interveners) c-command an in-situ wh-word, the result is ungrammaticality, which can be avoided by scrambling the wh above the intervener. (Korean data from Beck and Kim 1997.)
   1. Baseline
      
      a.
       

      ✓
       

      Suna-ka
      Suna-NOM

      mwues-ul
      what-ACC

      sa-ss-ni?
      buy-PAST-Q
      b.
       

      ✓
       

      mwues-ul_i
      what-ACC

      Suna-ka
      Suna-NOM

      t_i
       

      sa-ss-ni?
      buy-PAST-Q

          'What did Suna buy?'
   2. Intervention with 'no one'
      a.
       

      ?* amwuto
       anyone

      mwues-ul
      what-ACC

      sa-ci
      buy-COMP

      anh-ass-ni?
      not-do-PAST-Q
      b.
       

      ✓
       

      mwues-ul_i
      what-ACC

      amwuto
      anyone

      t_i
       

      sa-ci
      buy-COMP

      anh-ass-ni?
      not-do-PAST-Q

          'What did no one buy?'
   3. Intervention with 'only'
      a.
       

      ?* Minsu-man
       Minsu-only

      nwukwu-lul
      who-ACC

      mann-ss-ni?
      meet-PAST-Q
      b.
       

      ✓
       

      nwukwu-lul_i
      who-ACC

      Minsu-man
      Minsu-only

      t_i
       

      manna-ss-ni?
      meet-PAST-Q

          'Who did only Minsu meet?
    | Michael Yoshitaka Erlewine and Hadas Kotek, 2014

INTONATION
(Prosody) Refers to the variations in speech melody that speakers/listeners code/decode in order to interpret the syntactic structure of a sentence and its grammatical and pragmatic meanings. The interpretation is bound to the prosodic structure. The intonation contours depend on two aspects of the prosodic structure: the metrical positions of prominence and the edges of prosodic categories (Pierrehumbert 1999).
 "Intonation" is a unique phonological phenomenon, essentially because it is meaningful in itself, such as a falling tone standing for a declarative and a rising tone for an interrogative statement, and it alone has pragmatic functions such as "attitude" and "emotions". (Fox 2000) | Pramod Pandey, 2018

INTONATIONAL PHONOLOGY
(Prosody) The heart of this theory is the idea that intonation has a phonological organization. This idea requires some justification, since intonation sits uneasily with many ordinary linguistic assumptions. For one thing, it is closely linked to a paralinguistic vocal code: sometimes against our will, pitch and voice quality help signal information about our sex, our age, and our emotional state, as part of a parallel communicative channel that can be interpreted by listeners (even some non-human ones) who do not understand the linguistic message. Yet we know that in languages like Chinese or Thai or Yoruba it is also fairly simple to identify a small inventory of phonological elements—tones—that are phonetically based on pitch or voice quality but are otherwise quite analogous to segmental phonemes, and that these tones function alongside the more universal paralinguistic effects of pitch and voice quality. | D. Robert Ladd, 2012

INTONATIONAL PHRASE
(Phonology) A phonological unit with the following properties:

• It is the largest phonological unit into which an utterance can be divided.
• It has a specifiable intonational structure including a single most prominent point (the nucleus), and it matches up in some way with syntactic and discourse structure.

INTRAFEMININE
(Grammar) Used between women.
 In Stoney Nakoda, the declarative enclitic -chwe/-che is used between women. | Lloyd Buddy Wesley and Corey Telfer, 2022
See Also INTERGENDER, INTRAMASCULINE.

INTRAMASCULINE
(Grammar) Used primarily between men.
 In Stoney Nakoda, the declarative enclitic -no is used:

• Between men.
• When women address close male relatives.
• Between male and female elders.
• When speaking formally to a mixed audience.

INTROVERSION
(Morphology; Syntax) Both basic and derived transitive stems may be introverted in Yucatec Maya. This amounts to transforming the transitive verb construction illustrated by (1a) into the intransitive verb construction illustrated by (1b).

Introversion
[ [ Pn_i ] [ [ W ]_V.tr -INTROV ]_{V.intr_act} (X) [ S_i ]_NP ]_VCC

1. a.
    

   Hwaan-e'
   John-TOP

   t-u
   PRFV-SBJ.3

   ts'ik-ah
   shave-CMPL

   Peedroh
   Peter

     'John shaved Peter'
   b.
    

   le
   DEM

   máak-o'
   person-D2

   k-u
   IMPF-SBJ3

   ts'iik
   shave\INTROV

     'that person shaves (people)'

2. Máax
   who

   le
   DEM

   k-u
   IMPF-SBJ.3

   ka'n-s-ah
   learn\PASS-CAUS-INTROV(INCMPL)

   way-e'
   here-D3

   ?
    

   'Who (is the one that) teaches here?'

INTROVERSIVE VERB
(Syntax) A valency-decreasing operation is noun incorporation; see (1a). The incorporated noun forms a prosodic word with the verb: crucially, the agent constituent is marked for absolutive case when the patient is incorporated to the verb. A related instance of detransitivization is the incorporation of a pronoun with generic reference, cf. Saija ne 'GENR', which renders an "introversive verb" form; see (1b). The subject is marked for absolutive case, which shows that the incorporation of the generic pronoun affects the grammatical status of the agent argument (see Mortensen 1999 for the same phenomenon in Northern Emberá). Similarily, reflexive contructions are formed with the incorporation of the possessive pronoun to the verb.
 In languages of the Chocó family:

1. a. Northern Emberá (Mortensen 1999)
     Ara
     same

   mãɯ̃-ta
   this-SUB

   Anancio-ra
   Anancio-ABS

   p'ata=o=s'i-a.
   plantain=make-PST-DECL

     'Right then Anancio made dinner.'
   
   b. Saija (Harms 1994)
     José
     José

   ne=k'o-hí.
   GENR=eat-PST

     'José has eaten.'
   
   c. Katío (Cayo Atienza 2002)
     chi=ning-aya.
     POSS.SBJ=kiss-PRS.DECL

     'I kiss myself.'

INVERSE SCOPE

1. (Generative Grammar; Semantics) "Inverse scope" readings, for example the reading that each girl has a (different) boy loving her for the sentence some boy loves every girl, are generally treated as being on a par with surface scope readings, for example the reading that each boy has a (different) girl he loves for the sentence every boy loves some girl. According to the standard analysis, they are both generated through the computational computation applied to an LF representation, and the quantity nominal expression taking wide scope is analyzed as a generalized quantifier. | J.-R. Hayashishita, 2013
2. (Semantics) English sentences with more than one quantificational expression exhibit scope ambiguities (May 1977). For instance, (1) has two readings: surface scope (1a) and "inverse scope" (1b). Likewise, (2) also has two readings:
   1. Every shark attacked a pirate.
      1. Surface scope (every > a): For every shark, there is a pirate that it attacked
      2. Inverse scope (a > every): There is a pirate such that every shark attacked him
   2. A shark attacked every pirate.
      1. Surface scope (a > every): There is a shark such that it attacked every pirate
      2. Inverse scope (every > a): For every pirate, there is a shark that attacked him
    | C.-Y. Edwin Tsai, Gregory Scontras, Kenneth Mai, and Maria Polinsky, 2014

Page Last Modified January 22, 2024

 

B a c k   T o   I n d e x