Sank's Glossary of Linguistics 
 Io-K

IP
See INFLECTIONAL PHRASE, INTONATIONAL PHRASE.

IRONY COMPREHENSION

  1. (Pragmatics) Comprehending an ironic remark requires:
    1. Detecting the speaker's meaning, which is typically the opposite of the sentence's meaning.
    2. Inferring the speaker's mocking attitude.
     (Winner 1997) | Francesca Panzeri and Beatrice Giustolisi, 2017
  2. (Acquisition) Comprehending irony is a complex task: typically-developing children start recognizing what the speaker meant (typically the opposite of what was said) at approximately six years of age, with ironic criticisms (the more frequent form of irony) being understood earlier and better than ironic compliments. Irony comprehension has been linked to Theory of Mind abilities, which are in turn predicted by language competence, and with a possible role of social experiences to account for the asymmetry between criticisms and compliments. | Francesca Panzeri, Beatrice Giustolisi, and Laura Zampini, 2020

ISLAND

  1. (Syntax) J.R. Ross (1967) introduced the term "island" to refer to constructions that do not allow a wh- phrase to "escape" from them (that is, metaphorically speaking, the wh- phrase is marooned on the island). Besides complement clauses to nouns, Ross identified several other types of islands:  | Beatrice Santorini and Anthony Kroch, 2007
  2. (Syntax) A part of a sentence out of which words and phrases cannot be moved. Words and phrases are often moved around in a sentence. For example, when forming a question from a declarative sentence, the wh-word (who, what, where, when, etc.) moves to the front of the sentence:
    1. Mary will see an actor.
    2. → Which actor will Mary see?
    3. You claimed that Mary saw an actor.
    4. → Which actor did you claim that Mary saw?
    However, words cannot move out of islands. For example, the question in (6) is unacceptable because it would require the wh-word to move out of an island, indicated by square brackets:
    1. You believed [the claim that Mary saw an actor].
    2. → *Which actor did you believe [the claim that Mary saw]?
     | Yale Grammatical Diversity Project
  3. (Syntax) The three kinds of islands we have seen are adjunct islands, wh-islands, and DP islands (aka Complex Noun Phrase islands).
     An island, somewhat pretheoretically, is a constituent that "traps" things from moving out of them. The idea is that something that is in (on) an island cannot escape, cannot be moved away.
     So, adjuncts constitute one example of an island. If you have a complex clausal adjunct, such as if John buys a coffee, it will be adjoined to TP in a sentence like I will eat my hat if John buys a coffee. Suppose that you want to question what I'll eat. So, you substitute what in for my hat, and use an interrogative complementizer, which will force what to move into [Spec,CP]. The result is the perfectly well-formed question What will I eat if John buys a coffee? (Or, if you started from If John buys a coffee I will eat my hat, with the clausal complement adjoined on the left, then turning it into a question results in the reasonably acceptable What if John buys a coffee will I eat?).
     If you try to ask a question about something inside the clausal adjunct, however, the result is not well formed. So, suppose we want to ask a question about the thing John might buy that would result in a hat-eating by me. Replace a coffee with what, use an interrogative complementizer, and you wind up with *What will I eat my hat if John buys? (or *What if John buys will I eat my hat?).
     So, the adjunct "traps" a wh-word from moving out of it. You can't move a wh-word from a position inside an island to a position outside the island.
     Other wh-phrase traps are questions (wh-islands) and definite DPs. | Paul Hagstrom, 2003

ISOCHRONY

  1. (Prosody) One of the basic hypotheses behind rhythmic models is that of "isochrony", i.e. the organization of speech into portions perceived as being of equal or equivalent duration. There are two interpretations to this hypothesis: strict isochrony expects the different elements to be of exactly equal duration. Weak isochrony claims that there is a tendency for the different elements to have the same duration; hence, a constituent containing five sub-constituents, for example, will be less than five times as long as a constituent containing only one sub-constituent. Both involve a compression of the sub-constituents for the constituents to have similar duration, but less for weak isochrony.
     The term "isochrony" has generally been reserved for the higher-level constituents such as the syllable and the stress-group. It is, however, worth noting that the same principle can equally well be expected to apply at all levels. Thus, if phones are grouped into syllables, we might well expect a syllable with only one phone to be shorter than a syllable with two phones, but not twice as short. | Caroline Bouzon and Daniel Hirst, 2004
  2. (Prosody) The postulated rhythmic division of time into equal portions by a language. Rhythm is an aspect of prosody, others being intonation, stress, and tempo of speech (Wells 2006).
     Three alternative ways in which a language can divide time are postulated (Nespor, Shukla, and Mehler 2011):
    1. The duration of every syllable is equal (syllable-timed).
    2. The duration of every mora is equal (mora-timed).
    3. The interval between two stressed syllables is equal (stress-timed).
     The idea was first expressed thus by Kenneth L. Pike in 1945, though the concept of language naturally occurring in chronologically and rhythmically equal measures is found at least as early as 1775 (in Prosodia Rationalis). This has implications for linguistic typology: David Abercrombie (1967) claimed, "As far as is known, every language in the world is spoken with one kind of rhythm or with the other ... French, Telugu and Yoruba ... are syllable-timed languages, ... English, Russian and Arabic ... are stress-timed languages." While many linguists find the idea of different rhythm types appealing, empirical studies have not been able to find acoustic correlates of the postulated types, calling into question the validity of these types (Liberman 2008, Bertrán 1999, Roach 1982). However, when viewed as a matter of degree, relative differences in the variability of syllable duration across languages have been found (Ladefoged 2006). | Wikipedia, 2023

ISOMORPHIC PRINCIPLE

  1. (Diachronic) Maintains that languages maximally preserve one-to-one correspondences between meaning and form. In historical linguistics, explanations of language change in terms of homonymy avoidance, synonymy avoidance or ambiguity avoidance all more or less explicitly hark back to the isomorphic ideal. However, though soundly rooted in Structuralist and Functionalist theory, isomorphic thinking has received major criticism in recent decades. Variation is now generally considered pervasive and often stable in language, rather than a fleeting anomaly. This makes the workings of isomorphism seem inconsistent and its use as an explanation of change gratuitous. Moreover, some changes have been shown to be strikingly un-isomorphic (De Smet et al. 2018). It has even been argued that many-to-many correspondences between meaning and form actually offer functional advantages (Van de Velde 2014). | Hendrik De Smet, 2023
  2. (Grammar) One of the basic intuitions driving Functionalist thinking is that the structure of language is more or less optimally adapted to its function, which is first and foremost communication (Nuyts 2007). The isomorphic principle is one reflex of this underlying idea. Isomorphism states that for a communicative code to be clear and efficient, forms should be reliably associated with meanings, with a one-to-one mapping as the optimum. Many meanings mapped to one form would cause ambiguity, while many forms mapped to one meaning would needlessly burden memory.
     The question, then, is how to account for violations of isomorphism. Ideally, from a Functionalist point of view, these are still explicable as somehow being functionally motivated. Indeed, in one respect, one-to-many mappings have already been recognized to have a functional advantage over one-to-one mappings. Without polysemy, the linguistic code would lack the flexibility to adapt to new situations. Croft therefore reformulates the isomorphic principle as follows:
    Polysemy is both economically and iconically motivated [...]. The set of related meanings can be thought of as a connected region in conceptual space [...]. The actual iconic correspondence between meaning and form is between a single form and a single region in conceptual space. [... T]he larger the region, the fewer total words necessary to cover the conceptual space, and the more economically motivated the form-meaning correspondence.
     | Hendrik De Smet, 2019

ITIVE
See VENITIVE.

JAY-WALKING EXPERIMENT

  1. (Sociolinguistics) Labov (1975) reported this experiment whereby passers-by were asked their opinion about a (fictitious) incident and in replying revealed their interpretation of one of the following four forms which had been used by their interlocutor:
    1. He was arrested to test the law.
    2. He was arrested.
    3. He got arrested.
    4. He got arrested to test the law.
     | Aidan Benedict Coveney, 1989
  2. (Sociolinguistics) By which Labov (1975) investigated the possibility of a semantic difference between the get-passive and the be-passive, with and without a purpose clause. A number of studies had shown that the use of the get-passive was increasing steadily among younger speakers, so that it became a important to know whether this was a case of semantic change or purely a formal shift of auxiliary. | William Labov, 1996

JESPERSEN'S CYCLE
(Historical) A series of processes which describe the historical development of the expression of negation in a variety of languages, from a simple pre-verbal marker of negation, through a discontinuous marker (elements both before and after the verb) and in some cases through subsequent loss of the original pre-verbal marker. The pattern was formulated in Otto Jespersen's 1917 book Negation in English and Other Languages and named after him in Swedish linguist Östen Dahl's 1979 article "Typology of Sentence Negation".
 There are three stages (Lucas 2007):

 | Wikipedia, 2023

JITTER

  1. (Phonetics) The degree of variation in the spacing of glottal pulses over time. | ?
  2. (Phonetics) Irregular variation in the fundamental frequency of the vocal folds, such as occurs in harsh voice. | R.L. Trask, 1995

JUNCTURE PHONEME
(Phonology) In American Structuralist phonology, any of several putative phonological constructs, having the status of phonemes but lacking any intrinsic phonetic content, set up to account for the observed phonetic differences between apparently identical sequences of segmental phonemes, as in nitrate and nightrate, or as in why choose and white shoes. Trager and Bloch (1941) introduced the plus juncture to represent open internal juncture in such cases, and Trager and Smith (1951) added three varieties of external open juncture, distinguished by intonation: plus, single-bar, double-bar and double-cross junctures. Juncture phonemes were devised as a means of escaping the unpleasant consequences of the separation of levels, by which no grammatical information was available for phonological analysis. | R.L. Trask, 1995

JUSSIVE MOOD

  1. (Grammar) A directive mood that signals a speaker's command, permission, or agreement that the proposition expressed by his or her utterance be brought about.
     Jussive mood is typically applicable in the first and third person. (Chung and Timberlake 1985, Mish 1991, Pei and Gaynor 1954, Palmer 1986) | Alphabetical Glossary of Linguistic Terms
  2. (Grammar) A verb inflection used to indicate a command, permission, or agreement with a request; an instance of a verb so inflected.
     The jussive mood is similar to the cohortative mood, except that it also applies to verbs in the second and third person. Although the jussive mood is absent from English, it is present in Arabic and Esperanto. | Wiktionary, 2023

KIDS THESE DAYS
(Examples)


See Also RECENCY ILLUSION.

KINYALOLO'S CONSTRAINT

  1. (Morphosyntax) A morphological economy constraint against a verbal projection realizing agreement with an argument multiple times. Kinyalolo originally proposed this constraint to explain agreement restrictions in Kilega. In Kilega declarative sentences, T agrees with the subject. In subject wh-questions, the subject moves to Spec, CP and C agrees with the wh-operator. In this case, subject agreement on T is suppressed as shown in (1).
    1. Kilega (Carstens 2005)
      Nází
      1.who
      ú-(*á)-ku-kít-ag-a
      1.CA-(1.SA)-PROG-do-HAB-FV
      búbo?
      14.that
      'Who (usually) does that?'
     This observation is what led to Kinyalolo's Constraint, a version of which I present below.
    1. Kinyalolo's Constraint (Kinyalolo 1991; cited from Alok and Baker 2018)
      In a word (phonologically defined), AGR on one head is silent if and only if its features are predictable from AGR on another head.
     | Eunsun Jou, 2024
  2. (Morphosyntax) A constraint motivated by the existence of patterns like those in (1), from KiLega. Here, the number of overt agreement morphemes in a clause tracks the number of verb(-like) words, with each verb(-like) word having one and only one subject agreement morpheme.
    1. KiLega (Carstens 2005)
      a.
       
      Mikoko
      4.sheep
      z-á-bézág-á
      4.AGR-A-be-FV
      zí-se
      4.AGR-about.to
      z-á-sínz-u-a
      4.AGR-ASP2-slaughter-PASS-FV
        'Sheep were about to be slaughtered.'
      b.
       
      Masungá
      6.yam
      má-kilí
      6.AGR-be.still
      m-á-yik-u-á.
      6.AGR-ASP2-cook-PASS-FV
        'The yams are still being cooked.'
      c.
       
      pro
       
      Mú-ná-kúbul-íl-é
      IIPL.AGR-MOD-pour-ASP-FV
      mázi.
      6.water
          'You could have poured water.'
     Carstens (2005), following a pioneering analysis by Kinyalolo (1992), argues that multiple heads within the functional spine of a KiLega clause agree with the subject (e.g. T, Asp1, Mod, Asp2 and others). In her analysis, when the functional spine is realized as several different phonological words, as in (1a), then the agreement morphemes mostly show up unhindered. But when the functional spine of a clause is realized as fewer phonological words, as in (1b), or just a single word as in (1c), all but the outermost subject-agreement morphemes are "suppressed" by Kinyalolo's Constraint. | Matthew Tyler and Itamar Kastner, 2021
  3. (Morphosyntax) Kinyalolo (1991) and Carstens (2005) argue that a condition like the following holds in Kilega and certain other Bantu languages:
    Kinyalolo's Constraint
    * Agreement on a lower head with NP X if there is a higher head that also agrees with X and the two functional heads are in the same word at PF.
     It is motivated in Kilega by the fact that agreement between T and the subject, which is normally obligatory in Kilega, is suppressed when the subject raises to Spec, CP and the verb raises to C, because then ordinary subject agreement is redundant with the agreement between C and its specifier.
     KC is probably not universal. There are a few languages in which v and T both seem able to agree with the same NP. One is the Austronesian language Nuaula, called to my attention by Mark Donohue (another is Burushaski). | Mark Baker, 2010

KINYALOLO'S CONSTRAINT GENERALIZED
(Morphosyntax) 

Kinyalolo's Constraint Generalized (KCG) (cf. Kinyalolo 1991 et seq.)
Within a given syntactic domain D, for a given feature F, only the highest overt head bearing an instance of F is pronounced on the surface if the values of F on lower heads are predictable from the value of F on the highest head.

(See also Carstens 2005, Henderson 2011, Newman 2021, Oxford 2023.)

Highest head bearing an instance of F
The highest head bearing an instance of a feature F is that head H such that

  1. H bears F.
  2. For all other heads H′ such that H′ bears F, there is at least one copy of H that asymmetrically c-commands some copy of H′, and no copy of H′ that c-commands any copy of H.

Overt
A head H is overt iff

  1. The value of H's PHON attribute does not equal Ø.
  2. H's PHON feature is not marked for deletion.
 KCG holds in Latin for  | Neil Myler, 2023

KOINÉ
(Sociolinguistics) Nida and Fehderau (1970) were probably the first linguists to establish the koïné as a typological category. They saw it as a language of wider communication typified by "modifications in the direction of simplification of morphological and syntactic structure [... but which] presents no such structural break as is clearly present in the case of pidgins" (1970), and which is "always mutually intelligible with at least some forms of the standard language" (1970). The definition most usually relied upon these days, however, is Siegel's (1985):

Koïnéization is the process which leads to mixing of linguistic subsystems, that is, of language varieties which either are mutually intelligible or share the same genetically related superimposed language. It occurs in the context of increased interaction among speakers of these varieties. A koïné is the stabilized composite variety that results from this process. Formally, a koïné is characterized by a mixture of features from the contributing varieties, and at an early stage of development, is often reduced or simplified in comparison to any of these varieties. Functionally, a koïné serves as a lingua franca among speakers of the different varieties. It may also become the primary language of amalgamated communities of these speakers.
 Although they are not subject to the drastic restructuring essential in the definition of a pidgin, koïnés do share with the latter the fact of being native to no one; thus every speaker of a koïnéized (or pidginized) variety of a language speaks another language or dialect natively. | Ian Hancock, 2000

KOINEIZATION
(Sociolinguistics) Or, dialect mixing, or, structural nativization. The process by which a new variety of a language emerges from the mixing, leveling, and simplifying of different dialects.
 The new variety of a language that develops as a result of koineization is called a koiné. According to Michael Noonan (2010), "Koineization has probably been a fairly common feature of the history of languages".
 The term koineization (from the Greek κοινὴ for 'common tongue') was introduced by linguist William J. Samarin (1971) to describe the process that leads to the formation of new dialects. | Richard Nordquist, 2019

 

Page Last Modified March 17, 2024

 
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