LICENSING
(Syntax) It has been proposed that well-formedness conditions on syntactic structure (esp. the principle of Full Interpretation) may be viewed as licensing conditions: The presence of an element in a structure is permitted if the element is licensed in any of a small number of ways.
 E.g. an argument in a structure is licensed if its chain contains a visible theta-position.
 Similarly, a VP is licensed if it functions as a predicate (hence the obligatoriness of sentential subjects stipulated in the EPP). (Chomsky 1986) | Utrecht Lexicon of Linguistics, 2001

LICENSING BY CUE

1. (Phonology) Licensing by Cue (Steriade 1997) is a linking hypothesis between perception and typology.

   Licensing by Cue
   If two contexts (C₁, C₂) differ in that some contrast x-y is better-cued in C₁ than in C₂, the presence of x-y in C₂ implies its presence in C₁.

    Licensing by Cue is typically used to predict patterns of neutralization, but we can use it to predict patterns of enhancement, too. | ?
2. (Phonology) Recent work revived the interest in phonetic factors as a source of explanation for various phonological patterns (Flemming 1995, Hamilton 1996, Hume et al. 1999, Steriade 1997, 1999, etc.). One of the directions taken in these works is to account for phonemic neutralization, deriving it from acoustic cues ("Licensing by Cue": Steriade 1997). In this view phonological contrasts are neutralized in environments that are poor in terms of phonetic information and are licensed in positions that are high on a scale of perceptibility. | Alexei Kochetov, 2019
3. (Phonology) The concept of a phonetic cue comes from experimental work on speech perception, where a "cue" is treated as "a term of convenience, useful for the purpose of referring to any piece of signal that has been found by experiment to have an effect on perception" (Liberman 1996).
    The key idea of Licensing by Cue is that the distribution of a phonological contrast is sensitive to the amount of acoustic information available in a given environment. Environments that contain fewer or less salient acoustic cues are lower on a scale of perceptibility, and thus are more likely to be neutralized. The relation between the phonetic cues and phonological contrast can be presented schematically as implicational relations. If an acoustic signal contains more information about the contrast (e.g., cues available in formant transitions, burst release, nasal murmur etc.), the contrast is likely to be preserved, or licensed. If less acoustic information is present, the contrast is more likely to be neutralized. Also, a contrast that is distinguished by fewer and less salient cues is more prone to neutralization than a distinction supported by a robust set of cues. | Daniel Hall, 2003

LIFETIME EFFECT

1. (Pragmatics) Kratzer (1989) notes that past tense sentences exploiting individual-level predicates, as opposed to stage-level predicates, impose restrictions on the lifetime of their subjects. Thus, when the sentences in (1) are uttered out of the blue, they suggest that Gregory is dead at the time of utterance of the sentence; the sentence is either false or a case of presupposition failure in a situation where Gregory is still alive. By contrast, the sentences in (2) can be true and perfectly acceptable when Gregory is alive. The sentences in (1) contain the individual-level predicates be from America, have blue eyes, and resemble Jörg Bieberstein, whereas the sentences in (2) contain the stage-level predicates be happy, have a cold, and eat cookies.
   1. Individual-level predicates
      a. Gregory was from America.
      b. Gregory had blue eyes.
      c. Gregory resembled Jörg Bieberstein.
   2. Stage-level predicates
      a. Gregory was happy.
      b. Gregory had a cold.
      c. Gregory ate cookies.
    Kratzer accounts for the contrast between (1) and (2) by proposing that tense in individual-level clauses does not locate the event time of the main predicate but rather the subject individual. Since the past tense seems thus to limit the lifetime of the subject, I will call effects like the one observed in (1) "lifetime effect". | Renate Musan, 1997
2. (Pragmatics) Information about a referent's lifetime (dead or alive) has been shown to be integrated with temporal morphology in a phenomenon known as the Lifetime Effect, eliciting processing costs and lower ratings when the Present Simple or Present Perfect are used to refer to dead referents (Chen and Husband 2018, Palleschi et al. 2020). | Daniela Palleschi, Camilo Rodríguez Ronderos, and Pia Knoeferle, 2021

LIGHT VERB

1. (Syntax) A verb (such as make in make a turn) whose contribution to the meaning of the whole is less specific than, say, make a table.
    A light verb is a thematically incomplete verb which only in combination with a predicative complement qualifies as a predicate. | Concise Oxford Dictionary of Linguistics
2. (Syntax) A thematically incomplete verb which only in combination with a predicative complement qualifies as a predicate.
    The Japanese verb suru in (1a) case-marks but does not theta-mark the complement NP hanashi which in its turn theta-marks John and Mary. As shown by the contrast with (1b), the verb suru only contributes the past tense (shita = suru + PAST) and the case-marking (-o) of the complement.
   1. a.
       

      John-wa
      John-TOP

      Mary-ni
      Mary-to

      hanashi-o
      talk-ACC

      shita
      suru-PAST

        'John talked to Mary'
      b.
       

      John-no
      John-GEN

      Mary-e-no
      Mary-to-GEN

      hanashi
      talk
    (Catell 1984, Grimshaw and Mester 1988) | Utrecht Lexicon of Linguistics, 2001
3. (Ontology) There is no agreement, at this point, as to the ontological content of syntactic category distinctions. This is a difficult issue also because there is a lot of cross-linguistic variation as to what syntactic categories natural languages display (Gil 2000). Moreover, there are theoretical developments in syntax that put familiar syntactic category distinctions into question and require at least a recasting of the issue. ... Another example is the theory of radical lexical decomposition (Hale and Kayser 2002), according to which a range of full verbs are derived from combinations of a "light verb" and a noun, e.g., walk from take a walk (take being the light verb and walk the noun). This view gives up a close connection between events and the category of verbs, but posits a much greater range of nouns instead that underlie full verbs. | Friederike Moltmann, 2022

LIGHT-VERB CONSTRUCTION
See SUPPORT VERB CONSTRUCTION.

LINEAR CORRESPONDENCE AXIOM

1. (Syntax) Kayne's (1994) influential Linear Correspondence Axiom (LCA) predicts that there is a direct mapping between syntactic structure and linear order. Informally:

   Linear Correspondence Axiom
   Take X, Y, nonterminal nodes that dominate the terminals x,y, respectively. Assume that X c-commands Y, while Y does not c-command X (asymmetric c-command). Then x precedes y.

    | Luis López, 2009
2. (Syntax) For any pair of non-terminal nodes A and B, if A asymmetrically C-commands B, then the terminal nodes dominated by A linearly precede those dominated by B. | ?
3. (Syntax) Kayne's (1994) LCA proposes a correspondence between syntactic hierarchy and linear order of words.
    The focus-sensitive particle ma'aa in Kusaal (Mabia) behaves like adjuncts that have been reported to not be constrained by the LCA. In fact, Kayne (1994), himself, says that "specifiers and adjoined phrases appear to have no place in the theory (of LCA)." | Daniel Aremu, ?
4. (Syntax) According to the LCA, asymmetric c-command between nonterminal nodes maps into a linear order of the terminal nodes. As Kayne (1994) has shown, various properties of phrase structure that are stipulated by X-bar-theory can be derived from the LCA. Further, he has noted that the LCA excludes the coordination of heads. Consider the structure in (1).
   1.  [_ConjP X [_ConjP Conj Y] ]
    The structure in (1) is excluded, since the coordinating conjunction Conj and the head Y symmetrically c-command each other, and hence no relative order is specified between the terminals that are dominated by these heads. | Hans Broekhuis, 1996

LINEARIZATION
(Syntax) A syntactic process by which words and phrases are realized in a specific sequence. | Concise Oxford Dictionary of Linguistics

LINGUISTIC GEOGRAPHY
(Sociolinguistics) Concerns the geographical distribution of linguistic variation (Trudghill 1975) which is illustrated in atlases. Jules Gilliéron's seminal work was developed in Atlas Linguistique de la France between 1902 and 1910 in collaboration with Edmond Edmont that aimed at investigating French dialects, although his initial project was conducted in 1880 on Romance varieties spoken across a region between Switzerland, Italy and Savoy. It was at that time that linguists started using direct measurement (phonetic transcriptions) in recording geographical linguistic variation. According to Gilliéron's theory, the similarities between dialects of a language enable the inference that dialects of a language are geographically distributed varieties that compose a linguistic continuum of that language. Following the theory of linguistic geography, atlases have been later compiled in different contexts of the world. For instance, Wenker in his Sprachatlas des Deutschen Reichs (1888-1923) showed the geographical variation of German dialects, setting borders based on the use of typical dialect features. | Melanie P. Satraki, 2015

LINGUISTIC MARKETPLACE
(Sociolinguistics) Or, talk market. The concept of the economic market where goods are traded achieving a certain price has been transferred to the application of language in society. Accordingly, the concept of the linguistic marketplace denotes that there is a marketplace for the application of language and that language—a speaker's linguistic capital—is consequently applied on a linguistic market where different linguistic varieties have different linguistic market values and therefore achieve different prices. That is, the varieties (and their use on the linguistic market) are either valued positively or negatively and they are thus ascribed with differing levels of prestige/non-prestige. In order to succeed on the linguistic market it is necessary to apply the linguistic variety which has the highest market value. | English Language and Linguistics Online

LINGUISTIC VARIABLE

1. (Semantics) A linguistic expression (one or more words) labeling an information granular. For example a membership function is labeled by the expressions like hot temperature or rich customer. | Georg Peters, 2009
2. (Semantics) Is characterized by a quintuple (X,T,U,G,M) where X is the name of the variable, T is the set of terms of X, U is the universe of discourse, G is a syntactic rule for generating the name of the terms, and M is a semantic rule for associating each term with its meaning, that is, a fuzzy set defined on U. | José Galindo (ed.), 2008
3. (Semantics) A variable made up of a number of words (linguistic terms) with associated degrees of membership. | Malcom Beynon, 2008
4. (Semantics) Variables in mathematics normally take numeric values, although non-numeric linguistic variables are frequently employed in fuzzy logic to make the expression of rules and facts easier. For instance, the term "Age" can be used to indicate a linguistic variable with a value such as "a child", "young", "old", and so on.
    Linguistic variables are variables with a value made up of linguistic concepts (also known as linguistic words) rather than numbers, such as "child", "young", and so on. Let's define AGE as a language variable:

   AGE = {Child, Young, Old}

   Each AGE linguistic phrase has a membership function for a specific age range. The same age value is mapped to multiple membership values in the range of 0 to 1 by each function. These membership values can then be used to identify whether a person is a child, a young person, or an elderly person. The following is the membership function with regard to each fuzzy term:
    For AGE = 11, we will get a membership value of 0.75 (roughly) in the Child set, 0.2 (approx) in the Young set, and 0 in the Old set. So, if a person's age is 11, it's safe to assume that he or she is a child, perhaps a little young but certainly not old.
    The formal definition for the linguistic variable is written as:

   (x, T(x), U, G, M), where:
   x - Variable name (in this case, AGE)
   T(x)- Set of linguistic terms such as {Child, Young, Old}
   U - Universe
   G - Syntactical rules which generate the modified value of the linguistic term of x
   M - Semantic rules associated with each linguistic term of x with its meaning

    Let us consider an example such as (AGE, {Child, Young, Middle-aged, Old} and U - Set of ages of all the people, G, M). The Semantic rules M give meaning to each linguistic term of AGE. Example: M for the linguistic term Old of the linguistic variable AGE is defined as :

   M = {(x,μ_Old(x)| x∈[0,100]}
   and
   μ_Old(x) = { 0 ; ≤ 50
    = { (x - 50) / 15 ; 50 < x ≤ 65
    = { 1 ; x > 65

    The syntactical rules G that generate the modified value of the linguistic terms of x are given as :

   G = (V_n, V_T, P_r, S) where:
   V_n - Non Terminal Symbols
   V_T - Terminal Symbols
   P_r - Production Rules
   S - Start Symbol

    Example:
   Let S be start symbol, V_n = {A, B, C, D, E, S}
   V_T = {and, or, very, more or less, not, almost, young, ...}
   P_r = Production Rules : S → A; S → S or A; A → A and B; etc.
    | "sameekshakhandelwal1712", 2021

LINK

1. (Information Structure) One of two types of old/given information distinguished by Vallduví 1992. The other is the tail. E.g., in Catalan, "links" are left detached (or topicalized); tails are detached to the right. | ?
2. (Information Structure) It is proposed that the sentence is informationally articulated into a trinomial hierarchical structure consisting of the FOCUS and the GROUND while the latter is further subdivided into the "LINK" and the TAIL. This partition is represented in (1):
   1. S={FOCUS, GROUND}
      GROUND = {LINK, TAIL}
    It reflects both the focus-background split and the fact that within the ground there often is a 'special' topiclike element, the link, which appears in sentence-initial position. The informational unit comment is foregone, since it is rendered unnecessary.
    By restricting the link to be sentence-initial one can elude the problematic extension of topichood to other elements of the sentence. It was with this extension that topichood was rendered a nonoperationalizable notion. Finally, the givenness/newness paradox–how can the "focus of new information" be discourse-old–is avoided by making clear that referential status is a property of discourse entities and the phrases that encode them, and that information packaging is a relational property that constituents have by virtue of their standing in a particular relationship with the other element of the sentence. | Enric Vallduví, 1990

LOANWORD ADAPTATION
(Phonology) In adapting a loan the speaker tries to remain faithful to the source word while still making the loan conform to the native language (L1) segmental inventory, phonotactic constraints, and prosodic structures. | Michael Kenstowicz and Atiwong Suchato, 2006

LOCALITY

1. (Syntax) Refers to the proximity of elements in a linguistic structure. Constraints on "locality" limit the span over which rules can apply to a particular structure. Theories of transformational grammar use syntactic locality constraints to explain restrictions on argument selection, syntactic binding, and syntactic movement.
    Locality is observed in a number of linguistic contexts, and most notably with:
   1. Selection of arguments; this is regulated by the projection principle.
   2. Binding of two DPs; this is regulated by binding theory.
   3. Displacement of wh-phrases; this is regulated by wh-movement.
    | Wikipedia, 2021
2. (Syntax) Two major concepts of "locality" seem to be operative: impenetrability, expressing the fact that certain syntactic configurations are impervious to rules (e.g., island constraints), and intervention locality, blocking movement and other processes across an intervening element.
    Locality is always calculated in hierarchical terms.
    If natural language syntax is unbounded because of its recursive nature, syntactic rules are typically local, in the sense that, even when the relevant elements affected by a syntactic rule are part of a very large structure, the rule applies only on a very limited portion of it. Consider the long sentence I am aware that people say that John loves Mary: the morphosyntactic rule governing verbal agreement only involves local subject–verb configurations (I am, people say, John loves), so that, e.g., the main clause subject cannot trigger agreement of the most deeply embedded verb. | Luigi Rizzi, 2013

LOCATIVE INVERSION
(Syntax) A common linguistic phenomenon that has been studied by linguists of various theoretical backgrounds.
 In multiple Bantu languages, such as Chichewa (Bresnan 1994), the locative and subject arguments of certain verbs can be inverted without changing the semantic roles of those arguments. Below are examples from Zulu (Buell 2005) where the numbers indicate Noun classes, SBJ = subject agreement prefix, APPL = applicative suffix, FV = final vowel in Bantu verbal morphology, and LOC is the locative circumfix for adjuncts.

1. Canonical word order
   A-bantwana
   2-2.child

   ba-fund-el-a
   2.SBJ-study-APPL-FV

   e-sikole-ni.
   LOC:7-7.school-LOC

   'The children study at the school.'
2. Locative inversion
   I-sikole
   7-7.school

   si-fund-el-a
   7.SBJ-study-APPL-FV

   a-bantwana.
   2-2.child

   'The children study at the school.' (Lit. 'The school studies the children.')

LOGOPHORIC PRONOUN
(Pragmatics) Refers to those referential expressions that occur in indirect discourse environments and exclusively refer to the agent of reported speech/thought. In certain languages, so-called long-distance reflexives carry the same function.

1. Kofi said that he left.

LONG PRESENT TENSE

1. (Grammar) Due to the lack of any synchronic comparable structures for the "long present tense" in Northern Sotho, a diachronic approach has to be followed in analyzing its present structure. According to Meinhof (1948) and van Warmelo (1927), the present tense ‑a‑ can be traced back to *‑γa (*‑ga according to Guthrie's transcription) as modality or main verb. Meinhof reports that it occurs in Konde as ‑ja 'be, become', followed by the infinitive and in Pedi (a dialect of Northern Sotho) as a, as in:
   1. ke
      I

      a
      PRES

      dira
      do

      'I am doing'
    | Daan Lombard, 1978
2. (Grammar) The Present Tense is the form of a verb that shows what exists or is happening now (LDCE 1993). In the Bantu languages of South Africa it is distinguished by the presence or absence of a morpheme such as [-a-] in Xitsonga or [-ya-] in isiXhosa:
   1. Xitsonga
      Vana
      2children

      v-a-tirh-a
      2they-PRES-work-FV
   2. IsiXhosa
      Abantwana
      2children

      ba-ya-sebenz-a
      2they-PRES-work-FV
    However, this [‑a‑] or [‑ya‑] morpheme does not contribute to the temporal or aspectual meaning of the Present tense: it is employed to bring structures with this morpheme into a focus position. There is no morpheme which specifically refers to the Present tense; its meaning may only be discerned through a comparison with other tenses and its contextual discourse. The tense with the morpheme [‑a‑] is sometimes referred to as the "long present tense" against the short present tense without [‑a‑] (see Mpangane 1995). | Jacobus A du Plessis, 2015

LYMAN'S LAW

1. (Phonology) Blocks rendaku (sequential voicing) when the second member already contains a voiced obstruent (/oo/ + /tokage/ → *[oo+dokage], [oo+tokage] 'big lizard'). "Lyman's Law", as a constraint which prohibits a morpheme with two voiced obstruents, is also known to trigger devoicing of geminates in loanwords (e.g. /beddo/ → [betto] 'bed'). Rendaku and Lyman's Law have been extensively studied in the past phonological literature. | Shigeto Kawahara, 2018
2. (Phonology) States that sequential voicing almost never occurs in a compound in which the second element already contains a voiced consonant. For example, while sibu 'astringent' and kaki 'persimmon' form a compound sibu-gaki as in (1), ai 'match' and kagi 'key' never form a compound ai-gagi 'matching key', instead of which ai-kagi is formed, as in (2):
   1. sibu 'astringent' + kaki 'persimmon' → sibu-gaki 'astringent persimmon'
   2. ai 'matching' ... kagi 'key' → ai-kagi/*ai-gagi 'matching key'
    | Yoshiki Ogawa, 2022

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