MEREOLOGY
(Philosophy, Mathematical Logic) From the Greek μέρος, root: μερε(σ)-, 'part' and the suffix -logy 'study, discussion, science'. The study of parts and the wholes they form. Whereas set theory is founded on the membership relation between a set and its elements, mereology emphasizes the meronomic relation between entities, which—from a set-theoretic perspective—is closer to the concept of inclusion between sets.
 Mereology has been explored in various ways as applications of predicate logic to formal ontology, in each of which mereology is an important part. Each of these fields provides its own axiomatic definition of mereology. A common element of such axiomatizations is the assumption, shared with inclusion, that the part-whole relation orders its universe, meaning that everything is a part of itself (reflexivity), that a part of a part of a whole is itself a part of that whole (transitivity), and that two distinct entities cannot each be a part of the other (antisymmetry), thus forming a poset. A variant of this axiomatization denies that anything is ever part of itself (irreflexivity) while accepting transitivity, from which antisymmetry follows automatically.
 Although mereology is an application of mathematical logic, what could be argued to be a sort of "proto-geometry", it has been wholly developed by logicians, ontologists, linguists, engineers, and computer scientists, especially those working in artificial intelligence. | Wikipedia, 2023

MERGE
(Syntax) Usually capitalized. One of the basic operations in the Minimalist Program, a leading approach to generative syntax, when two syntactic objects are combined to form a new syntactic unit (a set). Merge also has the property of recursion in that it may apply to its own output: the objects combined by Merge are either lexical items or sets that were themselves formed by Merge. This recursive property of Merge has been claimed to be a fundamental characteristic that distinguishes language from other cognitive faculties. As Noam Chomsky (1999) puts it, Merge is "an indispensable operation of a recursive system ... which takes two syntactic objects A and B and forms the new object G={A,B}." | Wikipedia, 2022

MERGE, PAIR- and SET-
(Syntax) Two primitive structure-building operations have been proposed by Chomsky (2000, 2004) to capture argument-adjunct asymmetries: "Set-Merge" and "Pair-Merge". They roughly correspond to Substitution and Adjunction, respectively, in Government and Binding theory (May 1985; Chomsky 1986) and early Minimalist Program (Chomsky 1995). To be more concrete, taking two Syntactic Objects (SOs), Set-Merge generates simple unordered sets, while Pair-Merge yields ordered pairs:

• Two primitive operations:
  1. Set-Merge (α, β) = {α, β} arguments
  2. Pair-Merge (α, β) = <α, β> adjuncts

MERGER
(Sociolinguistics) In a simple model of sound change, there are two possible events: splits and mergers. A merger takes two existing categories and merges them; all their tokens now belong to one category. | Ollie Sayeed, 2022

METAPHONY

1. (Phonology) A well-known phonological process found in many languages. It has been interpreted as an instance of a stress-induced vowel harmony, since the properties of following unstressed vowels are attracted by stressed vowels. For example, metaphonic raising has been analyzed as the result of transferring, spreading, or copying a height feature from an unstressed syllable to the stressed syllable.
    Discussions have varied in the literature, and distinct models have been developed to understand the process from formal phonology to phonetic/acoustic experimental studies.
    Several accounts of metaphony systems have employed binary features, such as [±high] or [±ATR] (e.g. Calabrese 1985, 1998, 2011), while others employ unary features (phonological primes are unary elements). In the latter case, a loss of unary features/element primes may occur, |A| in raising metaphony or |~a| in dependency-based models, while there may be copy of |A| from a licensor in opening metaphony (e.g. Maiden 1991; Russo 2007, 2014; Carvalho and Russo 2007; D'Alessandro and Oostendorp 2016; van der Hulst 2018). | Phonetics and Phonology in Europe, 2023
2. (Phonology) A class of sound change in which one vowel in a word is influenced by another in a process of assimilation. The sound change is normally "long-distance" in that the vowel triggering the change may be separated from the affected vowel by several consonants, or sometimes even by several syllables.
    There are two types:
   1. Progressive (or left-to-right) metaphony, in which a vowel towards the beginning of a word influences a subsequent vowel.
   2. Regressive (or right-to-left) metaphony, in which a vowel towards the end of the word influences a preceding vowel.
    Metaphony is closely related to vowel harmony and umlaut. | Wikipedia, 2022
3. (Phonology) An early vowel mutation process that operated in all Romance languages to varying degrees, raising (or sometimes diphthongizing) certain stressed vowels in words with a final /i/ or /u/ or a directly following /j/. This is conceptually similar to the umlaut process characteristic of the Germanic languages. Metaphony is most extensive in the Italo-Romance languages, and applies to nearly all languages of Italy. However, it is absent from Tuscan, and hence from Standard Italian. | Wikipedia, 2023

METAPHRASE
Or, structural translation. It differs from any other kind of translation, because its practical purpose is the understanding and transposition of structural meaning and not of total meaning as commonly understood. If the process of understanding resembles a journey at the beginning of which the traveler is surrounded by totally un-understood form and at the end of which he arrives at a total understanding in which form is only stylistically important if at all, then structural translation most definitely takes him only part of the way. To wonder how far is as fascinating an occupation as to consider where exactly form becomes meaning. | Gerda M. Seligson, 1960

METATHESIS

1. (Phonology) Reversals in the sequencing of sounds, such as aks for ask in English, or weps for wesp in Dutch. | Utrecht Lexicon of Linguistics, 2001
2. (Morphology) Pronounced /məˈtæθəsɪs/. From Greek μετάθεσις, from μετατίθημι 'I put in a different order'; Latin trānspositiō. The transposition of sounds or syllables in a word or of words in a sentence. Most commonly, it refers to the interchange of two or more contiguous segments or syllables, known as adjacent metathesis (Strazny 2005) or local metathesis (Blackwell Companion to Phonology):
   • foliage > **foilage (adjacent segments)
   • anemone > **anenome (adjacent syllables)
   • cavalry > **calvary (codas of adjacent syllables)
    Metathesis may also involve interchanging non-contiguous sounds, known as nonadjacent metathesis, long-distance metathesis (Strazny 2005), or hyperthesis (Trask 2000), as shown in these examples of metathesis sound change from Latin to Spanish:
   • Latin parabola > Spanish palabra 'word'
   • Latin miraculum > Spanish milagro 'miracle'
   • Latin periculum > Spanish peligro 'danger, peril'
   • Latin crocodilus > Spanish cocodrilo 'crocodile'
    Many languages have words that show this phenomenon, and some even use it as a regular part of their grammar, such as Hebrew and Fur. The process of metathesis has altered the shape of many familiar words in English as well. | Wikipedia, 2023

METRICAL HEAD
(Prosody) In every foot, there must be an element which is more prominent, i.e. the metrical head of the foot. | K. Arregui-Urbina, 2002

MIDDLE FIELD
(Syntax) While a sentence in the canonical SVO order such as (1) is used in a neutral, all-new information context (for example as a response to the question what happened?), two main areas of the clause, which I will refer to as the left periphery and the "middle field", can host elements with non-neutral interpretation in discourse. The sentences in (2b) and (2c) respectively illustrate cases where the left periphery and the middle field host a displaced PP, namely do Chomsky 'by Chomsky', which refers back to a salient referent in the question in (2a) and is interpreted as a topic.

1. Eu
   I

   li
   read

   dois
   two

   livros
   books

   do
   of-the

   Chomsky.
   Chomsky

   'I read two books by Chomsky.'
2. a. Quantos livros do Chomsky você leu pro curso de sintaxe?
    'How many books by Chomsky did you read for the syntax course?'
   b. Left Periphery
    
    

   Do
   of-the

   Chomsky_TOP,
   Chomsky

   eu
   I

   li
   read

   dois
   two

   livros_F
   books
   c. Middle Field
    
    

   Eu
   I

   li,
   read

   do
   of-the

   Chomsky_TOP,
   Chomsky

   dois
   two

   livros_F
   books

    'I read two books_F by Chomsky_TOP'

MINIMAL GOVERNING CATEGORY
(Syntax) Implementation of the notion binding domain, proposed in Chomsky (1981). The MGC of α is defined as the minimal XP (maximal projection) that contains α, a subject accessible to α, and the governor of α.
 In (1), the MGC of the anaphor each other is the embedded IP, since it contains each other, the accessible subject the men, and the governor like. Hence, each other must be bound within this IP in compliance with condition A of the binding theory, and may not be coindexed with the girls, which is not contained in its MGC.

1. the girls_i believe that [_IP the men_j like each other_j/*i]

MINIMAL LINK CONDITION
(Syntax) Or, Shortest Link, or, Shortest Move. The MLC states that derivations with shorter links are preferred over derivations with longer links. In the Minimalist Program, the MLC accounts for superiority condition effects, wh-islands, and super raising. In chapter 4 of the Minimalist Program, the MLC is incorporated into the definition of Attract. | Utrecht Lexicon of Linguistics, 2001

MINIMAL SEARCH

1. (Syntax) A principle of computational efficiency that detects labels in an efficient manner, i.e., structurally closer is better than remote (Chomsky 2015). | Andreas Blümel, 2022
2. (Syntax) MS was introduced in Chomsky (2004) and developed into a central part of Minimalist theorizing in the context of the Problems of Projection program, as a "third factor" property (Chomsky 2013) which "falls under MC [Minimal Computation]" (Chomsky 2015). Similar characterizations of MS are to be found. MS has become a crucial aspect of Minimalist theorizing, as a key component of operations like Labelling and Agree: for example, Bauke and Blümel (2017) refer to MS in the context of a presentation of the so-called Labelling Algorithm. | Diego Gabriel Krivochen, 2021

MINIMALISM
(General) Roughly speaking, a quest for parsimony in theoretical axioms and methodological tools as well as the trimming down of a theoretical framework, not any particular version of linguistic theory (Chomsky 1998). | Phoevos Panagiotidis, 2002

MIRATIVITY
(Grammar) Initially proposed by Scott DeLancey, a category, independent of evidentiality, that encodes the speaker's surprise or the unpreparedness of their mind. Grammatical elements that encode the semantic category of mirativity are called miratives (abbreviated MIR) (DeLancey 1997, T. Peterson 2016).
 DeLancey (1997) first promoted the mirative as a cross-linguistic category, identifying Turkish, Hare, Sunwar, Lhasa Tibetan, and Korean as languages exhibiting this category. Citing DeLancey as a predecessor, many researchers have reported miratives in other languages, especially Tibeto-Burman languages. However, Lazard (1999) and Hill (2012) question the validity of this category.
 Albanian has a series of verb forms called miratives or admiratives. These may express surprise on the part of the speaker, but may also have other functions, such as expressing irony, doubt, or reportedness (Freedman 1986). They may therefore sometimes be translated using the English apparently. | Wikipedia, 2021

MIRROR ALIGNMENT PRINCIPLE
(Optimality Theory)

Mirror Alignment Principle
If a terminal node α asymmetrically c-commands a terminal node β, then the alignment constraint referencing α dominates the alignment constraint referencing β.
Shorthand: If α c-commands β → ALIGN-α ≫ ALIGN-β

• X [Y [Z [Root Z⁰] Y⁰] X⁰]
• MAP Ranking: ALIGN-X-R ≫ ALIGN-Y-R ≫ ALIGN-Z-R

MIRROR PRINCIPLE

1. (Syntax) The Mirror Principle of Baker (1985) encodes the observation that the order in which affixes appear coincides with the order of application for rules triggered by the affixes. | Jane Grimshaw, 1986
2. (Syntax) Morphological derivations must directly reflect syntactic derivations (and vice versa). (Mark Baker 1985) | Nicholas LaClara, 2017

MIXED EFFECTS MODEL
(Statistics) Or, mixed model, or mixed error-component model. A statistical model containing both fixed effects and random effects (Baltagi 2008, Gomes 2022). These models are useful in a wide variety of disciplines in the physical, biological and social sciences. They are particularly useful in settings where repeated measurements are made on the same statistical units (longitudinal study), or where measurements are made on clusters of related statistical units (Gomes 2022). Because of their advantage in dealing with missing values, mixed effects models are often preferred over more traditional approaches such as repeated measures analysis of variance. | Wikipedia, 2022

MIXED EXPRESSIVE CONTENT
(Semantics) Conveys both expressive and truth-conditional meaning. | ?

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