REDUNDANT QUOTATIVE FRAMES
(Discourse) The use of extra verbs of speaking to "frame" or introduce a speech, which are meant to draw attention to a surprising or important speech that follows. | Steve Runge, 2016

REDUPLICATION

1. (Morphology) A process in which the root or stem of a word (or part of it) or even the whole word is repeated exactly or with a slight change.
    The classic observation on the semantics of reduplication is Edward Sapir's (1921): "generally employed, with self-evident symbolism, to indicate such concepts as distribution, plurality, repetition, customary activity, increase of size, added intensity, continuance."
    Reduplication is used in inflections to convey a grammatical function, such as plurality, intensification, etc., and in lexical derivation to create new words. It is often used when a speaker adopts a tone more "expressive" or figurative than ordinary speech and is also often, but not exclusively, iconic in meaning.
    Reduplication is found in a wide range of languages and language groups, though its level of linguistic productivity varies. Examples of it can be found at least as far back as Sumerian, where it was used in forming some color terms, e.g. babbar 'white', kukku 'black' (Michalowski 2004).
    Reduplication is the standard term for this phenomenon in the linguistics literature. Other terms that are occasionally used include cloning, doubling, duplication, repetition, and tautonym when it is used in biological taxonomies, such as Bison bison. | Wikipedia, 2022
2. (Morphology) A class of processes where the phonological exponent of a morphological category is formed by "copying" material from a different portion of the phonological output. The phonological material indicating the category co-varies with the phonological material of the particular base it attaches to, rather than being fixed across bases.
    For example, Diyari makes diminutives by prefixing a copy of (roughly) the first two syllables of the base:
   1. Diyari diminutive reduplication (Austin 1981)
      1. 2σ pirta 'tree' → pirta-pirta 'small tree'
      2. 3σ kinthala 'dog' → kintha-kinthala 'little dog, puppy'
      3. 4σ wilhapina 'old woman' → wilha-wilhapina 'little old woman'
    | Sam Zukoff, 2021

REFERENTIAL THEORY OF MEANING
(Semantics) One of the earliest theories that tried to explain what "meaning" means. It was propounded by C. K. Ogden and I. A. Richards (1923) in a book titled The Meaning of Meaning. In their propositions, they maintained that the meaning of any expression is the entity or object to which such expression refers in the real world. They referred to such object as the referent. In their analysis Ogden and Richards argued that there is no link between expressions and the objects (referents) to which they refer. For them, the connection between a linguistic entity and its referent is only possible through thought. They demonstrated this using a semiotic triangle.

                  /\  Thought/Reference
                 /  \
                /    \
               /. . . \
  Object/Referent    Symbol/Linguistic unit

1. An intrinsic property of something.
2. Other words related to that word in a dictionary.
3. The connotations of a word.
4. The thing to which the speaker of that word refers.
5. The thing to which the speaker of that word should refer.
6. The thing to which the speaker of that word believes himself to be referring.
7. The thing to which the hearer of that word believes is being referred to.

REGISTER
(Sociolinguistics) The way a speaker uses language differently in different circumstances. Think about the words you choose, your tone of voice, even your body language. You probably behave very differently chatting with a friend than you would at a formal dinner party or during a job interview. These variations in formality, also called stylistic variation, are known as registers in linguistics. They are determined by such factors as social occasion, context, purpose, and audience. | Richard Nordquist, 2019

REGISTER CONTINUUM

1. (Sociolinguistics) A scale which defines varied levels of formality in written and spoken language, depending on register, which itself is influenced or defined by social context. | John Clarke, 2019
2. (Sociolinguistics) Since in the case of the Cypriot Greek (CG) continuum there are no long geographical distances intervening in language anymore (due to socio-political modifications), most of the speakers are able to use, or at least comprehend, all levels of the contiuum, which they use interchangeably themselves according to the situation. Therefore, it seems that the Greek Cypriot (GC) community could be better described as a case of a "register continuum" (Tsiplakou et al. 2005), where different levels of CG are apparent in different contexts (formal vs. informal) that emerged from an earlier dialect/geographical continuum (Newton 1972), where certain basilectal features overwhelming certain areas differentiate either much or little from a more standardized "koiné" variety.
    While initially the GC situation was described by Newton (1972) as one of a dialect continuum (linguistic variation due to the appearance of regiolects of the different geographical areas), later linguists claimed that dialect leveling and koineization, as a result of geo-socio-political factors, led to the loss of various marked features and gave birth to a "register continuum" (Tsiplakou et al. 2005). That means Greek Cypriots' language ranges from a heavy dialectal variety (the 'peasant talk' called χωρκάτικα), to a more Standard Modern Greek variety (the 'pen-pusher talk' referred to as καλαμαρίστικα), with two middle levels (the 'correct' or 'tidied-up Cypriot' called συσταρισμένα and the 'polite Cypriot' called ευγενικά). However, sometimes it is difficult to distinguish between the different registers since there is not always a "one-to-one correspondence", especially on the lexical level (Sivas 2003, Tsiplakou et al. 2005, Terkourafi 2007). | Melanie P. Satraki, 2015

REGISTER LANGUAGE
(Prosody; Typology) In the study of tone languages it is usual to make a distinction between register languages which generally use only phonologically level tones (e.g. many West African languages) and those which also use contour tones such as rises, falls, fall–rises and rise–falls (e.g. many East Asian languages, such as Chinese). | Peter Roach, 2011

REGISTER MARKER

1. (Sociolinguistics) As for individual registers, our data first suggest a mixed pattern for fiction, like in Reijnierse et al. (2019) in that it is low on conventionalized metaphors but occupies a middle position with respect to nonconventionalized and extended metaphor. At the same time, the register in the corpus that conveys the highest degree of register marking are sermons: they exhibit a high degree of non-conventional metaphors, also, extended and potential metaphor emerge as clear register markers for sermons. | Markus Egg and Valia Kordoni, 2023
2. (Sociolinguistics) The language of sports casting is analyzed in terms of register variation. First the register is "located" by successive approximations to a characterization of its occasions of use, then selected syntactic characteristics are identified: simplification (deletion of copula and sentence initial nominals), inversions, heavy modifiers, result expressions (for + noun, to + verb), routines (e.g., giving the "count"). Some of these are discussed in relation to possible communicative functions, but all are seen as register markers. | Charles A. Ferguson, 1983
3. (Examples) Some examples of variables I hypothesize to be characteristic of academic register in this corpus include the use of intrusive phrases; polysyllabic words and word clusters; affixation; complex conditionals; multiple negation; lengthy sentences and utterances; clausal and prepositional density; and nominalization and denominalization.
    Most analysts point to generic forms ("standard English") and characteristics ("impersonal, hypotactic, linear [forms]") to describe academic discourse. | Honora Maureen Neal, 1994

REGISTER SHIBBOLETH
(Sociolinguistics) Norms (and their cognates values and collective representations) are language-ideological phenomena produced and enacted in communicative action. They are, more precisely, ordered indexicalities: sets of indexicals organized in relation to each other, with some of them being "emblematic" of the meaning effects they generate—a sort of register "shibboleth" effect, as when someone starts a sentence with oh dear versus fuck (cf. Silverstein 2003, Agha 2005, 2007, Blommaert 2005), or shifts into a mock accent so as to project an evaluated identity on someone else (e.g. Hill 2001, Rampton 2006). | Jan Blommaert, 2018

REGISTER TONE
See LEVEL TONE.

REGRESSIVE ASSIMILATION

1. (Phonology) Or, anticipatory assimilation, or, right-to-left assimilation. An assimilation in which the sound that undergoes the change (the target) comes earlier in the word than the trigger of assimilation, in other words the change operates backwards: Latin septem 'seven' > Italian sette. In case of progressive assimilation the trigger comes before the target so that the assimilation operates forwards: Proto-Germantic *wulno 'wool' > Old English wull. In rare cases of reciprocal assimilation there is a mutual influence between the two sounds. | Glottopedia, 2014
2. (Phonology) In case of anticipatory assimilation, some properties of the sound form of the next word are present in advance, i.e. before that next word. That is, the assimilated word contains phonetic cues about the subsequent word. (The artificial mis-match between these phonetic cues and the subsequent word would presumably surprise listeners, thus slowing down responses to the first word.) In the case of complete assimilation in lea[m] bacon, the realization of the first word indicates that the second word begins with a bilabial. Even in the case of partial assimilation, a realization as [lin^w] would indicate the same. Hence, some properties of the second word may be anticipated, on the basis of phonetic assimilatory cues. Our hypothesis is that such advance information, resulting from anticipatory assimilation, facilitates recognition of the second word.
    This hypothesis was investigated in Dutch, where Regressive Voice Assimilation (RVA) provides a relevant assimilation process. In Dutch, obstruents in coda position are always devoiced. Hence, if two adjacent plosives differ with respect to phonological voicing, then their phonological pattern is always Unvoiced-Voiced (and never V-U), as in zak+doek, op+drinken, riet blazen, sleep dragen. In these contexts, anticipatory assimilation of voice (RVA) changes the voicing feature of the first, coda consonant, yielding za[g]doek, o[b]drinken, rie[d] blazen, slee[b] dragen. Hence, voicing in the final plosive of riet can only be caused by the voicing of the following initial plosive of blazen. This anticipatory information about the voiced onset of the second word may facilitate perception of that word. | Hugo Quené, Maya van Rossum, and Mieke van Wijck, 1998

REGULAR PHONOLOGICAL PATTERNS
(Phonology) Computational analysis reveals a restrictive, universal property of phonological patterns: they are regular. What are regular patterns? A definition is given in (1).

1. A pattern is regular if and only if (iff) it is possible to partition the set of logically possible words into finitely many blocks such that
   1. all words in any block either obey the pattern or all do not, and
   2. for any block, if it contains words w₁ and w₂ then, for all words v, there is a block which contains both w₁v and w₂v.

REGULARIZATION
(Language Acquisition, Language Development, Language Change) A phenomenon typified by the replacement of irregular forms in morphology or syntax by regular ones. Examples are gooses instead of geese in child speech and replacement of the Middle English plural form for cow, kine, with cows. Regularization is a common process in natural languages; regularized forms can replace loanword forms (such as with cows and kine) or coexist with them (such as with formulae and formulas or hepatitides and hepatitises). | Wikipedia, 2022

RELATIONAL NOUN
(Syntax) Or, relator noun. A class of words, used in many languages, which are characterized as functioning syntactically as nouns, although they convey the meaning for which other languages use adpositions (i.e. prepositions and postpositions). In Mesoamerica, the use of relational nouns constitutes an areal feature of the Mesoamerican Linguistic Area, including the Mayan languages, Mixe-Zoquean languages, and Oto-Manguean languages (Campbell, Kaufman, and Stark 1986). Relational nouns are also widespread in South-East Asia (e.g. Vietnamese, Thai), East Asia (e.g. Mandarin Chinese, Japanese, Tibetan), Central Asia (e.g. the Turkic languages), the Munda languages of South Asia (e.g. Sora), and in Micronesian languages.
 A relational noun is grammatically speaking a simple noun, but because its meaning describes a spatial or temporal relation rather than a "thing", it describes location, movement, and other relations just as prepositions do in the languages that have them. When used the noun is owned by another noun and describes a relation between its owner and a third noun. For example, one could say the cup is the table its-surface, where its-surface is a relational noun denoting the position of something standing on a flat surface.

1. Classical Nahuatl
   Ca
   Be

   Ī-pan
   its-on

   petlatl
   mat

   in
   the

   mistōn
   cat

   'The cat is on the mat.'
2. Japanese
   Neko
   Cat

   wa
   TOP

   mushiro
   mat

   no
   's

   ue
   top/above

   ni
   [CASE.MARKER]

   neteiru
   sleeps/lies

   'The cat is sleeping on top of the mat.'
3. Mandarin Chinese
   Tā
   She

   zài
   be.at

   fángzi
   house

   lĭtou
   interior

   'She is in the house.'
4. Turkish
   Otel-in
   Hotel-'s

   ön-ün-de
   front-its-at

   bir
   one

   araba
   car

   var
   existent

   'There is a car in front of the hotel.'

RELATIVIZED MINIMALITY

1. (Syntax) Recall that the Head Movement Constraint demands that heads do not move over the top of other heads. It appears that the restriction on subject movement is that it cannot cross over the top of another subject. A general way to express both these restrictions is to claim that a moving element cannot move over the top of a like element. This principle, known as Relativized Minimality, was introduced by Rizzi (1990) as a way of accounting for locality conditions on movement. | Mark Newson et al., 2004
2. (Syntax) In order to express the effect precisely, I will adopt the following principle (a simplification and updating of RM in Rizzi 1990):
   1. Y is in a Minimal Configuration (MC) with X iff there is no Z such that
      a. Z is of the same structural type as X, and
      b. Z intervenes between X and Y
    | Luigi Rizzi, 2001
3. (Syntax) Rizzi (1987) proposes that the antecedent government of traces is subject to a relativized minimality condition. At an intuitive level, his idea is that the closest element that is both categorially and positionally appropriate to be the antecedent of a trace must be the actual antecedent of that trace. Thus, if Z is an appropriate antecedent t in the abstract structure in (1), then the indexing in (1a) will be grammatical, but the indexing in (1b) will not be. If, on the other hand, Z is inappropriate as an antecedent for t, the indexing in (1a) will be bad, but the indexing in (1b) will potentially be good.
   1. a. [ ... X ... [ ... Z_i ... [ ... t_i ...] ] ]
      b. [ ... X_i ... [ ... Z_k ... [ ... t_i ... ] ] ], where k ≠ i
    Rizzi builds this into the Empty Category Principle with the following definitions (recast somewhat):
   2. Antecedent Government
      X antecedent-governs Y if and only if
      a. X and Y are coindexed
      b. X c-commands Y
      c. No barrier intervenes (see Chomsky 1986)
      d. For all categories Z, if Z is a potential antedecent governor for Y, then Z c-commands X.
    (2d) is the Relativized Minimality Condition. | Mark Baker and Kenneth Hale, 1990

RELATIVIZER
(Grammar) Abbreviated REL. A type of conjunction that introduces a relative clause (Schacter 1985). For example, in English, the conjunction that may be considered a relativizer in a sentence such as I have one that you can use (Fox and Thompson 2007).
 Relativizers do not appear, at least overtly, in all languages. Even in languages that do have overt or pronounced relativizers, they do not necessarily appear all of the time (Kordić 1999). For these reasons it has been suggested that in some cases, a zero relativizer may be present, meaning that a relativizer is implied in the grammar but is not actually realized in speech or writing (Fox and Thompson 2007). For example, the word that can be omitted in the above English example, producing I have one you can use, using (on this analysis) a zero relativizer. | Wikipedia, 2023

RELEVANCE THEORY

1. (Cognitive Linguistics) An attempt to provide a psychologically realistic, explicit account of communication. It makes foundational claims about both cognition in general and utterance and how they are processed in particular. The former is the cognitive principle of relevance: cognition tends to seek maximal relevance, where an input to a cognitive process is more relevant the more positive effects it has on the mind's representations of the world and less relevant the greater is the effort required to derive them. Although on this view we have a tendency to seek the greatest possible pay-off for the least possible effort, there is no general guarantee that an input to a cognitive process will be relevant. However, communication is special. Speakers want to be understood and therefore tailor their utterances to their audience. Relevance theory claims that this raises a defeasible expectation that the utterance will be optimally relevant, i.e. that it is both relevant enough to be worth processing and as relevant as the speaker is willing to make it. (This is the communicative principle of relevance.) It further claims that this mandates the relevance-theoretic comprehension heuristic: a fast and frugal procedure dedicated to processing utterances.
    Relevance theory claims that what a speaker communicates falls into two classes: explicatures, i.e. propositions which are developments of the logical form of the sentence uttered, and other propositions conveyed, which are implicatures. A further fundamental assumption of relevance theory is that linguistically encoded meaning radically underdetermines the content that a speaker intends to convey. | Nicholas Allott, 2013
2. (Pragmatics, Cognitive Linguistics) A framework for understanding the interpretation of utterances. It was first proposed by Dan Sperber and Deirdre Wilson (see e.g. 1986, 2006). The theory was originally inspired by the work of Paul Grice and developed out of his ideas but has since become a pragmatic framework in its own right. The seminal book, Relevance, was first published in 1986 and revised in 1995.
    The theory takes its name from the principle that "every utterance conveys the information that it is relevant enough for it to be worth the addressee's effort to process it", that is, if I say something to you, you can safely assume that I believe that the conveyed information is worth your effort to listen to and comprehend it; and also that it is "the most relevant one compatible with the communicator's abilities and preferences", that is, I tried to make the utterance as easy to understand as possible, given its information content and my communicative skills.
    Other key ingredients of relevance theory are that utterances are ostensive (they draw their addressees' attention to the fact that the communicator wants to convey some information) and inferential (the addressee has to infer what the communicator wanted to convey, based on the utterance's "literal meaning" along with the addressee's real-world knowledge, sensory input, and other information). | Wikipedia, 2023

REMNANT
(Syntax) A constituent out of which something has been moved. | Utrecht Lexicon of Linguistics, 2001

Page Last Modified April 16, 2024

 

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