AMBIFIX

1. (Morphology) A bound morpheme that can be used either as a prefix or suffix. | Wiktionary, 2022
2. (Morphology) A circumfix. | Wiktionary, 2022
3. (Morphology) Example from San Francisco del Mar Huave (Huavean; Guatemala) (Kim 2008):
   1. Prefix
      t-a-jch-ius
      CMPL-TV-give-1
      'I gave'
   2. Suffix
      pajk-a-t-u-s
      face.up-V-CMPL-ITR-1
      'I laid face up'
    Ambifixes should not be confused with circumfixes, which obligatorily contain two parts; however, there are cases where both the prefixal and the suffixal versions of an ambifix co-occur in one form. Some ambifixes also occur as infixes. | Peter Arkadiev and Yury Lander, 2022
4. (Morphology) An affix that can occur both as a prefix (i.e. before the root) and as a suffix (i.e. after the root).
    The term was used for the first time by Eric Hamp (1959), cf. also Malkiel (1978), Plungian (2000), Hall (2000), Mugdan (2015).
    Alternative terms: mobile affix (Noyer 1994, Kim 2010 etc.); Wechselaffix (Bossong 2001); variable-direction affix (Ussishkin 2007).
    The proposed typology of ambifixes is based on the type of conditioning factors determining the prefixal vs. suffixal orientation of ambifixes:
   • Phonological.
   • Morphotactic.
   • Paradigmatic
   • Part of speech.
   • Lexical.
   • Syntactic and/or semantic.
   
    | Peter Arkadiev, 2024

ANALYTIC BIAS
(Sociolinguistics) Analytic bias and channel bias are two kinds of causal explanation for a sound pattern. Analytic bias stems from facts about the language faculty, e.g. OT constraints, formal markedness, or learning bias. | Oliver Sayeed, 2023

ANAPHOR
(Syntax) An anaphor is an element which depends for its reference on the reference of another element.
 In binding theory, anaphor is an element which must be A-bound by an antecedent within its binding domain.
 Himself in (1) is an anaphor with John as its antecedent. The ill-formedness of (2) and (3) is due to the lack of a proper antecedent: himself does not agree in person features with I in (2), and John is outside the binding domain in (3).

1.  John hates himself.
2.  * I hate himself.
3.  * John says that I hate himself.

ANAPHORA
(Grammar) Sometimes characterized as the phenomenon whereby the interpretation of an occurrence of one expression depends on the interpretation of an occurrence of another or whereby an occurrence of an expression has its referent supplied by an occurrence of some other expression in the same or another sentence. However, these are at best very rough characterizations of the phenomena. There is generally thought to be many types of anaphora, though in some cases there is disagreement as to whether to classify those cases as anaphora or not.

1. Pronominal anaphora
   John left. He said he was ill.
   (The antecedent is John and the anaphoric expression is he.)
2. VP anaphora (also called VP ellipsis)
   Mary Anne took out the garbage. Claudia did too.
   (The antecedent is took out the garbage and the anaphoric expression a null VP. See Partee and Bach 1984, Prüst et al. 1994.)
3. Propositional anaphora
   One plaintiff was passed over for promotion three times. But the jury didn't believe this.
   (The antecedent is the proposition expressed by the first sentence. The anaphoric expression is this. Example from Asher and Lascarides 2003.)
4. Adjectival anaphora
   A kind stranger returned my wallet. Such people are rare.
   (The antecedent is kind stranger and the anaphoric expression such.)
5. Modal anaphora
   John might give a presentation. He would use slides.
   (The antecedent is the possibility described by the first sentence, and the anaphoric expression is the modal would. Example from Stone and Hardt 1999.)
6. Temporal anaphora
   Sheila had a party last Friday and Sam got drunk.
   (The time at which Sam got drunk is anaphoric on the time at which Sheila had the party. Example from Partee 1984.)
7. Kind-level anaphora
   John gave a presentation. Sarah gave one too.
   (The antecedent is a presentation, and the anaphoric expression is one.)
8. Cataphora (or backwards anaphora)
   If she doesn't show up soon, Jane will be disqualified from the competition.

See Also CATAPHORA.

ANAPHORA PROJECT
(Syntax) The main research project that dominated generative grammar roughly between the late 1960s to the late 1980s—what we can label the Anaphora project.

• Unification of pronominal anaphora and syntactic movement.
• C-command: central theoretical notion.
• Binding Theory.
• Notion of linguistic law strongly supporting poverty of the stimulus arguments.
  • Proper Binding Condition, Subjacency, etc.
    • Abstract—not statements of empirical generalizations.

ANDATIVE
See VENITIVE.

ANIMACY
(Grammar) Antonym, inanimacy. A grammatical and semantic feature, existing in some languages, expressing how sentient or alive the referent of a noun is (Santazilia 2022). Widely expressed, animacy is one of the most elementary principles in languages around the globe and is a distinction acquired as early as six months of age (Szewczyk and Schriefers 2011).
 Concepts of animacy constantly vary beyond a simple animate and inanimate binary; many languages function off of a hierarchical general animacy scale that ranks animacy as a "matter of gradience" (Yamamoto 2006). Typically (with some variation of order and of where the cutoff for animacy occurs), the scale ranks humans above animals, then plants, natural forces, concrete objects, and abstract objects, in that order. In referring to humans, this scale contains a hierarchy of persons, ranking the first- and second-person pronouns above the third person, partly a product of empathy, involving the speaker and interlocutor (Yamamoto 2006). | Wikipedia, 2023

ANIMATE CLASS
(Grammar) A category of nouns having human or animal referents. In some languages, the animate class is a grammaticalized noun class. (Crystal 1980, Hartmann and Stork 1972, Mish 1991) | SIL Glossary of Linguistic Terms, 2003

ANOMALOUS TEXT
(Semantics) Primitive recursive text with a generator naming relation. | Nina Gierasimczuk, 2007

ANTECEDENT-CONTAINED DELETION

1. (Syntax) Sentences with so-called Antecedent Contained Deletion (ACD), are shown in (1) and (2). The name reflects the view that such sentences involve an elided verb phrase that is anteceded by the matrix verb phrase that it is contained in.
   1. John talked to {every / the} student that Mary did.
   2. John was willing to talk to {every / the} student that Mary was.
   
    | Anna Szabolcsi, 2012
2. (Syntax) Sentences involving antecedent-contained deletion (ACD), such as (1), have been of considerable interest to generative grammarians since they were first discussed by Bouton (1970).
   1. Kollberg recognized every suspect Beck did.
   
    Because the elided VP is contained within the VP that serves as its antecedent, ACD poses an interesting problem for any theory that assumes that VP-deletion involves either deletion of an elided VP under identity with some antecedent or copying of an antecedent into the position of an elided VP. | Christopher Kennedy, 1997

ANTECEDENT-CONTAINED SLUICING

1. (Syntax) ACS (Yoshida 2010, Tanaka 2011), where the antecedent of the sluiced clause appears to contain the ellipsis site. | Kensuke Takita, 2013
2. (Syntax) Following Yoshida (2006), we refer to the construction in (1) as Antecedent Contained Sluicing:
   1.  John kissed someone without knowing [_CP who e ]
   
    | Masaya Yoshida and Ángel J. Gallego, 2012

ANTI-AGREEMENT

1. (Syntax) The phenomenon whereby the morphosyntactic form of subject/verb agreement is sensitive to whether or not an agreeing subject has been locally extracted. | Patricia Schneider-Zioga, 2007
2. (Syntax) The phenomenon whereby verbal/inflectional morphology is sensitive to wh-subject extraction from a postverbal position in A-bar movement contexts of relativization and clefting (1 and 2). In particular, the canonical subject agreement inflectional morphology that is found in a declarative matrix clause undergoes a process of agreement suppression and cannot occur if one of the aforementioned A-bar movement processes has occurred (3 and 4). The puzzling nature of this process is intriguing from both a theoretical and an empirical perspective.
   1. Relative cause constructions
      zri-x
      see.PERF-1S

      [_DP
       

      a^ryaz
      man

      [_CP
       

      Op_i
       

      i
      RM

      (g)
      X

      [_vP
       

      y-ssqad-n
      PART-send.PERF-PART

      t_i
       

      /*y-ssqad
      /*3S.M-send.PERF

      lktab
      book

      i
      to

      Mena
      Mena

      ]]]
      

      'I saw the man who sent the book to Mena.'
   2. Cleft constructions
      (ð)
      COP

      [_DP
       

      Jamal
      Jamal

      [_CP
       

      Op_i
       

      i
      CM

      (g)
      X

      [_vP
       

      y-sqad-n
      PART-send.PERF-PART

      t_i
       

      /*y-sqad
      /*3S.M-send.PERF

      Tabrat
      letter

      ]]]
       

      'It is Jamal who sent the letter.'
   3. Suppression of agreement morphology = Anti-agreement effect
      [_vP
       

      θ-sqad
      3S.F-send.PERF

      θamatuθ
      woman

      rfrus
      money

      i
      to

      w-a^rba]
      CS-boy

      'The/a woman sent money to the boy.' (Full agreement of Subj. and V)
   4. [_DP
       

      t
      COP

      tamatuθ
      woman

      [_CP
       

      Op_i
       

      i
      RM

      (g)
      X

      [_vP
       

      y-sqad-n
      PART-send.PERF-PART

      t_i
       

      /*θ-sqad
      /*3S.F-send.PERF

      rfrus
      money

      i
      to

      w-a^rba
      CS-boy

      ]]]
      

      'It is the woman who sent money to the boy.' (Anti-agreement of Subj. and V)
    | Noureddine Elouazizi, 2005

ANTI-FOCUS EFFECT

1. (Pragmatics) Pronouns can refer to discourse entities that were introduced in the same or in a previous discourse unit; for successful pronoun resolution, the antecedent must be accessible. Focusing a potential antecedent seems to boost its accessibility when the pronoun appears in a subsequent discourse unit but lowers its accessibility when the pronoun is in the same discourse unit ("anti-focus" effect). | Clare Patterson and Claudia Felser, 2020
2. (Syntax) Scrambling exhibits a focus constraint or what I call the "anti-focus" effect, which can be roughly summarized as "the scrambled element must necessarily be unfocused or topical" (Webelhuth 1992), and thus a focused element cannot scramble. This focus effect is well demonstrated in the contrast between examples (1) and (2) (Lenerz 1977). The question and answer pairs here are used to detect what the focused element is in each sentence.
   1. 1. Wem
         whom

         hast
         have

         du
         you

         das
         the

         Geld
         money.ACC

         gegeben?
         given

         'Who did you give the money?'
      2. Ich
         I

         habe
         have

         dem
         the

         Kassierer_FOC
         cashier.DAT

         das
         the

         Geld
         money.ACC

         gegeben.
         given

         'I gave the cashier the money.'
      3. Ich
         I

         habe
         have

         das
         the

         Geld
         money.ACC

         dem
         the

         Kassierer_FOC
         cashier.DAT

         gegeben.
         given

         'I gave the money to the cashier.'
   2. 1. Was
         what

         hast
         have

         du
         you

         dem
         the

         Kassierer
         cashier.DAT

         gegeben?
         given

         'What did you give the cashier?'
      2. Ich
         I

         habe
         have

         dem
         the

         Kassierer
         cashier.DAT

         das
         the

         Geld_FOC
         money.ACC

         gegeben.
         given

         'I gave the cashier the money.'
      3. ?*Ich
         I

         habe
         have

         das
         the

         Geld_FOC
         money.ACC

         dem
         the

         Kassierer
         cashier.DAT

         gegeben.
         given

         'I gave the money to the cashier.'
    In (1), the dative object NP dem Kassierer 'the cashier' is the focus, and in this case, the accusative object NP das Geld 'the money', which is not focused, can easily scramble as shown in (1c). In (2), on the other hand, the accusative object NP das Geld is the focus of the sentence, and the accusative object das Geld, which is now focused, cannot scramble, as illustrated in (2c). | Hye-Won Choi, 1996

ANTIPASSIVE CONSTRUCTION
(Grammar) A derived detransitivized construction with a two-place predicate, related to a corresponding transitive construction whose predicate is the same lexical item. In the basic transitive construction, the patient-like argument is realized as a direct object; in the antipassive construction, that argument is either suppressed (left implicit) or realized as an oblique complement. The term "antipassive" (Silverstein 1972) was coined to indicate that the construction is a mirror image of the passive: in the passive, the suppressed or demoted argument is the agent-like argument, in the antipassive, the patient-like argument. An example of a transitive/antipassive alternation is given in (1) and (2).
 Chukchi (Kozinsky et al. 1988):

1. ʔaaček-a
   youth-ERG

   kimitʔ-ən
   load-ABS

   ne-nlʔetet-ən
   3PL.SUBJ-carry-AOR.3SG.OBJ

   'The young men carried away the/a load.     (transitive)
2. ʔaaček-ət
   youth-ABS

   ine-nlʔetet-gʔe-t
   ANTIP-carry-AOR.3.SUBJ-PL

   kimitʔ-e
   load-INSTR

   'The young men carried away the/a load.'     (antipassive)

ANTISYMMETRY

1. (Syntax) A linear ordering is antisymmetric, i.e.,

   ¬ (xLy ∧ yLx)

    | Richard Kayne, 1993
2. (Syntax) A theory of syntactic linearization presented in Richard S. Kayne's 1994 monograph The Antisymmetry of Syntax. It asserts that hierarchical structure in natural language maps universally onto a particular surface linearization, namely specifier-head-complement branching order. The theory derives a version of X-bar theory. Kayne hypothesizes that all phrases whose surface order is not specifier-head-complement have undergone syntactic movements that disrupt this underlying order. Subsequently, others have attempted to derive specifier-complement-head as the basic word order (Yafei Li 2005).
     Antisymmetry as a principle of word order is reliant on assumptions disputed by theories such as constituency structure (as opposed to dependency structure), X-bar notions such as specifier and complement, and the existence of ordering altering mechanisms such as movement and/or copying. | Wikipedia, 2022

AORIST

1. (Syntax) /AY-er-ist/ Abbr. AOR; from the Greek ἀόριστος 'without boundaries, indeterminate'. In traditional use aorist is a grammatical aspect in some Indo-European languages such as Greek, Sanskrit, or Bulgarian. The aorist aspect is sometimes also called the perfective aspect (which should not be confused with the perfect aspect).
     In contrast to the imperfective aspect, which refers to an action as continual or repeated, or to the perfect aspect, which calls attention to the consequences generated by an action, the aorist aspect has no such implications, but refers to an action "pure and simple".
     In the Greek indicative mood, the aorist refers to a past action, in a general way or as a completed event. It may also be used to express a general statement in the present (the gnomic aorist). Used this way, it is described as the aorist tense. In other moods (subjunctive, optative, and imperative), the infinitive, and (largely) the participle, the aorist is purely aspectual. In these forms, it has no temporal meaning, and acts purely as a way of referring to an "action pure and simple" without the specific implications of the other aspects. | ?
2. (Grammar) In Koiné Greek, the aorist tense states that an action occurs without regard to its duration. It is analogous to a snapshot which captures an action at specific point in time.
   • Effective action.
   • Successful action.
   • Single action.
   • One-time action.
     In indicative mood, aorist can indicate punctiliar action (happens at a specific point in time) in the past. | Kenneth Wuest, 2022

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