COOPERATIVE PRINCIPLE

1. (Pragmatics) Our talk exchanges do not normally consist of a succession of disconnected remarks, and would not be rational if they did. They are characteristically, to some degree at least, cooperative efforts; and each participant recognizes in them, to some extent, a common purpose or set of purposes, or at least a mutually accepted direction. This purpose or direction may be fixed from the start (e.g., by an initial proposal of a question for discussion), or it may evolve during the exchange; it may be fairly definite, or it may be so indefinite as to leave very considerable latitude to the participants (as in a casual conversation). But at each stage, some possible conversational moves would be excluded as conversationally unsuitable. We might then formulate a rough general principle which participants will be expected (ceteris paribus) to observe, namely:
   Make your conversational contribution
   • such as is required,
   • at the stage at which it occurs,
   • by the accepted purpose or direction of the talk exchange in which you are engaged.
   
    One might label this the Cooperative Principle.
    On the assumption that some such general principle as this is acceptable, one may perhaps distinguish four categories under one or another of which will fall certain more specific maxims and submaxims, the following of which will, in general, yield results in accordance with the Cooperative Principle. Echoing Kant, I call these categories Quantity, Quality, Relation, and Manner.
    The category of Quantity relates to the quantity of information to be provided, and under it fall the following maxims:
   1. Make your contribution as informative as is required (for the current purposes of the exchange).
   2. Do not make your contribution more informative than is required.
   
    Under the category of Quality falls a supermaxim—"Try to make your contribution one that is true"—and two more specific maxims:
   1. Do not say what you believe to be false.
   2. Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence.
   
    Under the category of Relation I place a single maxim, namely, "Be relevant."
    Finally, under the category of Manner, which I understand as relating not (like the previous categories) to what is said but, rather, to how what is said is to be said, I include the supermaxim—"Be perspicuous"—and various maxims such as:
   1. Avoid obscurity of expression.
   2. Avoid ambiguity.
   3. Be brief (avoid unnecessary prolixity).
   4. Be orderly.
   
    And one might need others.
    It is obvious that the observance of some of these maxims is a matter of less urgency than is the observance of others. A man who has expressed himself with undue prolixity would, in general, be open to milder comment than would a man who has said something he believes to be false. | H. Paul Grice, 1975
2. (Pragmatics) In addition to identifying the phenomenon of implicature, and classifying its types, Grice developed a theory designed to explain and predict conversational implicatures and to describe how they are understood. Grice (1975) postulated a general Cooperative Principle and four maxims specifying how to be cooperative. It is common knowledge, he asserted, that people generally follow these rules for efficient communication.

   Cooperative Principle
   Contribute what is required by the accepted purpose of the conversation.

   • Maxim of Quality. Make your contribution true; so do not convey what you believe false or unjustified.
   • Maxim of Quantity. Be as informative as required.
   • Maxim of Relation. Be relevant.
   • Maxim of Manner. Be perspicuous; so avoid obscurity and ambiguity, and strive for brevity and order.

    Grice viewed these not as arbitrary conventions, but as instances of general rules governing rational, cooperative behavior. For example, if Jane is helping Kelly build a house, she will hand Kelly a hammer rather than a tennis racket (relevance), more than one nail when several are needed (quantity), and straight nails rather than bent ones (quality); she will do all this quickly and efficiently (manner). | Wayne Davis, 2024

COOPTATION

1. (Discourse) A cognitive-communicative operation whereby some fragment of linguistic discourse is transferred from one domain of discourse to another (Kaltenböck et al. 2011, Heine 2013, Heine et al. 2013). The following example, taken from a private dialog, illustrates this operation.
   1. What I've done here   I hope you don't entirely disapprove   is try and limit the time taken on this item by putting it in writing. (International Corpus of English)
   
    Cooptation is fully productive, that is, it can be employed any time by speakers to structure their discourse contributions. In example (1), the utterance is obviously composed of two pieces: On the one hand, there is the syntactically and semantically well-formed and self-contained sentence, which provides the host utterance—in short, the host. On the other hand, there is the interpolated piece—somehow an odd element that is neither syntactically nor semantically, nor prosodically integrated. Interpolations such as this are commonly known as disjunct constituents (Espinal 1991), parentheticals (e.g., Dehé and Kavalova 2007, Dehé 2009), extra-clausal constituents (Dik 1997), or as theticals in the framework of Discourse Grammar. We will refer to them as coopted units (CUs), and cooptation is an operation that enables speakers to interpolate a CU in a host.
    While not necessarily honoring semantic and/or syntactic conventions, cooptation is taken by interlocutors to result in acceptable utterances. | Bernd Heine, Gunther Kaltenböck , Tania Kuteva, and Haiping Long, 2017
2. (Discourse) Heine (2013) rejects both grammaticalization and pragmaticalization as the diachronic processes that account for the semantic bleaching of discourse markers (DMs), and cogently argues that DMs undergo the process of cooptation, whereby "a chunk of SG [sentence grammar], such as a clause, a phrase, a word, or any other unit is deployed for use as a thetical" (Kaltenböck et al. 2011, quoted in Heine 2013). Cooptation explains why DMs are optional in a syntactic sense (and, therefore, do no affect the truth-conditions of the sentence), since theticals are, by definition, outside the syntactic structure of the sentence. | Bálint Péter Furkó, 2014

COORDINATE STRUCTURE CONSTRAINT
(Syntax) In generative syntax, a constraint on movement, proposed in Ross (1967), which says:

Coordinate Structure Constraint
In a coordinate structure, no conjunct may be moved, nor may any element contained in a conjunct be moved out of that conjunct.

1.  * which professor did you divide the cake between [ Mieke and  t  ]
2.  * which book did you [_VP [_VP steal  t  from Ger ] and [_VP give the paper to Jacqueline ] ]

COORDINATION
(Grammar) Refers to the juxtaposition of two or more conjuncts often linked by a conjunction such as and or or. The conjuncts (e.g., our friend and your teacher in Our friend and your teacher sent greetings) may be words or phrases of any type. They are a defining property of coordination, while the presence or absence of a conjunction depends on the specifics of the particular language.
 As a general phenomenon, coordination differs from subordination in that the conjuncts are typically symmetric in many ways: they often belong to like syntactic categories, and if nominal, each carries the same case. Additionally, if there is extraction, this must typically be out of all conjuncts in parallel, a phenomenon known as Across-the-Board extraction.
 Extraction of a single conjunct, or out of a single conjunct, is prohibited by the Coordinate Structure Constraint. Despite this overall symmetry, coordination does sometimes behave in an asymmetric fashion. Under certain circumstances, the conjuncts may be of unlike categories or extraction may occur out of one conjunct, but not another, thus yielding apparent violations of the Coordinate Structure Constraint. In addition, case and agreement show a wide range of complex and sometimes asymmetric behavior cross-linguistically. This tension between the symmetric and asymmetric properties of coordination is one of the reasons that coordination has remained an interesting analytical puzzle for many decades. | Grant Goodall, 2017

COORDINATION OF LIKES

1. (Syntax) In the literature on coordination, it is widely assumed that two elements may be coordinated only if they are of the same syntactic category. This assumption is known as the Law of Coordination of Likes. In addition, a common assumption with respect to initial coordination, which is characterized by the presence of a pair of elements such as either-or, both-and and neither-nor, is the assumption that the first element of the pair marks the left edge of the coordinate structure. Schwarz (1999) terms this assumption the Left Bracket Thesis. Neijt (1979), Sag et al. (1985), van Zonneveld (1992) and Grootveld (1994), among others, adopt both of these assumptions for their analysis of coordination. | Petra Hendriks, 2001
2. (Syntax) The Law of the Coordination of Likes states, in general, that only conjuncts of the same type can be coordinated, while unlike coordination refers to coordination where conjuncts are of different types. The Law has its roots in the traditional approach to the structure of coordination regarded as flat with structurally equal conjuncts, in the sense that no conjunct is more salient than others. In compliance with this symmetrical approach to the structure of coordination, it has been assumed that, in order for the conjuncts to be grammatically coordinated, they have to be the so-called like conjuncts.
    The notion of the "likeness" of conjuncts has been variously interpreted in the literature. For example:
   • Chomsky (1957) postulated the "likeness" of syntactic categories of conjuncts.
   • Schachter (1977), observing the insufficiency of Chomsky's (1957) proposal, extended the notion of "likeness" by including the semantic (and pragmatic) factor.
   • There have also been some attempts to force "likeness" onto unlike conjuncts by unifying their categories by means of introducing a single category subcategorized by a certain groups of verbs (cf. Jacobson's (1987) [PRED] category subcategorized by the copular be).
   • Somewhat similarly, Johannessen (1998) renders the difference of categories of conjuncts irrelevant by proposing that a coordinate complex forms a CoP (Conjunction Phrase) headed by a Co(njunction), which is a coordination-specific category capable of being subcategorized by any verb.
   • On the other hand, Munn (1993) and Zhang (2010) postulate that only the category of the first conjunct is visible to syntactic operations that apply to a coordinate complex, which makes the category of the second conjunct, whether the same or different, irrelevant.
   
    | Anna Prażmowska, 2014

COORDINATION TEST

1. (Syntax) The coordination test assumes that only constituents can be coordinated, i.e., joined by means of a coordinator such as and, or, or but: The next examples demonstrate that coordination identifies individual words as constituents:
   1. a. Drunks could put off the customers.
      b. Drunks and bums could put off the customers.
      c. Drunks could and would put off the customers.
      d. Drunks could put off and drive away the customers.
      e. Drunks could put off the customers and neighbors.
   
    Underscoring marks the conjuncts of the coordinate structures. Based on these data, one might assume that drunks, could, put off, and customers are constituents in the test sentence because these strings can be coordinated with bums, would, drive away, and neighbors, respectively. Coordination also identifies multi-word strings as constituents:
   2. a. Drunks could put off the customers and the neighbors.
      b. Drunks could put off the customers and drive away the neighbors.
      c. Drunks could put off the customers and would drive away the neighbors.
   
    These data suggest that the customers, put off the customers, and could put off the customers are constituents in the test sentence. | Wikipedia, 2025
2. (Examples)
    ○ The application of the coordination test brings variable results for N+N and N+A compounds and compound-like expressions in Polish. | Bożena Cetnarowska, 2015
    ○ Are the noun phrase (NP) a republican in Pat became a republican and the adjective phrase (AdjP) quite conservative in Pat became quite conservative two different arguments, belonging to separate valence schemata of BECOME, or two different realizations of one argument specified in a single schema? Walenty (a comprehensive valence dictionary of Polish) is explicit about what counts as the same argument, and it employs the coordination test to resolve such doubts: if two phrase types can be felicitously coordinated in the same sentence, they are different realizations of the same argument. | Adam Przepiórkowski, Elżbieta Hajnicz, Agnieszka Patejuk, Marcin Woliński, Filip Skwarski, and Marek Świdziński, 2014
    ○ It is generally assumed that only constituents can be coordinated. Thus, (1a) is well-formed since sells expensive cars and rents cheap trucks each form a syntactic unit (i.e. VP). Example (1b), on the contrary, is ill-formed since sells expensive does not form a constituent.
   1. a. Peter sells expensive cars and rents cheap trucks
      b. * Peter sells expensive and rents cheap cars
   
    The coordination test, however, might hint at the constituency of the subject-DP and the verb in sentences like (2), that are known as right-node-raising sentences.
   2.  Peter sells and Bill rents expensive cars
   
    Thus, the coordination test appears to provide conflicting evidence at the surface. | Lisa Lai-Shen Cheng and Norbert Corver, 2013

COPHONOLOGIES BY PHASE

1. (Phonology) We outline a model of the syntax-phonology interface we call Cophonologies By Phase (CBP) which combines Cophonology Theory (Orgun 1996, Inkelas et al. 1997, Anttila 2002, 2009 Inkelas and Zoll 2005, 2007) with Phase Theory, the contemporary version of the syntactic cycle (Chomsky 2001, 2004, 2008, Abels 2012, Bošković 2014). In CBP, morpheme-specific cophonologies scope over morphological constituents, namely syntactic phases. This model allows morphologically conditioned phonological processes that affect sub-word and crossword domains to be modeled within a single system, while deriving the phonological domains of these processes from their syntax (cf. Newell and Piggott 2014).
    One central innovation in this model is an enriched conception of the content of lexical items, or vocabulary items, to adopt the terminology of Distributed Morphology (Halle and Marantz 1994). We propose that vocabulary items consist of a mapping between morphosyntactic features and a phonological feature matrix with three components:
   1.  Lexically represented (supra)segmental features.
   2.  A prosodic subcategorization frame or template.
   3.  A subranking or subweighting of constraints.
    Each of these components may be contentful or empty. | Hannah Sande, Peter Jenks, and Sharon Inkelas, 2020
2. (Example)
    ○ To account for the Aʼingae data, I adopt Cophonologies by Phase (Sande et al. 2020), which (i) models phonological stratification while (ii) allowing for morpheme-specific phonological idiosyncrasies, which (iii) interact with the phonological grammar of their stratum. | Maksymilian Dąbkowski, 2023
    ○ Here I contrast previous approaches with Cophonologies By Phase (CBP) Theory (Sande and Jenks 2018, Sande 2019, Sande et al. 2020), which associates morpheme-specific constraint-weight adjustments with vocabulary items, and assumes that morphology and phonology apply cyclically at syntactic phase boundaries. Cophonologies by Phase is restrictive, making specific predictions about the possible scope of morpheme-specific phonological alternations. In particular, phonological alternations triggered by a morpheme will not affect material introduced in hierarchically higher syntactic phases. | Hannah Sande, 2020

COPHONOLOGY

1. (Phonology; Optimality Theory) Or, subgrammar, or, disjoint phonology. A phonological grammar, i.e. an input-output mapping, which coexists with other phonological grammars in a single language. In rule-based theories, a phonological grammar consists of a set of (potentially ordered) rules. In Optimality Theory (Prince and Smolensky 1993), where constraints are claimed to be universal, a phonological grammar is a ranked set of constraints:
   1.  Cophonology: an ordered set of rules, (ranked) set of constraints, etc.
   
    | Sharon Inkelas, C. Orhan Orgun, and Cheryl Zoll, 2000
2. (Phonology; Optimality Theory) The cophonology approach captures language-internal diversity by associating morphological constructions or lexical classes with different phonological grammars, i.e., constraint rankings. All constraints within a given cophonology are fully general (e.g., MAX-C[onsonant], the ban on consonant deletion, or *[ʔ], the ban on glottal stop); morphological differentiation of phonological patterns results from different ranking of the constraints across cophonologies. Proponents include Orgun (1996, 1998, 1999), Anttila (1997, 2000), Inkelas (1998), Orgun and Inkelas (2002), Inkelas and Zoll (2005), among others. The cophonology approach builds on, but departs in certain key ways from, the theory of level ordering (e.g., Kiparsky 1982, Mohanan 1986), recast within Optimality Theory by Kiparsky (2000) under the name of Stratal OT. | Sharon Inkelas and Cheryl Zoll, 2007
3. (Examples)
    ○ Although Van der Spuy (2020) has expressed Latin cophonologies in terms of rules, the concept of Cophonologies has been mainly related to OT, in terms of variation of the constraint hierarchy within a single language. This internal variation gives rise to what are called cophonologies or phonological grammars. If a subset of the Latin theme vowels (TVs) behaves differently with respect to the general phonological patterns of the language, one may justify these differences in terms of cophonologies. Just to give an example, conjugations I and III both exhibit the deletion of the TV in the first-person singular of the present tense. If such deletion process is not attributed to some shared property between the underlying TV in conjugations, specific cophonologies for them can be formulated. Given a general constraint ranking for the language (Master Ranking), cophonologies partially manipulate it by reordering the relevant constraints. | Federico Piersigilli, 2024
    ○ Cophonology (Anttila 2002, Zoll and Inkelas 2005), prespecification (Inkelas 1995, Inkelas et al. 1997), and lexical indexation (Pater 2006) represent three major proposals for handling exceptions in OT. This study examines regular and exceptional facts of vowel harmony in Sino-Japanese (C₁)V₁C₂V₂ stems. C₂ is either /t/ (t-stem) or /k/ (k-stem), and vowel harmony is normally observed only in k-stems. On the other hand, exceptional data exhibit vowel harmony only in _t-stems. This paper argues that cophonology is the most efficient among the three approaches in explaining both regular and exceptional examples. | Kazutaka Kurisu, 2011

COPHONOLOGY THEORY

1. (Phonology) Is motivated by the non-uniformity of the phonological grammar of single languages. In this theory, every language contains multiple phonological sub-grammars which apply in different morphosyntactic environments. To date, cophonologies have been indexed to part of speech (Anttila 2002, Smith 2011) and to specific morphological constructions (Orgun 1996, Inkelas 1998, Inkelas and Zoll 2005, 2007).
    One benefit of Cophonology Theory is its ability to unify process morphology, where a phonological process is the sole exponent of a morphosyntactic feature, and morphologically-conditioned phonology, where phonological processes accompany affixation. The motivation for unifying these two phenomena is the fact that the phonological processes that they invoke are identical, as summarized in the following generalization (Inkelas 2008, 2014).

   Inkelas's Generalization
   Morphologically conditioned phonology and process morphology make reference to the same phonological operations in terms of Substance, Scope, and Layering.

    Inkelas's Generalization highlights the point that the presence or absence of a morphologically conditioned phonological process does not rely on whether an affix is overt or null. | Hannah Sande, Peter Jenks, and Sharon Inkelas, 2020
2. (Example)
    ○ In co-phonology theory,
   • Each morphological construction is composed of a function bundle.
   • The functions defined for the construction relate to its semantics, syntax and phonology.
   • A co-phonology is the phonological function associated with a morphological construction—underlying featural (sequence), if any, plus a constraint ranking.
     • This is the exponence of the morpheme.
   • Both the underlying form and the constraint ranking are morphological construction-specific.
     • That is, every morphological construction can be associated with its own constraint ranking.
   
    | Laura J. Downing, 2008

COPULA

1. (Grammar) An intransitivity verb which links a subject to a noun phrase, adjective, or other constituent which expresses the predicate.
   1. The book is on the table.
   2. The weather seems good.
   
    (Crystal 1980, Hartmann and Stork 1972, Schachter 1985, Quirk, Greenbaum, Leech, and Svartvik 1985, Mish 1991) | SIL Glossary of Linguistic Terms, 2003
2. (Grammar) As is the case with many concepts borrowed from traditional linguistics, copulas turn out to be an extremely challenging notion to define, and most works that involve an analysis of be and its cross-linguistic equivalents simply take the notion for granted. (1) gives a prototypical example of a bona fide copula:
   1. John is sick.
   
    This English example displays the properties that are prototypically associated with copulas:
   1. Copulas carry verbal inflection.
   2. Copulas appear in contexts where the predicate is nonverbal.
   3. Copulas are elements used to link the predicate and the subject—as the term itself suggests—from Latin copula 'link'.
   4. Copulas are semantically light, possibly empty.
   
    | Antonio Fábregas, María J. Arche, and Rafael Marín, 2019

COPULAR VERB
(Grammar) A verb which links a subject to an adjective. For example, in English: She looks happy; That sounds interesting; This smells great.
 Common English copular verbs are be (specifically copular be), seem, appear, become and get, and sense-related verbs of perception such as look, sound, smell, feel and taste. | Teflpedia, ?

COPY EPENTHESIS
(Phonology) Describes a class of patterns in which the quality of an epenthetic vowel depends on the quality of one of its vocalic neighbors. For example: in a language where underlying /pri/ is realized as [piri] but /pra/ as [para] (not *[pira]), the vowel that appears in the unexpected position (the copy) is featurally identical to the vowel that appears in the expected position (its host).
 How the dependence between a copy vowel and its host should be formalized is a matter of debate:

• Traditional autosegmental analyses treat copy epenthesis as the result of feature spreading: the epenthetic vowel, lacking features of its own, obtains them through autosegmental association with a nearby host (e.g. Clements 1986, 1991, Gafos and Lombardi 1999, Halle et al. 2000, Shademan 2002, Kawahara 2007).
• Analyses in the framework of Articulatory Phonology (Browman and Goldstein 1986) claim that (at least some) cases of copy epenthesis result from gestural realignment: in the mapping from underlying /pra/ to surface [para], the constellation of gestures that yield an [r] migrate to the middle of the nucleus, allowing underlying /a/ to be heard on both sides (e.g. Steriade 1990, Hall 2003, 2006).
• Others propose extensions of Correspondence Theory (McCarthy and Prince 1995) in which a copy and its host stand in correspondence with one another; faithfulness constraints render the corresponding pair identical (Kitto and de Lacy 1999, Yu 2005, Kim 2008).

COPY RAISING

1. (Syntax) A kind of raising construction in which the raised element leaves a coreferential copy pronoun in the subordinate clause. Alternatively, the copy may appear in the matrix clause (as evidenced by verb agreement, for example) with the copied nominal remaining in the complement; see the Blackfoot example below.
   1. English
      Richard seems as if he won.
      (Compare with ordinary raising: Richard seems to have won.)
   2. Modern Greek
      I
      the

      kopéles
      girls

      fén-onde
      seem-3PL

      na
      that

      févgh-un.
      leave-3PL

      'The girls seem to be leaving.'
   3. Blackfoot
      Nitsíksstatawa
      1-want-3S

      kááhkanistahsi
      2-might-tell-3S

      nohkówa.
      1-son-3S

      'I want you to tell my son.'
      (Compare without the raising:)
      Nitsíksstaa
      1-want

      kááhkanistahsi
      2-might-tell-3S

      nohkówa.
      1-son-3S
    (Fritz 1978, 1979, 1980) | Glottopedia, 2007
2. (Syntax) A phenomenon in which a raising verb takes a nonexpletive subject and a complement containing an obligatory pronominal copy of the subject:
   1. a. Thora seems like she adores popsicles.
      b. * Thora seems like Isak adores popsicles.
   
    English copy raising was initially noticed by Postal (1978) and was also touched on by Rogers (1971, 1974) in work that principally concerned what he called flip perception verbs (Rogers 1971, 1972, 1974, 1974). The topic has recently received renewed attention in work by Potsdam and Runner (2001) and Asudeh (2002, 2004). The first detailed investigation of copy raising was Joseph's (1976) work on Modern Greek, which was subsequently brought to wider attention by Perlmutter and Soames (1979). Copy raising is in fact not typologically uncommon and has been attested in a number of unrelated languages, including Samoan (Chung 1978), Hebrew (Lappin 1984), Irish (McCloskey and Sells 1988), Haitian Creole (Déprez 1992), Igbo (Ura 1998), and Turkish (Moore 1998). | Ash Asudeh and Ida Toivonen, 1998

COPY THEORY OF MOVEMENT

1. (Syntax) Chomsky (1993) incorporates the copy theory of movement into the Minimalist Program. According to the copy theory, a trace is a copy of the moved element that is deleted in the phonological component (in the case of overt movement), but is available for interpretation at LF. Besides being compatible with the Inclusiveness Condition, the copy theory has the advantage of allowing binding theory to be stated solely in LF terms and dispensing with the operation of reconstruction. Furthermore, if traces are copies, they are not discrete theoretical primitives by themselves; they are either lexical items or phrases built from lexical items. By making it possible to promote this overall simplification of the theoretical apparatus in GB, the copy theory has thus become a solid pillar of the Minimalist Program. | Jairo Nunes, 1995
2. (Syntax) Chomsky (1993) revives the copy theory of movement, according to which a moved element leaves behind a copy of itself, rather than a trace. The conceptual underpinning for the revival of the copy theory is provided by the Inclusiveness Condition (see Chomsky 1995), a conceptually appealing condition that confines the power of syntax to (re-)arrangements of lexical items, banning syntax from creating new objects. Traces are prime examples of creationism in syntax and, as such, violate the Inclusiveness Condition. Chomsky (1993) demonstrates that in addition to conforming to the Inclusiveness Condition, the copy theory considerably simplifies the analysis of reconstruction phenomena. Furthermore, by making it possible to treat reconstruction as an LF phenomenon, the copy theory contributes to the research attempt to eliminate noninterface levels of representation. Another attractive feature of the copy theory is that, by eliminating traces, it reduces the number of theoretical primitives in our inventory. If traces are copies, they are either lexical items or complex objects built from lexical items; they are not new primitives. Replacement of traces by copies thus leads to an overall simplification of the grammar and this by itself explains why the copy theory became one of the pillars of the minimalist framework. | Željko Bošković and Jairo Nunes, 2008

COPYING
(Syntax) A basic syntactic operation within the framework of Transformational Grammar which adds a duplicate of a constituent in a phrase-marker to some other part of the phrase-marker. E.g., to make a rule deriving tag questions from such sentences as He is a doctor, the verb is taken and copied to the right of the sentence (changing its status from positive to negative); the tag-subject is a pronominal copy of the main subject, placed to the right of this verb. This would be one way of generating the sentence He is a doctor, isn't he? The verb is copied only if it is auxiliary or copula, and replaced by a form of do otherwise (e.g. John knows the answers, doesn't he). | David Crystal, 2008

CORE TRANSITIVE VERB
(Grammar) The transitive verbs of a language are, loosely speaking, those verbs that display the unmarked expression of arguments for two-argument verbs. Their arguments are said to bear the core grammatical relations subject and object.
 Many discussions of transitivity recognize a core—and perhaps for that reason privileged—subset of transitive verbs. These verbs have a clear semantic characterization, fitting the "agent acts on and causes an effect on patient" mold that is behind the name transitive. Members of this set in English include cut, destroy, kill, and transitive break and open. I call these verbs, which are defined by a conjunction of syntactic and semantic properties, core transitive verbs (CTVs); these are roughly equivalent to what Andrews (1985) calls primary transitive verbs. Given this definition, CTVs are verbs that qualify as "highly" transitive in Hopper and Thompson's 1980 sense, and their arguments clearly meet Dowty's 1991 agent and patient proto-role entailments. | Beth Levin, 1999

CORONAL STOP DELETION

1. (Phonology) In English this involves a variable phonological process deleting coronal stops from final coda clusters. It operates variably in all varieties of English and is everywhere conditioned by the morphological status of the targeted stop.
   • Many English words that are eligible for the rule are monomorphemic or underived words such as mist, pact, bold; in such cases the final stop is part of the root.
   • In another class of eligible words, the final stop is a reflex of the past tense suffix -ed: e.g., missed, packed, bowled. In such words the final stops bear a functional load: deleting them creates surface homophony with the present tense and obliterates a tense distinction. Hence, Kiparsky's (1982) distinctness condition predicts that past tense /t, d/ will resist deletion, showing a lower rate of deletion than comparable monomorphemic words, e.g., missed < mist.
    | Gregory R. Guy, 1996
2. (Phonology) In conversational English, word-final coronal stops in consonant clusters are variably omitted, a process known as coronal stop deletion (CSD). As with other variable processes, the probability of any such stop being deleted is sensitive to a range of contextual factors. In the case of CSD, the strongest conditioning factor is the segment that comes after the coronal stop: deletion rates are dramatically lower before vowels than before consonants. This empirical fact, which I refer to as the following segment effect (FSE), has been observed in quantitative CSD studies across many different English varieties, including general American English (Labov et al. 1968, Wolfram 1969, Guy 1980, African American English (Labov et al. 1968, Wolfram 1969, Fasold 1972, Labov 1972), Chicano English (Santa Ana 1991), Appalachian English (Wolfram and Christian 1976, Hazen 2011), British English (Tagliamonte and Temple 2005), Canadian English (Walker 2012), New Zealand English (Holmes and Bell 1994, Guy et al. 2008), Singapore English (Lim and Guy 2005, Gut 2007), Hong Kong English (Hansen Edwards 2016), Nigerian English (Gut 2007), and even the English-lexified Jamaican Creole (Patrick 1991). | Meredith Tamminga, 2018
3. (Phonology) English Coronal Stop Deletion (CSD)—the phenomenon that words like fact [fækt – fæk] can be pronounced with or without a coronal stop /t, d/—has been studied in many varieties of English such as American English (Purse 2021), Canadian English (Walker 2012), Singapore English (Lim and Guy 2005), and Southern British English (Baranowski and Turton 2020). One line of research on CSD focuses on its sensitivity to morphological contexts, that deletion is more frequent within monomorphemes, such as pact, than across morpheme boundaries, such as packed (Guy 1980, Guy and Boyd 1990). There are three accounts for such sensitivity.
   1. The functional account argues that the past tense morpheme's higher functional load makes it more resistant to deletion (MacKenzie and Tamminga 2021).
   2. Baranowski and Turton (2020) believe that morphological structure serves as a constraining factor on the variable deletion rule.
   3. Guy (1991) argues that differences at the derivational level for different categories account for the varying deletion rates.
   
    Another line of CSD research is on the question of whether there is categorical or gradient deletion (Scobbie 2007, Purse 2019, 2021). Categorical deletion means that there is always full deletion, and gradient deletion is when there is variation in deletion along a continuum. | Yunting Gu and Ryan Peters, 2024

CORRELATE

1. (Syntax) 

   Correlate (To Be Revised)
   A head h can be a correlate for a head h′ if h and h′ are tokens of the same lexical item.

    This definition of correlation is that the only valid correlate of a head is a lexically identical head. For the correlate relation to capture the data effectively, however, it should allow the elision of heads to be licensed relative to correlates that are traces or wh elements, and full DPs, including quantified DPs.

   Correlate (Final)
   A node n can be a correlate for a head h iff at least one of the following conditions holds:

   1. n is a head and n and h are tokens of the same lexical item.
   2. n is coindexed with h.

    | Deniz Rudin, 2019
2. (Syntax) 

   Correlate
   A node n can be a correlate of a head h iff the content of n is either lexically or referentially identical to h.

    Lexical identity is straightforward. Referential identity is defined in terms of coindexation. Consider the following data (comparable cases are discussed in Merchant 2001):
   1. I don't know who₁ t_i said what₂, or why <they₁ said it₂>_E.
   2. I think [a guy I know]₁ won a gold medal, but I don't know when <he₁ won a gold medal>_E.
   3. Someone ate at [five burger restaurants]₁, but I don't know who <ate at them₁>_E.
    Examples (1-3) show that traces, wh elements, pronouns, and full DPs, including quantified DPs, can serve as correlates for each other. | Margaret Kroll and Deniz Rudin, 2017

CORRELATIVE CONJUNCTION

1. (Grammar) Either of a pair of coordinating conjunctions used in ordered fashion. Typically, one is used immediately before each member of a pair of constituents.
   1. English
      Either you or I.
   
    | SIL Glossary of Linguistic Terms, 2003
2. (Grammar) Link words that consist of two parts and are used to give emphasis to the combinations of two structures that are balanced (Sahebkeir and Aidinlou 2014). They are regarded as team conjunctions because they are used in pairs. They get their name from the fact that they work together (co-) and relate one sentence element to another. Correlative conjunctions are more similar to coordinating conjunctions in that the sentence fragments they connect are fairly equal. Lester notes that correlative conjunctions are very similar to coordinating conjunctions except that they are two-part conjunctions. They include: either...or, neither...nor, both...and, as many...as, whether...or, not only...but also, such...that, so...that, hardly...when, scarcely...when, no sooner...than, not...but, etc. Sentential examples:
   1. a. I want either eba or amala.
      b. Neither a borrower nor a lender be.
      c. I have both eba and amala.
      d. There are as many curtains as there are windows.
      e. He was not sure whether he was losing or winning.
      f. She was not only mean but also rude.
      g. Such was the nature of their relationship that they never would have made it even if they wanted to.
      h. I had scarcely walked in the door when I got the call and had to run back.
      i. I had no sooner finished my studies than I got a job.
   
    | Abraham Sunday Unubi, 2014

CORRESPONDENCE DIAGRAM

(Phonology) In a correspondence diagram of the Dutch word [bɛt] 'bed' the input and output segments that are correspondents of one another are connected by vertical lines.

Correspondence diagram of [bɛt]
 /b ɛ d/ Input
   | | |
 [b ɛ t] Output

CORRESPONDENCE THEORY

1. (Optimality Theory) The branch of phonology studying the nature of conditions that measure the similarity of two related forms (such as input and output, base and derivative, base and reduplicant). Correspondence theory originates in pre-OT days when linguists like Allan Sommerstein, Ronnie Wilbur, Sandy Chung, and Luigi Burzio (in his pre-OT incarnation) were first led to formulate conditions mandating input recoverability or similarity between related forms.
    It has become a central part of phonological theory with the advent of OT. Within OT, the theory of correspondence has the primary function of defining the limits within which markedness constraints will affect an input. Extensions of correspondence provide the basis of the OT treatment for phenomena such as:
   (Using pre-OT labels:)
   • Cyclic phonology.
   • A subset of level ordering effects.
   • Derived environment conditions.
   • Opaque rule interactions, and
   • Base-reduplicant identity.
   
    | Javier Gutiérrez-Rexach, 2007
2. (Optimality Theory) Constraints can be categorized into two main types: faithfulness constraints, which require identity between the input and the output in various ways, and markedness constraints, which impose well-formedness conditions on output structures. With the advent of Correspondence Theory (McCarthy and Prince 1995), the concept of faithfulness received a new dimension. This theory, embedded within the general OT framework, determines correspondence relations between two structures, their similarity being evaluated by faithfulness constraints. Correspondence relations no longer hold between inputs and outputs, but also between bases and reduplicants, or between two output forms. These extensions of correspondence provide the basis of the OT treatment of phenomena such as opacity or paradigm uniformity. The Optimal Paradigms model (McCarthy 2005) is an example of a theory based on output-to-output correspondence.
    The premises of Correspondence Theory are carefully explained in van Oostendorp (2005). | B. van der Veer, 2006

COSMETIC MONOLINGUALISM
(Literary) Adapting the translated text in such a way that is perceived as monolingual, despite the original being a multilingual text. | Serena Armida Adele Ceniccola, 2025

COSUBORDINATION

1. (Syntax) Foley and Van Valin (1984) distinguish three types of clause linkage: coordination, subordination, and cosubordination. This distinction is based on two parameters, [±dependent] and [±embedded].
    The third clause linkage type, cosubordination, is like coordination in that neither clause is embedded in the other. It is also like subordination in that one clause is dependent on the other for some feature. Cosubordination is illustrated by the clause-chaining and switch-reference phenomena widely found in Papuan and American Indian languages. In this construction, "the juncts are not in a subordinate relationship, as one junct is not embedded in the other. However, a dependency relation exists between the juncts in that they must have the same illocutionary force and share the same absolute tense" (Foley and Van Valin 1984).
   1. Examples of cosubordination ([+dependent] [−embedded]) (Foley and Van Valin 1984)
      Abbreviations: 1= first person, 3 = third person, SG = singular; DS = different subject, SS = same subject; PST = past, PRES = present.
      Kewa (Engan; Papua New Guinea)
      a.
       

      Ní
      1SG

      réka-no
      stand-DS

      ágaa
      talk

      lá-a.
      say-3SG.PST

        'I stood up and he talked.'
      b.
       

      Nipú
      3SG

      táá-ma
      hit-SS

      pámua-la.
      walk-3SG.PRES

        'He is hitting it while walking.'
   
    In (1), "only the final verb is inflected for the person and number of the actor and for tense (Foley and Van Valin 1984). Cosubordination is also illustrated by English participial constructions like (2):
   2. a. Paul sat playing his guitar for hours.
      b. Zelda lay reading a book in bed.
      c. Matthew stood singing on a street corner.
   
    | Yuko Mizuno, 2008
2. (Grammar) A different approach is proposed in Olson (1981), Foley and Van Valin (1984), Van Valin and LaPolla (1997). Under this approach, a third, intermediate type in-between coordination and subordination is introduced, which is called cosubordination. In a subordinating construction, one of the clauses is both dependent on the main clause and is embedded (i. e. is a syntactic argument or modifier of the main clause); in a coordinating construction, neither clause is dependent on nor embedded in the other. In contrast, in cosubordinating constructions one of the clauses is assumed to be dependent on but not embedded in the other. | Oleg Belyaev, 2015

COUNTER-BLEEDING

1. (Syntax) Relation between ordered rules whose order is designed to avoid an effect of bleeding. | Concise Oxford Dictionary of Linguistics, 2007
2. (Grammar) Bleeding is a rule interaction where application of a rule R₁ destroys the context for the application of a rule R₂. Counter-bleeding describes an interaction where a bleeding relation that could show up between two rules is not found on the surface: a rule applied although its context was destroyed by another rule. | Fabian Heck and Anke Assmann, 2013
3. (Examples)
    ○ The application of glide formation as the first process would bleed the application of vowel elision, and since the reverse order leads to correct forms, the interaction of these processes is that of counter-bleeding. | Mehdi Fattahi and Yasaman Choubsaz, 2017
    ○ Different types of Merge must be distinguished. Simply ordering Merge relative to Agree is not sufficient. There is empirical evidence suggesting that Merge operations, when triggered by the same head H, apply at different points of the derivation within a single language. We can see this once Merge is interleaved with Agree: Some Merge operations apply before Agree (feeding or bleeding it), while others apply after Agree (counter-feeding or counter-bleeding it):
   1.  Merge ≻ Agree ≻ Merge
   
    | Doreen Georgi, 2014
    ○ There is a fundamental ordering restriction in Chomsky (1957) on the relation between the rule associating an affix with a verb (familiarly known as Affix Hopping) and the pair of rules responsible for the insertion of supportive do in circumstances where Affix Hopping has failed to apply. This is explicitly a bleeding order, and is also a counter bleeding order. | Howard Lasnik, 2013
    ○ There are two types of phonological opacity, those created by counter-feeding orders and those created by counter-bleeding orders (Kiparsky 1971, 1973). In the case of counter-bleeding orders, we find cases of non-surface apparent opacity. That is, there are surface forms in which some rule has applied, but the reason for its application is no longer apparent or present on the surface. This type of opacity occurs in a nonstandard dialect of Modern Hebrew. | Susannah V. Levi, 2000

COUNTER-BLEEDING OPACITY

1. (Phonology) Refers to the cases when the reason for the application of some phonological process P is not obvious on the surface form. In serialist terms, it is said that in such a case the process P is rendered opaque by the later application of some process Q. According to McCarthy (1999), counterbleeding opacity can be schematically represented as follows:

   Non-Surface-Apparent or Counter-Bleeding Opacity (from McCarthy 1999)
      UR      ABC#
      B→D/_C   ADC#
      C→E/_#     ADE#
      SR      ADE#

    On the scheme above, the context of the first process was destroyed by the application of the second process. Therefore, if we disregard intermediate stages of derivation, the first process will appear to have applied out of context, i.e. /B/ appears to turn into [D] before [E].
    Let’s now consider a real-life example of counterbleeding opacity. McCarthy (1999) presents a case of Yokuts language, where the interaction of long vowel lowering and closed syllable shortening gives rise to non-surface-apparent generalization.
   1. Yokuts Vowel Alternations (from McCarthy 1999)
      a. Vowels are shortened in closed syllables:
        /panaː/  panal   cf. panaːhin  'might arrive/arrives'
        /hoyoː/  hoyol  cf. hoyoːhin  'might name/names'
      b. Long high vowels are lowered:
        /ʔiliː/   ʔileːhin    'fans'
        /cʼuyuː/  cʼuyoːhun   'urinates'
      c. Vowels shortened in accordance with (a) are still lowered:
        /ʔiliː/   ʔilel    'might fan'
        /cʼuyuː/  cʼuyol  'might urinate'
   
    In a serialist model, the Yokuts data can be captured by counterbleeding order of shortening and lowering rules. Consider the following:
   2. Yokuts Serial Derivation (from McCarthy 1999)
        UR     /ʔiliː-l/
        Lowering  ʔileːl
        Shortening  ʔilel
   
    | Olga Tihonova, 2009
2. (Phonology) Phonological opacity is often the result of the counterfeeding or counterbleeding order of two or more phonological rules, which is called counter-feeding opacity or counter-bleeding opacity. An example of both can be seen in the future-marking suffix -en in the Yokutsan languages. Its vowel is supposed to be an underlying high vowel, though it surfaces as a mid vowel. Vowel rounding always applies before vowel lowering. Due to this order of phonological rules, the interaction of the suffix vowel with rounding harmony is opaque. There is still vowel harmony between the suffix vowel and a preceding high vowel as these vowels agree in roundedness, while a vowel with the feature [−high] would usually be exempt from rounding harmony. As a result of counter-bleeding opacity, the apparent motivation for the vowel harmony has disappeared here. Moreover, as a result of counter-feeding opacity, it cannot be told from the surface structure of the suffix vowel why it fails to harmonize in rounding with preceding mid vowels (Backović 2011). | Wikipedia, 2025

COUNTER-FEEDING

1. (Syntax) Relation between ordered rules whose order is designed to avoid an effect of feeding. | Concise Oxford Dictionary of Linguistics, 2007
2. (Grammar) Feeding describes an interaction where the application of a rule R₁ provides the context for the application of a rule R₂. Counter-feeding is a term for an interaction where the feeding relation that could, in principle, apply between two rules does not arise. On the surface, it looks like a rule did not apply although its context was created by the application of another rule. | Fabian Heck and Anke Assmann, 2013
3. (Examples)
    ○ Lenition processes involving voicing of intervocalic voiceless plosives and spirantization of intervocalic voiced plosives typically apply in a counter-feeding interaction (Gurevich 2004), that is the voiceless plosives surface as voiced ones, but do not partake in the modification the underlying voiced plosives are subject to: they are not further modified so as to be realized as voiced fricatives. | Haike Jacobs, 2019
    ○ Two phonological variables that have been identified as stereotypes of the Northern Greek variety are the raising of unstressed mid and high vowels and the palatalization of the dental sonorants /l/ and /n/ (Newton 1972). In the first instance, when the mid vowels /e/ and /o/ appear in unstressed syllables, they are raised and become /i/ and /u/ respectively, while the high vowels /i/ and /u/ are deleted in the same environment. The two processes are in counter-feeding order, so that mid vowels that are raised do not become deleted. | Panayiotis A. Pappas, 2014
    ○ Koutsoudas, Sanders and Noll point out nine logical possibilities for ordering in a theory which accepts extrinsic ordering, involving feeding and bleeding (cf. Kiparsky 1968) and counter-feeding and counter-bleeding (where counter-feeding refers to an ordering of some pair of rules such that if the order were reversed, they would be in a feeding relationship; similarly, counter-bleeding refers to a relationship which holds such that if the order were reversed it would be a bleeding relation.) | Lyle Campbell, 1973

COUNTER-FEEDING OPACITY

1. (Examples)
    ○ This paper proposes an OT account of diachronic and synchronic Romance lenition based on the theory of Comparative Markedness. The analysis, contrary to previous analyses, allows for a straightforward description of synchronic allophonic lenition processes where voicing and spirantization take place simultaneously without loss of contrast. The comparative markedness analysis of lenition not only allows for a parallel OT description of counter-feeding opacity in synchronic Gran Canarian, Corsican and Sardinian lenition, but moreover makes understandable why sound change should start out in a counter-feeding fashion. | Haike Jacobs and Robbie van Gerwen, 2006
    ○ The key observation is that post-alveolar fricatives [š] derived by First Velar Palatalization (FVP) do not become pre-palatal (/x/→š, *ś/_i). But underlying fricatives /š/ do so in the same environment. This is known as counter-feeding opacity (Kiparsky 1973): a phonological process—in Polish, Nominal Strident Palatalization (NSP)— fails to apply to "derived" forms of the language. In Polish, it does not apply to [š] derived by FVP.
    In rule-based phonology, counter-feeding opacity is accounted for by rule ordering. In Polish, it has been postulated that NSP precedes FVP (Rubach 1984). Thus, forms derived by FVP do not undergo NSP. | Anna Łubowicz, 2003
    ○ One of the most interesting aspects of the Comparative Markedness theory is the unification of several phenomena traditionally thought to be unrelated. Grandfathering effects, Derived Environment Effects, and counterfeeding opacity all turn out to be different facets of the same phenomenon, due to the presence of new and old markedness in the system. | Lev Blumenfeld, 2003

COUNTERCYCLIC ADJUNCTION
(Syntax) Let us briefly illustrate the crucial property of countercyclic operations, i.e. the capability of expanding the tree at a non–root position. Thus, a transition from (1a) to (1b) is countercyclic.

1. a. [ A ] [ B C ]
   b. [ [ B A ] C ]

2. a. * She_i denied the claim that Mary_i fell asleep
   b. * She_i liked the book that Mary_i read
   c. * Which claim that Mary_i fell asleep did she_i deny
   d. Which book that Mary_i read did she_i like

COUNTERCYCLICITY

1. (Syntax) Countercyclic operations allow structure building at any node in the tree instead of just at the root, i.e., they allow the capability of expanding the tree at a non-root position. | Hans-Martin Gärtner and Jens Michaelis, 2008
2. (Phonology) A key property that distinguishes between competing architectures of phonology is whether phonology is assumed to be cyclic (Chomsky and Halle 1968, Brame 1974, Mascaró 1976, Kiparsky 1982, 2000, Orgun 1997, Bermúdez-Otero 1999, Sande, Jenks, and Inkelas 2020, a.o.) or not cyclic (Benua 1997, Albright 2002, Kager 1999, McCarthy 2007, a.o.). Cyclic here means that phonological computation does not apply in one fell swoop, but in multiple cycles applying to morphosyntactic domains of increasing size. Cyclic process application is usually tied to the adoption of the cyclic principle (Chomsky, Halle, and Lukoff 1956), which states that a process that applies to a smaller domain applies before a process that applies in a larger domain. In addition, the No-Look-Ahead Principle states that a process in a smaller cycle is completely oblivious to material that is external to it. These two principles together derive the No-Countercyclicity Hypothesis:

   No-Countercyclicity
    a. If a process P applies in a cyclic domain D_i , it must transparently enable, block or influence (feed, bleed or shift) a process Q that applies in a cyclic domain D_i+x .
    b. If a process Q applies in a cyclic domain D_i , it cannot transparently enable, block or influence (thus must counterfeed, counterbleed or countershift) a process P that applies in a cyclic domain D_i−x .

    Countercyclic process interactions are thus interactions that violate the No-Countercyclicity Hypothesis, i.e. either interactions where a process germane to a bigger domain feeds or bleeds a process bound to a smaller domain (transparent countercyclicity) or where a process bound to a smaller domain counterfeeds or counterbleeds a process with a larger morphosyntactic scope (opaque countercyclicity). Consequently, the potential existence of countercyclic interactions is a very useful tool for evaluating the hypothesis that phonology is cyclic. | Daniel Christoph Gleim, 2024

COUNTERFACTUAL
(Grammar) Counterfactual constructions convey the speaker's belief that the actualization of a situation was potential—possible, desirable, imminent, or intended—but did not take place, i.e. it did not belong to the actual world. Counterfactuals have mostly been studied in formal-semantic frameworks; a few studies have explored counterfactuals from a functional perspective (see Olguín Martínez and Lester 2021, Van Linden and Verstraete 2008, Verstraete and Luk 2021).
 Counterfactuals are typically associated with counterfactual conditionals:

1. If I had known that, I wouldn't have appointed him.

• Clauses that are structurally similar to the main clause of a counterfactual conditional, or
• Clauses that could be regarded as a counterfactual conditional with an elided main clause.

Page Last Modified June 25, 2025

 

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