OBJECT CLEFT CONSTRUCTION

1. (Syntax) Sentence in which the clefted constituent is the thematic object.
   1. It's a cat (O) that the dog (S) is chasing (V).
   
    A well-established finding in adult language processing is that constructions involving object-gaps, including object clefts, take adults longer to process than those involving subject-gaps (Wanner and Marastos 1978, Gibson 1998, Warren and Gibson 2002, Tily et al. 2010, a.o). | Athulya Aravind, Martin Hackl and Ken Wexler, 2017
2. (Syntax) In an object cleft such as (1), the pronoun whom replaces the object of the verb thanked in the cleft clause.
   1. It was we whom the mayor thanked.
      (The cleft clause refers to the object we.)
   
    | Elizabeth S. Johnson, 2015

OBJECT DROP

1. (Syntax) A subset of transitive verbs (non-core transitives, Levin 1999, 2017) allow object drop in English:
   1. Verbs of contact—hitting, wiping, sweeping, pushing, etc. among them:
      I'll sweep e!
   2. Scenario: Cleaning dishes after dinner party:
      John washed e_i and Mary dried e_i.
   3. Scenario: A car has stalled by the side of the road. John and Mary are trying to get it started again:
      Mary pushed e_i and John steered e_i.
   
    Glass (2014) amasses a corpus of examples of object drop and makes an interesting observation about them: If the action denoted by the verb is associated with a routine action with a predictable object, object drop is possible:
   1. I haven't played e all week. (Musicians? Soccer players?)
   
    Glass finds higher rates of object drop with lift in weight-lifting magazines, and with buy and sell in real estate magazines. Her proposal: A dropped object with a transitive predicate must be recoverable. Recoverability can depend on the "common ground" of a particular community or on the speaker's goals in a context.
    Other grammatical factors also facilitate object drop. Examples from Goldberg 2001:
   2. Generic
      Tigers only kill e at night.
   3. Modal
      Dresses I would murder e for.
   4. Repeated action
      Scarface killed e again.
   5. Infinitive
      The singer always aimed to please/impress e.
   
    | Raffaella Folli and Heidi Harley, 2023
2. (Syntax) Which normally transitive verbs can omit their objects in English (e.g., I ate), and why? Three factors are suggested to facilitate object omission:
   1. How strongly a verb selects its object (Resnik 1993).
   2. A verb's frequency (Goldberg 2005).
   3. The extent to which the verb is associated with a routine—a recognized, conventional series of actions within a community (Lambrecht and Lemoine 2005, Ruppenhofer and Michaelis 2010, Levin and Rapaport Hovav 2014, Martí 2010, 2015).
    | Lelia Glass, 2022

OBJECT FRONTING
(Example) As documented in Speyer (2010), the overall rate of object fronting declines over time, so that object fronting in Modern English occurs much less frequently than it did in Old English. This leads one to wonder whether object fronting is in the process of disappearing from the English language. Speyer (2010), however, suggests a different way of understanding the trend. Speyer argues that the general decline in object fronting is not an independent syntactic change in the grammar of English. Old English had a grammar that generated verb-second (V2) word orders like those found in German, although the distribution of V2 patterns was limited to clauses with certain subject types (cf. Pintzuk 1991, Fischer et al. 2000). Over time, these V2-like word orders disappeared as the grammar of English changed. Speyer claims that this is the key to understanding object fronting in English: the loss of V2 word orders limited the environments in which fronting is prosodically well-formed, leading to an apparent decline in fronting. | Jon Stevens and Caitlin Light, 2013

OBJECT SHIFT

1. (Syntax) The definition of object shift to be used here is a narrow one, covering only the kind of object shift typically found in the Scandinavian languages, following the original use of the term in Holmberg (1986). Sometimes object shift has been taken to include also at least some instances of scrambling as found in the Continental West Germanic languages (Afrikaans, Dutch, Frisian, German, and Yiddish).
    Scrambling, as in the German (1b) and (1c), and object shift, as in Icelandic (2b) and (2c) and Danish (3c), have in common that both move a DP leftward, from a position inside VP to a position outside VP but inside the same clause:
   1. Scrambling in German
      1. Peter
         Peter

         hat_v
         has

         ohne
         without

         Zweifel
         doubt

         nie
         never

         [_VP
          

         Bücher
         books

         gelesen]
         read

         t_v
         
      2. Peter
         Peter

         las_v
         read

         die
         the

         Bücher_i
         books

         ohne
         without

         Zweifel
         doubt

         nie
         never

         [_VP
          

         t_i
          

         t_v]
          
      3. Peter
         Peter

         las_v
         read

         sie_i
         them

          
          

         ohne
         without

         Zweifel
         doubt

         nie
         never

         [_VP
          

         t_i
          

         t_v]
          
   2. Object shift in Icelandic
      1. Pétur
         Peter

         hefur_v
         has

         eflaust
         doubtlessly

         aldrei
         never

         t_v
          

         [_VP
          

         lesið
         read

         bækur]
         books
      2. Pétur
         Peter

         las_v
         read

         bækurnari
         books-the

         eflaust
         doubtlessly

         aldrei
         never

         [_VP
          

         t_v
          

         t_i]
          
      3. Pétur
         Peter

         las_v
         read

         þæ
         them

         eflaust
         doubtlessly

         aldrei
         never

         [_VP
          

         t_v
          

         t_i]
          
   3. Object shift in Danish
      1. Peter
         Peter

         har_v
         has

         uden
         without

         tvivl
         doubt

         aldrig
         never

         t_v
          

         [_VP
         

         læst
         read

         bøger]
         books
      2. *Peter
         Peter

         læste_v
         read

         bøgernei
         books-the

         uden
         without

         tvivl
         doubt

         aldrig
         never

         [_VP
          

         t_v
          

         t_i]
          
      3. Peter
         Peter

         læste_v
         read

         dem_i
         them

         uden
         without

         tvivl
         doubt

         aldrig
         never

         [_VP
          

         t_v
          

         t_i]
          
   
    All the above examples are verb second (V2), i.e., the finite verb has been moved from the position marked t_v to its present position as the second constituent of the main clause. In addition, in all examples the base position of the object is inside the VP, i.e., to the right of the adverbials 'no doubt' and 'never', cf. (1a), (2a), and (3a). When scrambling (1b, 1c) or object shift (2b, 2c, 3c) takes place, the object moves to a position to the left of these adverbials. From these examples, which focus on the similarities between object shift and scrambling, it might appear that there are no differences. This is not so; there are many differences between the two types of movement, as object shift is much more restricted than scrambling. Only object shift requires verb movement, and only object shift is restricted to DPs. | Sten Vikner, 2005
2. (Syntax) A characteristic feature of the Scandinavian languages. It has also been studied extensively (cf. Holmberg 1986, 1999, Holmberg and Platzack 1995, Vikner 1995, 2006, Josefsson 2003, 2010, Thráinsson 2001, Erteschik-Shir 2005, Fox and Pesetsky 2005, Andréasson 2008, 2009, 2010, [2013], Mikkelsen 2011, Anderssen and Bentzen 2012, Anderssen et al. 2012, Bentzen et al. 2013, Østbø Munch 2013, a.o.). The typical pattern, illustrated in (1), shows that (weak/unstressed) pronominal objects have to shift across negation (and other adverbs). This pattern generally holds true across the Scandinavian languages. However, with respect to DP objects, there is a distinction between Icelandic, where such objects may occur in front of negation/adverbs, and the Mainland Scandinavian languages (MSc) and Faroese, where DP objects have to follow these elements, as shown in (2). (The Icelandic example in (2a) is taken from Thráinsson 2001):
   1. Norwegian
      a.
       

      Jeg
      I

      så
      saw

      den
      it

      ikke.
      not
      b.
       

      %
       

      Jeg
      I

      så
      saw

      ikke
      not

      den.
      it

        'I didn't see it.'
   2. a. Icelandic
       
       

      Jón
      John

      las
      read

      {bókina}
      book.the

      aldrei
      never

      {bókina}.
      book.the
      b. Norwegian
       
       

      Jon
      John

      leste
      read

      {*boken}
      book.the

      aldri
      never

      {boken}.
      book.the

        'John never read the book.'
   
    | Kristine Bentzen, 2014

OBJECT TOPICALIZATION
(Syntax) If topicalization involves A′-movement, under the Relativized Minimality approach, children should show comprehension difficulties in object topicalization sentences (with the OSV order) as compared to subject topicalization sentences (with the SVO order).

1. Mandarin Chinese
   a.
    

   [ Zhe-ge
   this-CL

   haizi_i ] _S
   child

   (ya),
   (TOP)

   e_i
    

   zai
   PROG

   hua
   draw

   [ waipo ] _O .
   grandma  

   (subject topicalization)
    

     'As for this child, (he) is drawing the grandma.'
   b.
    

   [ Zhe-ge
   this-CL

   haizi_i ] _O
   child

   (ya),
   (TOP)

   [ waipo ] _S
   grandma

   zai
   PROG

   hua
   draw

   e_i .
     

   (object topicalization)
    

     'As for this child, the grandma is drawing (him).'

OBJECTHOOD

1. (Syntax) The standard (syntactic) definition of a transitive construction refers to the presence of a direct object (DO). That is, the presence of a DO is considered a feature equivalent to transitivity. (See Lazard 1998, Plungjan and Raxilina 1998, Kittilä 2002, Næss 2007, a.o.) Accordingly, transitive constructions can be determined as those, and only those, that require a DO. Thus, verifying transitivity of a clause amounts to the verification of the objecthood of those nouns which can be considered potential candidates for DOs.
    The passivization test (also referred to by some authors as "subjectivization"), appears to be the most, if not the only, reliable DO criterion, even in spite of the fact that some languages lack a passive.  | Leonid Kulikov, 2012
2. (Grammar) The notion object has proved useful in the description of grammatical phenomena in and across languages as it picks out a set of noun phrases characterized by a convergence of what Keenan (1976) calls behavioral and coding properties. Concomitantly, this notion has even been taken as a primitive within certain approaches to linguistic representation (e.g. Relational Grammar, Lexical Functional Grammar) and as amenable to a configurational definition in others (e.g. the Government-Binding framework).
    Nevertheless, the notion "object" continues to pose a challenge for linguistic theory. For instance, to the extent that it is applicable crosslinguistically, there is a fair amount of variation across languages as to the set of verbs taking NPs identified as objects. Furthermore, it is difficult—and some might even say impossible—to provide a uniform semantic characterization of all objects within or across languages, even if there is agreement that the prototypical objects are "patients"—what are sometimes called "affected" arguments. These problems reflect the semantic underpinnings of the notion "object". Since transitive verbs necessarily have objects, a challenge for theories of transitivity is how to deal with the just-mentioned problems involving the semantic correlates of objecthood. | Beth Levin, 1999

OBLIGATORY CONTOUR PRINCIPLE

1. (Autosegmental Phonology) A hypothesis that states that (certain) consecutive identical features are banned in underlying representations. The OCP is most frequently cited when discussing the tones of tonal languages (stating for example that the same morpheme may not have two underlying high tones), but it has also been applied to other aspects of phonology. The principle is part of the larger notion of horror aequi (or avoidance of identity) that language users generally avoid repetition of identical linguistic structures.
    Cf. van Oostendorp 2005, Guy and Boberg 1997, Mmusi 1992, Yip 1988, McCarthy 1986. | Wikipedia, 2024
2. (Autosegmental Phonology) The OCP was originally proposed as a prohibition against adjacent identical tones in lexical representations (Leben 1973), but in recent theoretical work it has been expanded to account for a variety of processes that involve avoidance of adjacent identical segments (McCarthy 1986) and adjacent identical features (Yip 1988). Yip suggested that the OCP is essentially a universal disfavoring of identical sequences on the same tier. McCarthy (1988) gave a general formulation of the principle: "Adjacent identical elements are prohibited." On a featured level, these observations might be formalized as:

   The Obligatory Contour Principle
   *[αF] [αF]

    | Gregory R. Guy and Charles Boberg, 1997
3. (Autosegmental Phonology) A sequence of adjacent identical tones can be represented:
   1. As a single tone mapped onto multiple vowels.
   2. As a one-to-one mapping between multiple tones and vowels.
   3. Or as a combination of these extremes.
    The Obligatory Contour Principle (OCP) has been proposed as a constraint which restricts tonal representations to a one-to-many mapping between tones and vowels. | David Odden, 1986
4. (Autosegmental Phonology) Has been proposed as a fundamental constraint on autosegmental representations (Leben 1973, 1978, McCarthy 1986).

   Obligatory Contour Principle (OCP)
   Adjacent identical elements are prohibited.

    In the domain of tone, for example, the OCP rules out representations such as that in (1), in which two high tones are adjacent:
   1.  
       
       

      *H
        |
       σ

      H
       |
      σ
   
    | Scott Meyers, 1997

OBLIGATORY CONTROL
(Syntax) Standard instances of (obligatory) control are present in the following sentences:

1. Susan [promised]_V1 us to [help]_V2 .
   (Subject control with the obligatory control predicate promise)
2. Fred [stopped]_V1 [laughing]_V2 .
   (Subject control with the obligatory control predicate stop)
3. We [tried]_V1 to [leave]_V2 .
   (Subject control with the obligatory control predicate try)
4. Sue [asked]_V1 Bill to [stop]_V2 .
   (Object control with the obligatory control predicate ask)
5. They [told]_V1 you to [support]_V2 the effort.
   (Object control with the obligatory control predicate tell)
6. Someone [forced]_V1 him to [do]_V2 it.
   (Object control with the obligatory control predicate force)

OBLIQUE CASE

1. (Syntax) Non-canonical case which is assigned by a governing preposition. (Chomsky 1981) | Utrecht Lexicon of Linguistics, 2001
2. (Grammar) In German, oblique Cases (dative and genitive) require morphological licensing while structural Cases (nominative and accusative) do not. | Josef Bayer, Markus Bader and Michael Meng, 2001
3. (Grammar) A morphological case of English pronouns, the oblique case (object pronouns such as me, him, her, us) is used for the direct or indirect object of a verb, for the object of a preposition, for an absolute disjunct, and sometimes for the complement of a copula. | Wikipedia, 2025
4. (Examples)
    ○ Like certain Kurdish and Zazaki dialects, several Pamiri languages display double oblique case marking in which both the A and P argument of a transitive take oblique case in the past tense. | Daniel Kaufman, 2017
    ○ According to a line of analysis developed by Manzini and Savoia (2011, a.o.) for certain Romance and Balkan languages, oblique cases are two-place predicates; specifically, genitive in the DP domain and dative in the vP domain introduce a part-whole relation between a whole (the possessor) and a part (the possessee). | M. Rita Manzini and Leonardo M. Savoia, 2017
    ○ Manifestations of oblique case in Serbian/Croatian (specifically, the dative and the instrumental) present a puzzling pattern of distribution. | Julia Horvath, 2014
    ○ The assimilating of the nominal flexional forms, particularly of the oblique cases (genitive-dative) evinces uncommonly great difficulties for children. This arises not only from difficulties inherent to their contents, to the logic relations expressed by them, but also from the inconsistency of the morphologic-syntactical expression in literary Rumanian. | Tatiana Slama-Cazacu, 1962

OBLIQUE OBJECT

1. (Grammar) A grammatical relation proposed for a noun phrase clause constituent with the following characteristics:
   1. Its nature and behavior are more readily describable in semantic terms than syntactic.
   2. It is likely to be the most constrained in the semantic roles it may individually express.
   3. It is likely to be marked by an adposition or case affix .
   4. It is not likely to be a target of syntactic rules, such as agreement with the verb, or strategies of relativization.
    | Alphabetical Glossary of Linguistic Terms, ?
2. (Grammar) Certain predicates are semantically transitive but syntactically intransitive in Vancouver Island Halkomelem (Central Salish; Vancouver Island, Canada). Thompson and Thompson ([1992]) note of cognate constructions in the Thompson language that they "... imply effect on some entity." The effected entity may be introduced in Halkomenum by the preposition ʔə, forming an oblique complement rather than a direct object. Compare, for example, the following transitive / intransitive sentence pairs, where -t is a transitive suffix and both -m and -els are intransitive suffixes.
   1. Transitive
      nemʔ
      go

      cən
      I

      q̓^wə́lət
      barbecue-TRANS

      t^θə
      ART

      scééɫtən
      salmon

      'I am going to barbecue the salmon.'
   2. Intransitive
      nemʔ
      go

      cən
      I

      q̓^wə́ləm
      barbecue-INTR

      ʔə
      PREP

      t^θə
      ART

      scééɫtən
      salmon

      'I am going to barbecue the salmon.'
   3. Transitive
      niʔ
      AUX

      cən
      I

      lək^wát
      break-TRANS

      t^θə
      ART

      sc̓ešt
      stick

      'I broke the stick.'
   4. Intransitive
      niʔ
      AUX

      cən
      I

      lək^wels
      break-INTR

      ʔə
      PREP

      t^θə
      ART

      sc̓ešt
      stick

      'I broke the stick'
   
    As the semantic role of such oblique complements seems analogous to that of direct objects, let us call them oblique objects. | Thomas E. Hukari, 1979
3. (Example) Following the terminology of Hukari (1979), I refer to themes of ditransitives as oblique objects, thus distinguishing them from semantically oblique NPs, which I refer to simply as obliques. As summarized in the table below, case marking and extraction taken together can be used to distinguish the three types of non-subject nominals in Halkomelem (Central Salish; British Columbia, Canada):

   Properties of objects and obliques in Halkomelem
   	OBJECTS	OBLIQUE OBJECTS	OBLIQUES
   CASE MARKING	∅	preposition ʔə	preposition ʔə
   EXTRACTION	direct	via nominalization with s-	via nominalization with š(xw)-

    | Donna B. Gerdts, 2010

OBLIQUE SUBJECT CONSTRUCTION
(Grammar) Oblique subjects must be assumed to have existed not only in Old Germanic but also in Old Romance. However, predicates selecting for subject-like obliques are not confined to Germanic and Old French, but exist in all the archaic and ancient Indo-European languages. The following examples from Latin, Greek, Lithuanian and Russian (Bauer 2000) suffice to illustrate this point:

1. a.
    

   fratris
   brother.GEN

   me
   me.ACC

   pudet
   is-ashamed

     (Latin)
   

     'I am ashamed of my brother'
   b.
    

   melei
   cares

   moi
   me.DAT

   tinos
   something.GEN

   (Greek)
    

     'I care for something'
   c.
    

   mán
   me.DAT

   nëzti
   itches

      (Lithuanian)
    

     'I itch'
   d.
    

   mne
   me.DAT

   žalʼ
   feel-sorry

   vašu
   your.ACC

   sestru
   sister.ACC

     (Russian)
    

     'I am sorry for your sister'

OBLIQUE SUBJECT HYPOTHESIS
(Grammar) Our goal in this article is to show that the nonnominative subject-like oblique of impersonal predicates (1) and dative passives (2) behaves syntactically as a subject in Germanic. We refer to this radical hypothesis as the oblique subject hypothesis. There is a consensus in the linguistic community that Modern Icelandic and Faroese exhibit oblique subjects, exemplified by the dative mér in (1a) and (2a).

1. a. Icelandic

    
    

   Mér
   me.DAT

   er
   is

   kalt.
   cold
   b. German

    
    

   Mir
   me.DAT

   ist
   is

   kalt.
   cold

     'I'm freezing.'
2. a. Icelandic

    
    

   Mér
   me.DAT

   var
   was

   hjálpað.
   helped
   b. German

    
    

   Mér
   me.DAT

   var
   was

   hjálpað.
   helped

     'I was helped.'

OMNIVOROUS NUMBER
(Grammar) When a number probe skips over all singular DPs. Occurs in Kaqchikel Agent Focus (Preminger 2011):

1. Omnivorous number in Kaqchikel:
   1. ja
      FOC

      rje'
      them

      x-e-tz'et-ö
      PRF-3PL-see-AF

      rja'
      him

      'It was them who saw him.'
   2. ja
      FOC

      rja'
      him

      x-e-tz'et-ö
      PRF-3PL-see-AF

      rje'
      them

      'It was him who saw them.'

OMNIVOROUS PERSON
(Grammar) When a person probe skips over DPs that are not 1st or 2nd person. Found in Nez Perce complementizer agreement, for example (Deal 2015).

1. Complementizer agreement in Nez Perce favors [participant]:
   1. ke-m
      C-2

      kaa
      then

      pro_2SG
       

      'e-cew'cew'-teetu
      3OBJ-call-TAM

      Angel-ne
      Angel-ACC

      'When you call Angel, ...'
   2. ke-m
      C-2

      kaa
      then

      Angel-nim
      Angel-NOM

      hi-cew'cew'-teetu
      3SUBJ-call-TAM

      pro_2SG
       

      'When Angel calls you, ...'

ONOMASTICS

1. The study of names. Such study is, in fact, carried out as part of several larger fields, including linguistics, ethnography, folklore, philology, history, geography, philosophy, and literary scholarship. In Europe, especially in Germany, it is a well recognized branch of philology, as witness the three-volume encyclopedic survey of the field recently published there (Eichler et al. 1996). By contrast, in the US, onomastics is scarcely recognized as a scholarly field at all. To be sure, there is an organization called the American Name Society, which publishes a small journal called Names, but only a few linguists belong to the society, and most linguists have probably never heard of the organization or the journal. | William Bright, 2003
2. The intellectual endeavor which studies names of all kinds, not simply as a subdiscipline of linguistics but involving several adjacent extralinguistic disciplines. In order to establish a sound basis for name studies, it is essential to clarify the distinction between names and words or, more generally, between lexicon and onomasticon. In the naming process, transfers occur not only from the former to the latter, but also from one name category to another. As name usage is the prerequisite for name survival, socio-onomastics has become a central concern of name studies. In a largely cross-disciplinary approach, literary onomastics, i.e., the study of names in literature, has recently become a strong focus, and an active and productive activity. | Wilhelm FH. Nicolaisen, 2015

ONSET CONSTRAINT

1. (Optimality Theory) We conclude from the typological results and epenthesis data that the presence of an onset is an unmarked situation as compared to its absence. This is expressed in the structural well-formedness constraint ONSET (Itô 1989, Prince and Smolensky 1993):

   ONSET
   *[_σ V ('Syllables must have onsets.')

    This constraint requires that syllables must not begin with vowels; it is satisfied only by syllables that have an initial consonant, or onset. Therefore languages in which ONSET is undominated have obligatory onsets. Finally, ONSET is "grounded" in the articulatory and perceptual systems: the best starting point for a vowel is a preceding consonant (rather than another vowel). | René Kager, 1999
2. (Optimality Theory) Arabic unmistakably exhibits the ONS constraint, which we state as follows:

   ONS
   Every syllable has an Onset.

    For concreteness, let us assume that Onset is an actual node in the syllable tree; the ONS constraint looks at structure to see whether the node σ dominates the node Onset. | Alan Prince and Paul Smolensky, 1993

OO-IDENT(NASAL)
(Optimality Theory) A constraint:

OO-IDENT(NASAL)
Assign a violation to each segment in an output whose specification for nasality is not identical to its corresponding segment in the base.

OPEN-CHOICE PRINCIPLE

1. (Grammar) Represents the traditional assumption that practically each Position in a clause offers a choice (Sinclair 1991). | Britt Erman and Beatrice Warren, 2000
2. (Grammar) In 1991 the late John Sinclair, who is renowned for his pioneering work in the field of corpus-based lexicography, propounded an elegantly simple theory. In Sinclair's view, the prime determinants of our language behavior are the principles of idiom and open choice, and the principle of idiom takes precedence over the principle of open choice: "The principle of idiom is that a language learner has available to him or her a large number of semi-preconstructed phrases that constitute single choices, even though they might appear to be analyzable into segments". | Dirk Siepmann, 2011
3. (Grammar) Idiom forms found in canonized idiom dictionaries and other accepted resources can appear in literal (Open Choice Principle) contexts in authentic language (the boy kicked the bucket of apples) or in nonliteral contexts (the old dog finally kicked the bucket)—the Idiom Principle. | Kaitlyn Alayne VanWagoner, 2017

OPEN-ENDEDNESS
(General) The limitless ability to produce and understand totally new utterances is called "open-endedness", and it should be perfectly clear to you that, without it, our languages and indeed our lives would be unrecognizably different from what they are. Perhaps no other feature of language so dramatically illustrates the vast, unbridgeable gulf separating human language from the signaling systems of all other creatures.
 The importance of open-endedness has been realized by linguists for decades. The term was coined by the American linguist Charles Hockett in 1960, though others have sometimes preferred the labels productivity or creativity. | R.L. Trask, 2007

OPEN SYLLABLE LENGTHENING
(Diachronic) The process by which short vowels become long in an open syllable. It occurs in many languages at a phonetic or allophonic level, and no meaningful distinction in length is made. However, as it became phonemic in many Germanic languages, it is especially significant in them, both historically and in the modern languages.
 Open syllable lengthening affected the stressed syllables of all Germanic languages in their history to some degree. Curiously, it seems to have affected the languages around a similar time, between the 12th and the 16th centuries, during the late Middle Ages.
 The lengthening often also applied in reverse at some point by shortening long vowels in closed syllables. As a consequence of the combination of the two changes, vowel length and consonant length came to be in complementary distribution: one of the two features is no longer distinctive but is predictable from the other. | Wikipedia, 2022

OPERATIONAL PLAUSIBILITY

1. (Relational Network Theory) The fact that people are able to speak and write, and to comprehend texts (if often imperfectly), assures us that linguistic systems are able to operate for producing and comprehending texts. Therefore, a model of "linguistic structure" cannot be considered realistic if it cannot be put into operation in a realistic way. This principle, the requirement of operational plausibility, has also been mentioned by Ray Jackendoff (2002). | Glottopedia, 2018
2. (Example) Generative theory postulates that language is a productive computational system. In its various models it holds that in the mind/brain there are symbols and operations that manipulate those symbols, for example syntactic objects. But the neurological evidence allows to notice that in the brain there is no structure of symbol storage nor manipulation operations of these symbols. In addition, the hypothesis that there is a store of symbols and various operations requires that the linguistic system work in successive stages, taking certain syntactic objects in a given state to which certain operations are applied to finally produce syntactic objects "in conditions to be pronounced". In this sense, the hypothesis of storage and manipulation of objects lacks operational plausibility, because it does not offer a plausible characterization of how the proposed linguistic system can be operated in real time to produce and understand speech. | José María Gil, 2019

OPTATIVE UTTERANCE
(Grammar) An utterance that expresses a wish, regret, hope or desire without containing a lexical item that means 'wish', 'regret', 'hope' or 'desire' (cf. Rifkin 2000, Asarina and Shklovsky 2008). Optatives are typically perceived to be a type of exclamation, defined as utterances that are predominantly used to exclaim (cf. Quirk et al. 1972, 1985; Rifkin, 2000).

1. Latin:
   Utinam
   that

   ne
   not

   ...
    

   tetigissent
   touch.3PL.PLUP.SUBJ

   litora
   shores

   puppes
   ships

   '[Almighty Jupiter,] if only the [Attic] ships had never touched the [Knossian] shores!' (Catullus 64.171-172; adapted from Palmer 2001; translation is mine)

2. I wish [that the Attic ships had never touched the Knossian shores].
3. It would be good [if the Attic ships had never touched the Knossian shores].

4. Oh, that I had told them both a year ago!
   (Martin F. Tupper. 1851. The Twins: A Domestic Novel. Hartford: Silas Andrus.)
5. If only I had told them both a year ago!

6. If I'd only listened to my parents!
7. If I could just make them understand my point of view!
8. If I could but explain! (Quirk et al. 1985)
9. Oh that Apollo would but drive his horses slowly, that the day might be three hours longer; for it is too soon to depart, [...]
   (A. Marsh. 1682. The Ten Pleasures of Marriage. London: The Navarre Society.)

OPTIMAL

1. (Optimality Theory) A surface form is optimal if it incurs the least serious violations of a set of constraints, taking into account their hierarchical ranking. Languages differ in the ranking of constraints; and any violations must be minimal. | René Kager, 1999
2. (Examples)
    ○ OT is a theory of constraint interaction and offers a framework of selecting optimal outputs; it does not say anything about the nature of representations or constraints themselves. This point is also important in that it enables OT to be employed in other fields than phonology. | Kyoko Yamaguchi, 2010
    ○ Generation of utterances in OT involves two functions, Gen and Eval. Gen takes an input and returns a (possibly infinite) set of output candidates. Some candidates might be identical to the input, others modified somewhat, others unrecognizable. Eval chooses the candidate that best satisfies a set of ranked constraints; this optimal candidate becomes the output. | Kie Zuraw, 2004
    ○ This has been an issue in all theories: input-output pairings are needed to establish a grammar, while a grammar is needed to establish the input representation. Smolensky (1996) argues that the learner will select the input representation that matches the adult output representation as the optimal input, even when the learner's grammar is still unlike the adult grammar. This follows from the combination of two OT tools, Richness of the Base and Lexicon Optimization. | Paul Boersma and Claartje Levelt, 2003
    ○ Grammar is deceptively simple under OT. At the universal level, there is a set of constraints on phonological representations (CON). There is also a means for generating relationships between an actual input and all potential outputs (GEN). Finally, there is a mechanism for simultaneously evaluating the potential outputs against the set of ranked constraints in order to select the optimal output for the input in question (EVAL). | D.B. Archangeli, 1999

OPTIMALITY
(Optimality Theory) The status of being most harmonic with respect to a set of conflicting constraints. It is now time to take a closer look at the concept of optimal in Optimality Theory (OT). The general idea is that the grammar evaluates an infinite set of candidate output forms, all analyses of a given input. From this candidate set it selects the optimal output, the one which "best matches" the set of conflicting constraints. But what precisely does it mean for an output to be "optimal"? Does it involve some sort of compromise between constraints of different strengths? Or is it perhaps the case that "weaker" constraints are rendered "inactive" when they come into conflict with "stronger" constraints?
 In fact optimality involves neither compromise nor suppression of constraints, but instead it is built on (strict) domination of constraints in a hierarchy.

Optimality
An output is optimal when it incurs the least serious violations of a set of constraints, taking into account their hierarchical ranking.

OPTIMALITY THEORY
(Phonology) A linguistic model proposing that the observed forms of language arise from the interaction between conflicting constraints. OT differs from other approaches to phonological analysis, such as autosegmental phonology and linear phonology (SPE), which typically use rules rather than constraints. OT models grammars as systems that provide mappings from inputs to outputs; typically, the inputs are conceived of as underlying representations, and the outputs as their surface realizations.
 There are three basic components of the theory:

1. GEN takes an input, and generates the list of possible outputs, or candidates.
2. CON provides the criteria, in the form of strictly ordered violable constraints, used to decide between candidates.
3. EVAL chooses the optimal candidate based on the constraints, and this candidate is the output.

OR NODE
(Relational Network Theory) A node in relational network notation. The OR node takes two forms, one compact relational network notation one in narrow relational network notation.
 In compact relational network notation, an OR node looks like a single square bracket turned on its side and pointing upward or downward. To one side, either the upward or the downward, is connected one line; this is the singular side of the node. To the other side are connected two or more lines; this is the plural side of the node. The lines on the plural side are shown, by their connections to the OR node, to be in a disjunctive relationship. The OR node thus shows a relationship of alternation as opposed to combination, which is shown by the AND node.
 Like the AND node, the OR node has two general types, the ordered OR and the unordered OR:
 Sequential ordering would make no sense for the OR node, since only one of the alternatives occurs at a time. For disjunctions, we have precedence ordering: the line shown off to the side of the OR node takes precedence over the other line: If it can be taken, it is. The other line is the default line. The line which takes precedence is drawn off to the side, either the right or the left side, depending only on the practical consideration of which will give the more readable diagram. The typical situation is that the line which takes precedence is immediately connected to the node specifying the conditions under which the line can be taken. The other line, connected at the center of the node, is the default line, taken if the conditions for the precedence line are not present.
 In general, a downward OR (one line above; two or more below) represents alternation, while an upward OR (one line below; two or more above) represents ambiguity—that is, multiple functions for an element of expression. | Glottopedia, 2018

ORTHOGRAPHIC GEMINATION

1. (Phonology) Like English and German, the orthographic doubling of a consonant in French is not in any way a reliable guide to consonantal lengthening, as it is (with some notable exceptions) in Italian. Consonant doubling in spelling is a result of the complex early development of the written forms of a language, and in the case of European languages finds its roots in the orthographic conventions of Latin, Middle High German, Old English, Old French, and other medieval tongues for which written versions exist. | Leslie De'Ath, 2007
2. (Acquisition) The present study investigated whether orthography can lead experienced learners of English_L2 to make a phonological contrast in their speech production that does not exist in English. Double consonants represent geminate (long) consonants in Italian but not in English. ... These results provide arguably the first evidence that L2 orthographic forms can lead experienced L2 speakers to make a contrast in their L2 production that does not exist in the language. The effect arises because L2 speakers are affected by the interaction between the L2 orthographic form (number of letters), and their native orthography-phonology mappings, whereby double consonant letters represent geminate consonants. | Bene Bassetti, 2007

ORTHOPHONY

1. (Speech Production) The art of correct articulation; voice training. | Webster's, 1913
2. (Speech Production) The training of the vocal organs, on the rudiments of articulation and "expression,"—including the organic discipline of "vocal gymnastics". | James Edward Murdoch, William Russell, and George James Webb, 1845

OUTPUT-TO-OUTPUT CORRESPONDENCE

1. (Optimality Theory) Output-output correspondence (OOC) constraints demand correspondence between independently occurring surface forms. | Mark Hale and Madelyn Kissock, 2000
2. (Optimality Theory) We will consider similarities in the shapes of morphologically related words which are not due to common inputs. We will pursue the idea that such similarities involve the notion of output-to-output correspondence, the maximization of phonological identity between morphologically related output forms.
    A theoretical precursor of OO-correspondence, the notion of "paradigm uniformity", enjoyed a long tradition in pre-generative linguistics (see for example Kuryɫowicz 1949). This notion played a modest role in generative phonology (but see Kiparsky 1982), where similarities between morphologically related forms were attributed to derivational means, in particular the phonological cycle. Recently, paradigm uniformity has been revived in OT by Benua (1995), Flemming (1995), McCarthy (1995), Burzio (1996), Kenstowicz (1996), Steriade (1996), and others. Disregarding the technical differences between these proposals (referred to as either "paradigm uniformity", "uniform exponence", "base-identity", or "OO-correspondence"), we will subsume all under the general notion of OO-correspondence.
    OO-correspondence elaborates on the notion of "reduplicative identity". | René Kager, 1999

OVERGENERATION

1. (Syntax) A generative grammar overgenerates when it generates ungrammatical sentences. | Line Mikkelsen, 2006
2. (Grammar) We would like the Formal Grammar we have built to be able to recognize/generate all and only the grammatical sentences.
   1. "Overgeneration": If the FG generates as grammatical also sentences which are not grammatical, we say that it overgenerates.
   2. Undergeneration: If the FG does not generate some sentences which are actually grammatical, we say that it undergenerates.
    | Raffaella Bernardini, 2005

OVERLAP
(Phonetics) A simple example of articulatory overlap occurs in an utterance containing a sequence of two stop consonants, as in the casually produced utterance top tag. Each of the stop consonants like /p/ and /t/ is normally defined by a particular type of noise burst–a relatively flat spectrum for /p/ and a spectrum with greater amplitude in the high-frequency range for /t/. If a consonant like /p/ were in intervocalic position, some enhancing attributes would be generated as the articulators move from the region associated with the preceding vowel to the region of the defining gesture. Other enhancing gestures occur during the transition to the following segment. In the top tag example, the transition toward the labial closure for /p/ generates enhancing cues for the labial place of articulation. However, the noise burst that would normally signal the labial place of articulation is obliterated because the tongue blade closure for /t/ occurs before the lip closure for /p/ is released, i.e., the two closures overlap. Any cue for the labial place of articulation immediately prior to the /t/ release is probably also obscured. In the case of /t/, there is little direct evidence of the presence of the alveolar place during the time preceding the /t/ release. The alveolar burst, however, provides strong evidence for alveolar place, as does the transition from this burst into the following vowel /æ/. Thus some cues exist for /t/, but only weaker cues for /p/. The "defining" cue for /p/ is actually obliterated.
 Perhaps a more extreme example of gestural overlap occurs with a casual production of the sequence I can't go up. Such a sequence can sometimes be produced with no alveolar closure to provide evidence for the cluster /nt/. | Kenneth Noble Stevens and Samuel Jay Keyser, 2008

OVERREGULARIZATION
(Acquisition) Erroneous regularization. In overregularization the regular ways of modifying or connecting words are mistakenly applied to words that require irregular modifications or connections. It is a normal effect observed in the language of beginner and intermediate language-learners, whether native-speaker children or foreign-speaker adults. Because most natural languages have some irregular forms, moving beyond overregularization is a part of mastering them. Usually learners' brains move beyond overregularization naturally, as a consequence of being immersed in the language.
 The same person may sometimes overregularize and sometimes say the correct form. Native-speaker adults can overregularize, but this does not happen often. | Wikipedia, 2022

Page Last Modified April 16, 2025

 

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