Sank's Glossary of Linguistics 
 C-Car

C-AGREE

  1. (Syntax) Complementizer Agreement (CA), a unique phenomenon found in a subset of the Germanic Languages. CA is attested in (dialects of) Frisian and in a subset of the Dutch and the German dialects. There is a large descriptive literature on CA in the continental West-Germanic dialects (see Barbiers et al. 2005, 2006, Weiß 2005, van Koppen 2017 for an elaborate list of references).
     In Germanic languages / dialects with CA, complementizers introducing embedded clauses show agreement for φ-features (in particular in person and / or number) with the embedded subject. Consider the examples below:
    1. West Flemish (Haegeman 2000)
      a.
       
      K
      I
      peinzen
      think
      da
      that-3P.SG
      /
      /
      * dan
      that-3P.PL
      dienen
      that
      student
      student
      nen
      a
      buot
      boat
      gekocht
      bought
      eet.
      has
        'I think that that student has bought a boat.'
      b.
       
      K
      I
      peinzen
      think
      dan
      that-3P.PL
      /
      /
      * da
      that-3P.SG
      die
      those
      studenten
      students
      nen
      a
      buot
      boat
      gekocht
      bought
      een.
      have
        'I think that those students have bought a boat.'
     The complementizer in the West-Flemish example in (1) has to carry a third person plural affix, -n, when the subject of the embedded clause is third person plural as in (1b), but it crucially cannot carry this affix when the subject is third person singular as in (1a).
     CA is obligatory in some varieties, like the West-Flemish variety Haegeman (1992, 2000) reports on, but there are also varieties in which CA is optional. CA does not have an effect on the meaning of a sentence. It is reported that there is a register effect, though: Some speakers experience CA as belonging to another (more archaic) register (cf. Hoekstra and Smits 1997); there is no thorough sociolinguistic research about this aspect of CA, however. | Marjo van Koppen, 2020
  2. (Syntax) A number of African languages have been reported to display upwards-oriented complementizer agreement, where the embedded C head agrees with the matrix subject, see for example Baker (2008) on Kinande, Idiatov (2010) on Mande languages, Diercks (2013) on Lubukusu, Duncan and Torrence (2017) on Ibibio, Nformi (2017) on Limbum, Letsholo and Safir (2019) on Ikalanga. This is different from the well-studied pattern of downwards-oriented complementizer agreement in Germanic, where in embedded clauses, a C head can show covariance with the φ-features of the embedded subject (Shlonsky 1994, Zwart 1997, Carstens 2003, van Koppen 2005, 2012, Fuß 2008, 2014, Haegeman and van Koppen 2012). While the Germanic pattern does not pose serious problems for standard approaches to agreement using Downward Agree (e.g. Chomsky 2000, 2001), upwards-oriented complementizer agreement raises a number of questions about the directionality and locality of Agree, with some studies arguing that Upward Agree (Bjorkman and Zeijlstra 2019, a.o.) is necessary for the analysis of the pattern (e.g. Nformi 2017, Letsholo and Safir 2019, McFadden and Sundaresan 2021).
     Despite the theoretical significance of the phenomenon, however, both the properties of upwards-oriented C-Agree in individual languages and the extent of cross-linguistic variation are poorly understood, primarily because most known examples come from understudied languages. | Imke Driemel and Maria Kouneli, 2024

C-COMMAND (CONSTITUENT COMMAND):
(Syntax) A node A c-commands a node B if and only if:

  1. A does not dominate B.
  2. B does not dominate A.
  3. Every branching node that dominates A, also dominates B.
 For example, in the following tree:
  1. A c-commands C, D, and E.
  2. B does not c-command any nodes.
  3. C c-commands A.
  4. D c-commands E.
  5. E c-commands D. 
         B
        / \
       /   \
      A     C
           / \
          /   \
         D     E
 | Liliane Haegeman, 1994

C-DOMAIN (CHECKING DOMAIN)
(Syntax) Notion in checking theory. Informally, the checking domain of a head A consists of everything adjoined to it, and of its specifier(s). Formally, the checking domain of a head A is defined as the minimal residue of A. The residue of A is its domain minus its complement domain.
 In (1), with a head H adjoined to X, the checking domain of X consists of UP, ZP, WP and H. The checking domain of H is UP, ZP and WP. 

  1.          XP1
         /\
        /  \
       /    \
     UP      XP2
            /  \
           /    \
          /      \
        ZP1        X'
        /\        /\
       /  \      /  \
      /    \    /    \
    WP     ZP2  X1    YP
               /\
              /  \
             /    \
            H      X2
 (Chomsky 1993) | Utrecht Lexicon of Linguistics, 2001

C-LAYER
(Syntax) The clausal left periphery. | Christos Vlachos and Michalis Chiou, 2021

C-SELECTION

  1. (Syntax) With noun selection, the complement is often optional. Thus sentences like He respected their belief, We appreciated their sympathy, Elimelech was tired, and All the mothers were proud are syntactically well-formed with a meaning that might be conveyed by an explicit complement understood from context. Verb selection is often not optional, however, so that * He put the milk is ungrammatical even if it is clear from context where the milk was put.
     The information about the complement types selected by particular verbs and other lexical items is called C-selection or subcategorization, and is included in the lexical entry of the item in our mental lexicon. (Here C stands for "categorial" and is not to be confused with the C that stands for "complementizer"—we apologize for the "clash" of symbols, but that's what it's like in the linguistic literature.) | Victoria Fromkin, Robert Rodman, and Nina Hyams, 2017
  2. (Syntax) Pesetsky (1982) suggested that verbs that semantically select (s-select) an argument of certain semantic types (e.g., question, proposition, exclamation) categorially select (c-select) both CPs (called S̄ at the time) and NPs. NPs cannot occur, however, if they cannot be Case-marked (e.g., if the relevant selecting lexical item does not assign Case). In this manner, c-selection properties can be derived from s-selection properties. Chomsky and Lasnik (1993) discuss this analysis and accept it, though they note that c-selection cannot be completely reduced to properties of s-selection: "there is a syntactic residue, statable, if Pesetsky is correct, in terms of lexically idiosyncratic Case properties." | Jan Odijk, 1997
  3. (Syntax) It is often emphasized that s-selection is independent of c-selection (e.g., Grimshaw 1979, 1981, Polard and Sag 1987, Webelhuth 1992, Odijk 1997). For instance, ask s-selects a question, but c-selects either DP or CP; by contrast, wonder s-selects a question and c-selects CP only, as shown by the acceptability contrast between (1a) and (1b).
    1. a. Mary asked { the time / what time it was }.
      b. Mary wondered { * the time / what time it was }.
     | Niina Ning Zhang, 2016

CALIFORNIA VOWEL SHIFT
(Diachronic) A vowel-based chain shift in California. /ɛ/ is pulled towards [æ] (wreck and kettle are sounding more like rack and cattle in other dialects), /æ/ is pulled towards [ä], and /ɑ/ and /ɔ/ merge (cot and stock are sounding more like caught and stalk): the cot-caught merger.
 Other vowel changes, whose relation with the shift is uncertain, are also emerging: /u/ moving through [ʉ] towards [y] (rude and true are almost approaching reed and tree, but with rounded lips), and /oʊ/ moving beyond [əʊ]. /ʊ/ is moving towards [ʌ] (so that, for example, book and could in the California dialect start to sound, to a General American speaker, more like buck and cud), /ʌ/ is moving through [ɜ], sometimes approaching [ɛ] (duck, crust, what, etc. are sounding like how U.S. Southerners pronounce them, or like how other Americans might pronounce deck, crest, wet, etc.) (Eckert 2011)
 New vowel characteristics of the California Shift are increasingly found among younger speakers. | Wikipedia, 2022

CALQUE

  1. (Acquisition) In the field of second language acquisition, various definitions of linguistic calques are found. According to Sewell (2001), linguistic calques are "the very close, but not necessarily word-for-word, translation into a target language (TL) using TL forms, of forms in a source language". On the other hand, it is also argued that not only the words, but also the semantic properties are transferred in the occurrence of linguistic calques. Being one of the approaches to linguistic calque, Ringbom (2001) defines it as "the transfer of semantic patterns of the L1 into target language words". In the samples given below, linguistic calques are shown.
    1. I want to pass a very good time with you. (Agustin-Llach 2011)
    2. My uncle never married: he remained a youngman all his life. (Ringbom 2001)
    3. My table study is blue and big. (Agustin-Llach 2011)
    4. The doctor inspect me and said me I must be operations. (Altunkaya 1999)
     As can be seen in sentence (1), the learner has transferred the Spanish verb pasar and used it as the English verb to pass. The error arises from the incorrect use of to pass time with somebody instead of to spend time with somebody. Similarly, in sentence (2) the learner used the youngman to refer the ungkarl, which means 'bachelor' in Swedish. In sentence (3) the table study is directly translated from Spanish mesa de studio, which means 'desk' in English. The direct translation from L1 has been observed in linguistic calques in these sentences. In similar vein, to be operation in sentence (4) is the linguistic calque of to undergo an operation or surgery and translated incorrectly from Turkish.
     The underlying cause of linguistic calques, according to Ringbom (2001), is "the awareness of existing TL units but not of relevant semantic / collocational restrictions". | Gülin Dağdeviren Kırmızı, 2018
  2. (Sociolinguistics) Or, loanshift (Haugen 1950). In a nutshell, a calque occurs when a loan element does not appear in its integral form in a receiving language, but is replaced by a native term (Thomason 2001). Seen from this angle, it represents a conceptual replica—or its close approximation—of the model sign found in the donor language (Onysko 2007). In other words, speakers who produce a calque do not adopt the material side of the foreign sign but, following Johanson (2002), rather selectively "copy" its semantic and often also its structural or combinational properties. Similar to Johanson, who treats calques as semantic or semantic-combinational copies of donor-language signs, Matras and Sakel (2007) regard them as outcomes of a mode of pattern replication which they oppose to instances of matter replication. All these labels, used by many authors to depict calques, imply that they are camouflaged results of borrowing or transfer that do not stand out through formal markers of foreignness. Native onsurface, they may be hard to discern empirically. | Félix Rodríguez González and Sebastian Knospe, 2019
  3. (Sociolinguistics) Our distinction between replication of linguistic matter (MAT), the replication of morphological material from the source language, and pattern replication (PAT), the replication of usage patterns (organization, distribution, and the mapping of grammatical or semantic meaning) from a model language, has a tradition in contact linguistics, going back to terms such as Haugen's (1950) importation versus calque, or Gołąb's (1956, 1959) substance versus form, and on to Johanson's (1992) global copying and partial copying. | Yaron Matras and Jeanette Sakel, 2007
  4. (Sociolinguistics) Semantic-combinational copies are traditionally called calques or (in the lexicon) loan translations. Examples:
    1. English ⇐ Old French
      beforehand ⇐ avant main
    2. Swedish ⇐ English
      a. ladda ner ('load down') ⇐ download
      b. uppdatera ('date up') ⇐ update
     | Lars Johanson, 2002

CANONICAL ALIGNMENT HYPOTHESIS

  1. (Acquisition) In (1) we propose the Canonical Alignment Hypothesis (CAH). The CAH states that in the early grammar the external argument (if there is one) necessarily maps onto subject position (Spec IP). Thus, our hypothesis is that children do not lack the ability to form A-chains per se, but that the linking rules that map theta roles onto argument positions are more rigidly adhered to than in the adult grammar.
    1. Canonical Alignment Hypothesis (CAH)
      Children cannot form A-chains that derive a misalignment of thematic and grammatical hierarchies, viz. an external argument (agent, experiencer), if there is one, maps onto the subject (Spec IP or TP).
     | Nina Hyams, Dimitris Ntelitheos, and Cecile Manorohanta, 2006
  2. (Acquisition) Hyams, Ntelitheos, and Manorohanta (2006) seek to explain why passives are delayed in acquisition. They write:
    [d]escriptively speaking, children's difficulty seems to be restricted to those A-chains that derive a misalignment of thematic and grammatical hierarchies. The argument structure associated with transitive ... and unergative ... verbs ... specifies an actor-like external argument, which is not represented in the passive, which involves a promotion of the theme to the external argument position.
     In essence, they believe the problem with verbal passives is that a canonical alignment is not respected (theme in subject position), which premature children find ungrammatical. CAH claims that children are unable to represent structures that derive a mismatch between a syntactic position and the canonical theta-role associated with that position. As such, subject position is uniquely reserved for agents, object position for themes. While adult grammar is flexible in what theta-roles are associated with landing sites, CAH hypothesizes that children's grammar is much more restrictive. Active sentences, which do respect canonicity, are predicted to pose no issue for young children on CAH. | Christopher K. Hirsch, 2011
  3. (Acquisition) According to the Canonical Alignment Hypothesis (Hyams, Ntelitheos, and Manorohanta 2006), derived subjects are vulnerable during acquisition, mainly when an implicit agent is present. Thus, only passives are expected to be vulnerable. | Anastasia Paspali, Fotini Karkaletsou, and Artemis Alexiadou, 2021

CANONICAL BABBLING
(Acquisition) Producing syllables with a mature consonant, full vowel, and smooth transition. An important developmental milestone that typically occurs in the first year of life.
 Canonical babbling is an important, cross-cultural developmental milestone, which is achieved when infants regularly produce well-formed syllables including a consonant and vowel. Oller et al. (1999), proposed the following model, which excludes both vegetative sounds (e.g., hiccups, coughs) and "fixed signals" (i.e., vocalizations that are functionally bound to a particular affective state, such as crying and laughing):
 The first 2 months of life are considered the phonation stage, in which infants produce quasivowels (partly resonant sounds produced with the vocal tract at rest) and glottals. Infants move into the primitive articulation stage by 2–3 months, wherein they produce vocalizations while moving the vocal tract (i.e., moving the lips, tongue, and pharynx to begin to articulate and alter vowel sounds), followed by the expansion stage in which infants produce full vowels (i.e., use their tongue, jaw, and lips to change resonance of the vocal tract) and marginal babbling (i.e., transitioning from a closed vocal tract to a full vowel) (Oller et al. 1999).
 Finally, canonical babbling typically begins around 6 months and generally before 10 months, and is defined by the production of well-formed syllables. Well-formed syllables are further defined as a rapid formant transition between a consonant and a full vowel. This progression is thought to be relatively universal, and evidence supports that the typical age of canonical babbling onset across cultures occurs in the second half of the first year of life (Cychosz 2021).
 Infant babbling development is also thought to progress in a relatively standard order, with babies first producing canonical syllables which may be reduplicated (e.g., baba), followed by variegated babbling, or utterances which include two or more consonants (e.g., bada) (Olswang 1987). Infants also acquire the ability to produce specific consonants in a relatively standard order across development (Shriberg 1993), though language-specific differences in babbling emerge within the first year (Boysson-Bardies et al. 1984).
 It has been suggested that babbling is a training ground for practicing multiple facets of communication: practicing the motor skills required to intentionally produce different sounds (Iverson et al. 2007), practicing the most fundamental linguistic components of one's language (Petitto et al. 2004), and practicing communicative turn-taking "conversation" with others (Albert et al. 2017, Gros-Louis 2006).
 Canonical babbling is thought to relate to subsequent language outcome. Delay in reaching this milestone (i.e., onset of babbling after 10 months) has been associated with reduced expressive vocabulary at 2.5 years (Oller at al. 1999). | L.D. Yankowitz et al., 2022

CANONICAL FORM

  1. (Grammar) The least syntactically marked syntactic variant which preserves the idiomatic reading.
    1. (<m = less marked than)
      finite verb <m infinitive/particple
      active voice <m passive voice
      non-negated form <m negated form
      no extraction <m extraction
     Canonical forms are useful for formalizing the morpho-syntactic properties of multi-word expressions. This is useful e.g. for annotation guidelines. | Agata Savary, 2023
  2. (Grammar) A prominent feature of verbal multiword expressions (VMWEs) is their rich morpho-syntactic variability. For instance, the VMWE (English) to take someone by surprise can be inflected (they took him by surprise), negated (they did not take him by surprise), passivised (he will be taken by surprise), subject to extraction (the surprise by which I was taken), etc. Neutralizing this variation is needed when applying the linguistic tests defined in the annotation guidelines, which are driven by the syntactic structure of the VMWE candidates. We define a prototypical verbal phrase as a minimal sentence in which the head verb V occurs in a finite non-negated form and all its arguments are in singular and realized with no extraction. For instance, (EN) Paul made/makes a pie is a prototypical verbal phrase while Paul did not make a pie, the pie which Paul made, and the pie was made by Paul are not. If a VMWE can occur as a prototypical verbal phrase while keeping its idiomatic meaning, then such a phrase is its canonical form. Otherwise, its least marked variation is considered canonical (a non-negated form is less marked than a negated one, active voice is less marked then passive, and a form with an extraction is more marked than one without it). For instance, a canonical form of (English) a bunch of decisions which were made by him is (English) he made a decision. | Agata Savary et al., 2018

CANONICAL QUESTION
(Pragmatics) Many languages, including English, have two types of interrogative sentences:

  1. Formally simple interrogative sentences that can be used to ask canonical questions, i.e., questions asked by an ignorant Speaker requesting information from an Addressee presumed to be knowledgeable.
  2. Formally more complex forms that can only be used to ask special, non-canonical questions.
 The former are exemplified in (1) and (2), and the latter in (3):
  1. Are you hungry?
  2. Who has Maria invited?
  3. Maria is joining us, isn't she?
 The tag interrogative in (3), assumed to be pronounced with a rising intonation on the tag, can only be used to ask a biased question, i.e., a question that, besides requesting information, signals Speaker bias for the truth of the declarative sentence that precedes the tag. | Donka F. Farkas, 2020

 

Page Last Modified April 15, 2024

 
 B a c k   T o   I n d e x