FINITE

1. (Grammar) Clauses or verbs in inflecting languages are often said to be finite or non-finite, which means that they either have or lack tense and/or person-number specifictions. E.g., in Latin, finite forms are forms such as am-o 'I love', ama-s 'you love', ama-t 's/he loves'. Nonfinite forms are the infinitive amare 'to love' and the participle amatus 'loved (one)'.
    The term pair originally comes from the grammar of Indo-European languages, where finite verbs generally either have both tense and person-number specifications, or lack both tense and person-number specifications. For this reason, it is unclear how to apply the terminology when a verb form lacks tense but has person-number specifications (like the Portuguese conjugated infinitive), or when it lacks person-number but has tense.
    Due to this impreciseness, a number of linguists have suggested that the terminology should be abandoned entirely in cross-linguistic contexts. For Indo-European languages, the term tensed has often been used instead in recent times. (Koptjevskaja-Tamm 1994, Murray 1798) | Glottopedia, 2015
2. (Grammar) The term pair finite vs. nonfinite refers to an inflectional or more abstract distinction in verbs or clauses. In general, a finite verb is a verb that can occur in an independent clause and is specified for tense and person-number of the subject, whereas a nonfinite verb is a verb that lacks person-number and/or tense inflection and that is restricted to certain kinds of dependent clauses. | ?

FinP
(Syntax) Abbreviation for Finite Phrase. FinP, through the head Fin, expresses the specification of finiteness and the non-finiteness pointing to inflection inside the IP/TP projection (Rizzi 1997). As such, FinP relates to agreement and inflectional features of the lower IP domain. | Abdulkhaliq Alazzawie, 2018

FIRST CONJUNCT AGREEMENT
(Syntax) An agreement pattern where an agreeing element is related syntactically and semantically to a coordination of two noun phrases but agrees, in the morphosyntactic sense, with the first (i.e., leftmost or highest) conjunct of the coordinate noun phrase. The Conjunction-phrase (ConjP) structure we adopt is shown in Diagram 1, and the agreement pattern is illustrated in examples (1a-b). Agreement with ConjP (in masculine plural) will be referred to as plural agreement (or PlA; cf. Corbett's 1983 resolution-agreement rules). We follow Munn (1993, 1999), Marušič, Nevins, and Saksida (2007), Bošković (2009), Benmamoun, Bhatia, and Polinsky (2010), Marušič and Nevins (2010), Demonte and Pérez-Jiménes (2012), Linde-Usiekniewicz and Rutkowski (2007), Willim (2012), Marušič, Nevins, and Badecker (2015), among others, in adopting the view that coordinate structures involved in FCA are X-bar structures headed by the Conj⁰ and, in which the first conjunct asymetrically c-commands the second.
 Diagram 1: Conjunction Phrase ConjP

            ConjP (PIA)
             / \
            /   \
           /     \
    Conjunct 1   Conj'
      (FCA)       / \
                 /   \
                /     \
             Conj0    Conjunct 2

           ConjP
            / \
           /   \
          /     \
        AP     ConjP (PIA)
      Probe     / \
               /   \
              /     \
       Conjunct 1   Conj'
          (FCA)      / \
                    /   \
                   /     \
               Conj0    Conjunct 2

1. a.
    

   U
   in

   šumi
   forest

   živi
   live.3SG.PRES

   [lisica
   fox.F.SG

   i
   and

   vuk].
   wolf.M.SG

     'The/a fox and wolf live in the forest.'
   b.
    

   olesna
   sick.F.SG

   lisica
   fox.F.SG

   i
   and

   zec
   hare.M.SG

     'the/a sick fox and hare'

FLOATING TONE
(Phonology) A morpheme (Clark 1993) or element of a morpheme that contains no consonants, no vowels, but only tone. It cannot be pronounced by itself, but affects the tones of neighboring morphemes (Wentum 1997).
 An example occurs in Bambara, a Mande language of Mali that has two phonemic tones (Clements and Ford, 1979), high and low. The definite article is a floating low tone, and with a noun in isolation, it is associated with the preceding vowel and turns a high tone into a falling tone: [bá] 'river'; [bâ] 'the river'. When it occurs between two high tones, it downsteps the following tone.
 Also common are floating tones associated with a segmental morpheme such as an affix (Kropp-Dakubu 1986). | Wikipedia, 2021

FOCUS

1. (Information Structure) Abbreviated FOC. A category that conveys which part of the sentence contributes new, non-derivable, or contrastive information. In the English sentence Mary only insulted [Bill]_FOC, focus is expressed prosodically by a pitch accent on Bill which identifies him as the only person Mary insulted. By contrast, in the sentence Mary only [insulted]_FOC Bill, the verb insult is focused and thus expresses that Mary performed no other actions towards Bill. Focus is a cross-linguistic phenomenon and a major topic in linguistics. Research on focus spans numerous subfields including phonetics, syntax, semantics, pragmatics, and sociolinguistics. | Wikipedia, 2023
2. (Information Structure) Speakers conduct conversations so as to establish a common understanding with their hearers about some aspect of the world. In a discourse model, the speaker keeps track of the development of this common understanding, and labels his linguistic expressions for the way the information they convey relates to the information in the discourse model as developed at that point. In English, pitch accents are used for this purpose. Broadly, their location indicates the size of the focus constituent, which contains the constituent(s) whose information status is being signalled, while their distribution within the focus constituent expresses the type (or meaning) of the focus. Different focus meanings are distinguished depending on whether the information represents new information or concerns a correction of existing information, on whether the information reflects a change in the world or a change in the hearer's knowledge about the world, and on whether new knowledge about the world is immediately or only potentially relevant to the hearer. | Carlos Gussenhoven, 2007

FOCUS, BROAD / NARROW

1. (Information Structure) The focus domain can be either broad, as shown in (1), or narrow, as shown in (2) and (3):
   1. Did you see a grey dog or a cat? I saw [a grey DOG]_FOC
   2. Did you see a grey dog or a grey cat? I saw a grey [DOG]_FOC
   3. Did you see a grey dog or a black dog? I saw a [GREY]_FOC dog
    | Wikipedia, 2022
2. (Information Structure) Generally, speakers conduct conversations so as to establish a common understanding about some aspect of the world. They keep track of the development of their common understanding in a discourse model, and indicate the way their information relates to the hearer's understanding. Pitch accents express this information status. The focus constituent may, in Ladd's (1980) terminology, be broad or narrow, depending on size. If a speaker takes someone to task for making a pedantic remark, the sentence Even a nineteeth-century professor of CLASSics wouldn’t have allowed himself to be so pedantic contains a relatively broad focus on a nineteenth-century professor of classics. In Ladd's words, the addressee here "has nothing to do with classics, is not a professor, and is more or less contemporary", and a nineteeth-century professor of classics just so happens to be the most pedantic type of person the speaker could think of. However, if the speaker were trying to come up with what to him is a particularly clear case of nineteeth-century pedantry, the focus would be narrowed down to professor of classics, while the focus would be narrowed down further to just classics if the discussion was more specifically about pedantry among nineteenth-century professors. | Carlos Gussenhoven, 2007

FOCUS-ASSISTED MUTUAL ENTAILMENT
(Semantics) Abbreviated FAME.

Focus-Assisted Mutual Entailment (Merchant 2001)
An expression E can be deleted only if E has a salient antecedent A and, modulu ∃-type shifting, A entails F-clo(E) and E entails F-clo(a). (FAME(A, E) for short).

FOCUS CONDITION ON ELLIPSIS
(Syntax) 

Focus condition on ellipsis
An XP α can be deleted only if α is e-GIVEN.

FOCUS-EXCLUSIVE DELETION
(Syntax) Quite a few linguists have sought to show that fragment answers can be naturally derived from fully sentential answers via some deletion operation. As to how the deletion operation takes place in deriving fragment answers, a widely held view is that all operations including deletion affect only constituents. This leads many linguists to assume that a focus phrase must be outside the ellipsis site before deletion takes place, as shown below (cf. Merchant 2001, Saito 2004, Nishiauchi and Fujii 2006).

Focus-Exclusive Deletion (FED)

...
 

YP_[+F]
 

...
 

[_XP
 

...]
 

 
 

⟶
^FED

...

YP_[+F]

...

[_XP

...]

FOCUS-INCLUSIVE DELETION
(Syntax) Where a focus phrase YP evades ellipsis but still stays inside the ellipsis site XP.

Focus-Inclusive Deletion (FID)

...
 

[_XP
 

...
 

YP_[+F]
 

...]
 

...
 

⟶
^FID

...

[_XP

...

YP_[+F]

...]

...

FOCUS MARKING

1. (Typology; Information Structure) A first attempt to outline a cross-linguistic theory of focus realization, that is, of how different languages express focussing:
   1. Boundary Languages:
      Focus is marked by insertion of a prosodic boundary to the left or right of the focus.
   2. Edge Languages:
      Languages in which focus is marked by non-standard constituent order, with the focus in left- or right-peripheral position.
      1. Relaxed Edge Languages:
         In many languages, focus occurs towards an edge, but not exactly at the edge. Most common examples of this are strict V-final languages in which the focus appears pre-verbally.
   3. Mixed Languages: In these languages, either prosodic or syntactic structure may be used to mark focus.
   4. Strict Position Languages:
      A strict position language would be one that obligatorily puts focussed constituents into a syntactically distinct position. The typological and theoretical literature abounds with claims that languages have focus positions. A language will only qualify as a Strict Position Language if it doesn't have an alternative in situ strategy.
   5. Particle Languages:
      Languages that characteristically mark the focussed constituent itself by a special morpheme. There are also languages in which special verbal or sentential particles mark a sentence containing a focus.
    | Daniel Büring, 2006
2. (Typology; Information Structure) A cross-linguistic comparison of how focus is expressed reveals a great deal of variation (see e.g. Foley 1994, Van Valin 1999, Drubig and Schaffar 2001, Büring 2010, Smit 2010). Generally speaking, focus can be expressed linguistically in prosody, morphology and/or syntax.
   1. Topology (Syntactic Position):
      Many languages make use of a dedicated position for the expression of focus. A cross-linguistic comparison of the syntactic expression of focus reveals four possibilities for such a position: initial, immediately before the verb (IBV), immediately after the verb (IAV) and final. These are identified with respect to adjacency to the verb (IBV and IAV) or sentential edges (initial and final).
   2. Morphological Focus Marking:
      Morphological focus marking can involve the attachment of a focus marker on the focused term itself, or on the verb, either of which can express a focused interpretation of a term, i.e. an argument or adverb but not the predicate.
   3. Combinations:
      Languages which show a focus-marking strategy involving the simultaneous use (optional or obligatory) of syntactic and morphological means for marking term focus.
    | Hannah Gibson, Andriana Koumbarou, Lutz Marten, and Jenneke van der Wal, 2017

FOCUS MOVEMENT
(Syntax) In some languages, (certain types of) foci must displace from their thematic position to some other place in the clause. In many languages, the position to which foci displace is apparently the same position to which wh-words displace (Horvath 1986, Rochemont 1978, 1986, Chomsky 1977, Haida 2007, Aboh 2007, Rizzi 1997, É. Kiss 1998, Croft 1990, a.o.). This is the case in San Martín Peras Mixtec, where both wh-words and foci are displaced to a clause initial position, as in (1).

1. a.
    

   Yóó
   who

   shàshi
   ate

   chìchí?
   avocado

     'Who ate the avocado?'
   b.
    

   Maria
   M.

   shashi
   ate

   rí.
   AML

     'Maria ate it.'

FOCUS SENSITIVE COORDINATION
(Grammar) Coordination in which one of the coordinates contains a Focus Sensitive Operator (FSO) like even or also. I will call such coordinations "Focus Sensitive Coordination" (FSC) to reflect the fact that the coordination as a whole has particular properties that differ from coordinations without a FSO. I use the term coordination to encompass both conjunction and disjunction, and coordinate to encompass both conjunct and disjunct. FSCs include some that are straightforwardly coordination plus a FSO, such as or even, and even, and also, and not only ... but also. | Sarah McNeamey Hulsey, 2001

FOCUS-SENSITIVE PARTICLE
(Semantics) In prevalent linguistic theories on focus, the function of focus is to indicate "the presence of alternatives that are relevant for the interpretation of linguistic expressions" (Krifka 2007, Rooth 1992). The additional function of a focus sensitive particle is that it establishes a specific relation between a focused element and its set of alternatives (cf. König 1991, Rooth 1992). Consider a sentence like the one in (1):

1. John only saw Sue at the dinner party.

FOCUS SENSITIVITY

1. (Information Structure) An expression is focus sensitive if its interpretation correlates with the location of focus; e.g., a perceptible pitch rise on a stressed syllable, in English or Dutch. Altijd ('always') and alleen maar ('only') are Dutch focus sensitive expressions. To illustrate their focus sensitivity, the (a) examples in (1) and (2) can be interpreted as 'Whenever you have sat on something, it was your arse' whereas the (b) examples can mean 'Whenever you have done something to your arse it was sitting on it'. If there is a situation in which you have sat on something besides your arse, then the (a) examples in (1) and (2) are false, but the (b) examples may be true.
   1.  
      1. U heeft altijd op [uw kont]_F gezeten.
         'You have always sat on [your arse]_F.'
      2. U heeft altijd op uw kont [gezeten]_F.
         'You have always [sat]_F on your arse.'
   2.  
      1. U heeft alleen maar op [uw kont]_F gezeten. (UT-Nieuws 2002)
         'You have only sat on [your arse]_F.'
      2. U heeft alleen maar op uw kont [gezeten]_F.
         'You have only [sat]_F on your arse.'
    | David I. Beaver and Brady Z. Clark, 2002
2. (Information Structure) These expressions have what might be termed lexically pragmatic meanings. Specifically, a focus is the answer to a question, and conventionally focus sensitive items all mark the status of that answer. For example, the exclusive only marks an answer as maximal but below expectation, while the additive too indicates that an answer extends a previously salient answer to the same question.
    The set of expressions that apparently manifest focus sensitivity is a veritable Noah's ark:
   • exclusives: only, just, merely, ... ;
   • non-scalar additives: too, also, ... ;
   • scalar additives: even;
   • particularizers: in particular, for example, ... ;
   • intensives: really, totally, ... ;
   • quantificational adverbs: always, usually, ... ;
   • determiners: many, most, ... ;
   • sentential connectives: because, since, ... ;
   • counterfactuals: if it were... ;
   • emotives: regret, be glad, ... ;
   • superlatives: -est;
   • negation: not, no, ... ; and
   • generics: Mice eat CHEESE.
    As can be seen in this list, the menagerie of focus sensitive expressions includes both open and closed class items, and it includes both bound morphemes and independent lexical items. There are nouns, verbs, adverbs, and adjectives. | David I. Beaver and Brady Z. Clark, 2008

FOOT

1. (Prosody) A rhythmical unit in speech consisting of one or more syllables grouped together e.g. with respect to their stress pattern. Thus a foot in English has been defined as a stressed syllable plus any following unstressed syllables that intervene before the next stress.  | Concise Oxford Dictionary of Linguistics, 2014
2. (Prosody) A rhythmic unit in speech consisting of a stressed syllable and any immediately following unstressed syllables (definition for English). | U. of Delaware, ?
3. (Prosody) A prosodic constituent/unit introduced by Selkirk (1981). Syllables are combined in a higher level constituent, i.e. the foot.
    There are two types of metrical feet: bounded feet (binary) and unbounded feet (n-ary). Bounded feet contain at most two syllables and unbounded ones may contain an indefinite number of syllables. Within feet, one of the syllables is dominant, i.e. the head which can be at the left-edge or the right-edge of the foot. Languages may vary as to whether bounded or unbounded feet are used and may vary with respect to direction of dominance. Bounded/unbounded and direction of dominance are considered to be two parameters of stress systems and combine freely. The way feet are represented depends on the framework used (cf. grids or trees). In a tree framework, heads are labeled Strong and non-heads Weak. In a bracketed grids framework, heads could be labeled left-dom. and right-dom.  (Halle and Vergnaud 1987; Hayes 1981, 1987, 1989, 1991; Liberman and Prince 1977; Prince 1983; Selkirk 1981, 1984) | Utrecht Lexicon of Linguistics, 2001

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