NANOSYNTAX
(Syntax) An approach to syntax in which the terminal nodes of syntactic parse trees may be reduced to units smaller than a morpheme. Each unit may stand as an irreducible element and not be required to form a further subtree.
 Some recent work in theoretical linguistics suggests that the "atoms" of syntax are much smaller than words or morphemes. From that it immediately follows that the responsibility of syntax is not limited to ordering preconstructed words. Instead, within the framework of nanosyntax (Starke 2011), the words are derived entities built in syntax, rather than primitive elements supplied by a lexicon.
 The beginnings of nanosyntax can be traced to a 1993 article by Kenneth Hale and S. Jay Keyser titled "On Argument Structure and the Lexical Representation of Syntactic Relations," which first introduced the concept of l-syntax. | Wikipedia, 2018

NASAL CLUSTER DISSIMILATION

1. (Phonology) A process whereby underlying nasal-stop clusters (NC) lose their nasal feature in the presence of another nasal-stop cluster: /...NC...NC.../ → [...NC...C...] (Blust 2012, Dixon 2004, Jones 2001, Stanton 2020).
    There is local NCD, targeting only NCs in adjacent syllables, and non-local NCD, targeting NCs in non-adjacent syllables. | Andrew Lamont, 2019
2. (Phonology) A phenomenon in which two nasal+stop clusters interact in such a way that one cluster dissimilates, so that it is no longer a nasal+stop. | Erich R. Round, 2023

NATURAL INFORMATION FLOW
(Discourse) According to this cross-linguistic principle, utterances are prototypically structured to move from what is most known to what is least known. Stated another way, presupposed or topical information is most naturally placed before focal information, as much as the syntactic typology of the language allows.
 In the following example, the underscored constituents are the focal information, the plain italics are presupposed.

1. Once upon a time there was a handsome prince.
2. The prince lived in a large, ornate castle, which was surrounded by a moat.
3. The prince wanted to see the world.

NATURAL LANGUAGE TOOLKIT
(Computational) A leading platform for building Python programs to work with human language data. It provides easy-to-use interfaces to over 50 corpora and lexical resources such as WordNet, along with a suite of text processing libraries for classification, tokenization, stemming, tagging, parsing, and semantic reasoning, wrappers for industrial-strength NLP libraries, and an active discussion forum.
 Thanks to a hands-on guide introducing programming fundamentals alongside topics in computational linguistics, plus comprehensive API documentation, NLTK is suitable for linguists, engineers, students, educators, researchers, and industry users alike. NLTK is available for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux. Best of all, NLTK is a free, open source, community-driven project. | NLTK.org

NEGATIVE CONCORD

1. (Grammar) Or, popularly, double negatives. A phenomenon in which more than one negative element occurs in a sentence, but the sentence is interpreted as only being negated once.
   1. I don't never heard of that before. (Feagin 1979)
   2. Nothing don't come to a sleeper but a dream. (Green 2002)
   3. I ain't never been drunk.
      'I've never been drunk.' (Alabama English; Feagin 1979)
   4. Nobody ain't doin' nothin' wrong.
      'Nobody is doing anything wrong.' (West Texas English; Foreman 1999)
   5. I don't never have no problems.
      'I don't ever have any problems.' (African American English; Green 2002)
    | Yale Grammatical Diversity Project, 2018
2. (Grammar) Multiple negatively marked elements (or, more generally, elements that are able to be negative in isolation) co-occur to convey one single logical negation: they build an interpretive chain. | Giuseppina di Bartolo, Chiara Gianollo, and Beatrice Marchesi, 2023
3. (Grammar) Like Standard English, Chinese is well known as a double negative language, yet there are occasions where two negatives co-occur such as in (1). The two negatives in Southern Min, namely m and bian, do not yield a positive reading, however.
   1. Southern Min (from a Taiwanese popular song)
      tsit.si
      temporarily

      sit
      lose

      tsi
      hope

      m
      M

      bian
      need.not

      uan.than
      sadden

      'You need not feel saddened due to your temporary loss of hope.'
    Lien (2008) briefly notes cases like this as an instance of negative concord. | Hui-Ling Yang, 2011

NEGATIVE CONCORD ITEM (NCI)

1. (Grammar) In Negative Concord systems multiple expressions of negation co-occur in a sentence yielding one single semantic negative operator: in other words, sentence negation is marked in multiple places in the sentence, on elements that have to be interpreted in the scope of the negative operator (pronouns, determiners, adverbs; cf. 1a). These elements are called n-words or Negative Concord Items (NCIs): they build an interpretive chain with other expressions of negation in the clause; however, they can also have negative import in isolation, most clearly in negative short answers, and this is what differentiates them from negative polarity items (NPIs) (1b).
   1. Negative Concord and NCIs (Italian)
      a.
       

      Non
      not

      ha
      has

      visto
      seen

      niente
      nothing

      nessuno.
      nobody

        'Nobody saw anything.'
      b.
       

      A:
       

      Ci
      there

      sono
      are

      bambini
      children

      tra
      among

      i
      the

      passeggeri?
      passengers
      b.
       

      B:
       

      Nessun
      no

      bambino
      child

      /
      /

      * Alcun
      any

      bambino
      child

        'A: Are there children among the passengers? B: No children.'
    In some languages (like Classical Greek, but also Romanian and Italian) the NCIs contain etymologically negative morphemes; in other languages (like Modern Greek and the well-known case of Modern French) they have a non-negative etymological origin. | Chiara Ganollo, 2021
2. (Grammar) In French, sequences of potentially negative expressions like personne and rien, referred to here as Negative Concord Items (NCI) (Watanabe 2004), can have two possible interpretations; a sentence like (1) can have a Negative Concord (NC) reading as in (2) or a Double Negation (DN) reading as in (3), in which two negations cancel each other out to produce a positive reading.
   1. Personne ne dit rien.
   2. Nobody says anything. = Everyone is silent. = NC
   3. Nobody says nothing. = Everybody talks. = DN
    | Viviane Déprez and Jeremy Yeaton, 2018

NEGATIVE CONCORD SYSTEM
(Grammar) Cross-linguistically, in a strict Negative Concord system, if a Negative Concord Item (NCI) is used, a co-occurring negative marker is always obligatory.
 In a non-strict Negative Concord system, it depends on the area of the clause where the NCI is found: in the area that precedes the finite verb, an NCI is sufficient to express sentential negation, without the presence of the negative marker; in the area that follows the finite verb, an NCI has to co-occur with another negative element (the negative marker or another NCI) in the pre-verbal area. In the non-strict system of Standard Modern Greek, a negative marker co-occurs with a negative indefinite in all sentential contexts, independently of the respective position. | Giuseppina di Bartolo, Chiara Gianollo, and Beatrice Marchesi, 2023

NEGATIVE EMOTIVE
(Semantics) Negative emotive words (NEWs) are those words that, on their own, without context, have a semantic content that may be associated with negative emotion, but in some cases they may lose it in part or completely (Szabó and Bibok 2019). It is probably a language-independent feature, and it cannot be regarded as a new linguistic phenomenon (Andor 2011, Jing-Schmidt 2007). The prior semantic content of Hungarian NEWs is typically characterized by the following emotions: fear, disgust, anger and sadness.
 More and more authors have been investigating NEWs (e.g. Dragut and Fellbaum 2014, Jing-Schmidt 2007, Kugler 2014, Laczkó 2007, Nemesi 1998, Partington 1993, Paradis 2001, 2008, Péter 1991, Szabó and Bibok 2019, Tolcsvai Nagy 1988, Wierzbicka 2002), and these papers mainly or exclusively focus on the intensifying function of these words (negative emotive intensifiers). In this case a negative word becomes an intensifier of another word (Szabó 2018), as in brutálisan gyors (lit. 'brutally fast', i.e. 'really fast'), félelmetesen jó (lit. 'terrifyingly good', i.e. 'awesome good') and őrült nagy (lit. 'crazy big', i.e. 'very big'). These words are therefore similar in function to the intensifier nagyon 'very'. We call this linguistic phenomenon polarity loss (Szabó and Bibok 2019).
 At the same time, there is another usage of NEWs that is rarely discussed in the literature, namely the case where the examined word, despite its negative semantic content, expresses a positive evaluation of the speaker, e.g. brutális alaplap (lit. 'brutal motherboard', i.e. 'high quality motherboard'). We call this phenomenon polarity shift. In contrast to the intensifier function, these words have no intensifying role in this case (Szabó and Bibok 2019). | Martina Katalin Szabó, Veronika Vincze, and Károly Bibok, 2022

NEGATIVE POLARITY ITEM
(Grammar) NPIs are words or phrases that are ungrammatical in positive statements, but grammatical in their negated counterpart (Ladusaw 1979, Giannakidou 1979, Horn 2010). Contrast the following:

1. I don't have any cats.
2. * I have any cats.

3. * Any cats Dorothy doesn't have.
4. Dorothy doesn't have any cats.

NEGATIVE SPREAD
(Grammar) Negative Doubling in West-Germanic can be split into two phenomena:

1. The negative feature of negative expressions such as Dutch niets 'nothing' and nooit 'never' may be distributed over any number of indefinite expressions following the negative constituent.
2. If no such indefinite expression is present, niet-2 (in German, nicht-2) may be inserted.

1. a.
    

   Ik
   I

   win
   gain

   nooit
   never

   niks
   nothing

   (Drechterland,
    

   Netherlands)
    
   b.
    

   Ik
   I

   heb
   have

   nooit
   never

   geen
   no

   problemen
   problems

   met
   with

   har
   her

   gehad
   had

   (substandard)
    
   c.
    

   Hai
   He

   het
   has

   naarns_i
   nowhere_i

   gain
   no

   schuld
   guilt

   t_i
   t_i

   aan
   for

   (Groningen,
   

   Netherlands)
   

     'He is not to blame for anything'

NEUTER AGREEMENT CONSTRAINT
(Syntax) Whereby neuter arguments fail to control agreement on adjectives, yielding ungrammaticality. The existence of the NAC is particularly striking given that neuter forms exist in various positions and cases, suggesting the NAC is not a result of the language lacking certain agreement forms. We propose instead that the NAC is due to the lack of gender features on neuter arguments. When agreement is obligatory between a nominal argument (controller) and an agreeing expression (target), the target must receive gender features. As we show, neuter arguments in Lithuanian lack gender features altogether (cf. Kramer 2015), and are therefore ineligible to confer targets with the requisite features. | Luke Adamson and Milena Šereikaitė, 2018

NEUTRAL NEGATIVE
(Grammar) Expressing that something is factually not the case. It contradicts or denies. | Cambridge Grammar of Classical Greek, 2019

NEUTRAL WORD ORDER
(Syntax) Discussions of word order in languages with flexible word order in which different word orders are grammatical often describe one of the orders as the (pragmatically) unmarked or neutral word order, while other grammatical orders are all described as being marked in some way. In most languages in which one order has been so characterized, the order described as unmarked is also the order which occurs most frequently in spoken or written texts. It is widely assumed, in fact, that this is a necessary characteristic of unmarked word order, that it is part of what it means to be unmarked that the unmarked word order be most frequent. For example, Greenberg (1966) claims explicitly that the unmarked order in a language is "necessarily the most frequent". There are instances, however, in which this assumption has been questioned, in which descriptions of word order in particular languages have claimed that a particular order is unmarked or neutral, even though that order is not significantly more frequent than other orders, and may in fact be less frequent than at least some other orders. | Matthew S. Dryer, 1995

NEUTRALIZATION

1. (Phonology) The elimination of phonological contrast in certain phonetic environments. One of the most well-studied examples of neutralization is final devoicing, the merger of voiced and voiceless obstruents into voiceless obstruents in word-final position. | Olga Dmitrieva, Allard Jongman, Joan Sereno, 2010
2. (Phonology) Phonemes that are contrastive in certain environments may not be contrastive in all environments. In the environments where they do not contrast, the contrast is said to be neutralized. In these positions it may become less clear which phoneme a given phone represents.
    Absolute neutralization is a phenomenon in which a segment of the underlying representation is not realized in any of its phonetic representations (surface forms). The term was introduced by Paul Kiparsky (1968), and it contrasts with contextual neutralization where some phonemes are not contrastive in certain environments.
    An example of neutralization is provided by the Russian vowels /a/ and /o/. These phonemes are contrasting in stressed syllables, but in unstressed syllables the contrast is lost, since both are reduced to the same sound, usually [ə]. | Wikipedia, 2022

NEUTRALIZING RULES
(Phonology) A fundamental distinction is made between neutralizing and non-neutralizing rules, and all theories of phonology have appealed to the distinction in the statement of grammatical principles, phonological descriptions and/or the explanation of substantive properties of rules. The assumption has always been that neutralization rules phonetically merge or obliterate the differences between segments which are phonologically contrastive in other contexts and other levels of representation. | Daniel A. Dinnsen and Jan Charles-Luce, 1984

NO ACCIDENTAL HOMOPHONY OF CASE MARKERS (Morphology)

No Accidental Homophony of Case Markers (Collins 2020)
Other than zero forms, there can be no accidental homophony of case markers for a single noun. That is, two case markers cannot be specified in the lexicon as having the same phonological form.

Other than forms with no segmental phonology, there can be no accidental homophony of case markers for a single noun. That is, two case markers with the same subcategorization requirements cannot be specified in the lexicon as having the same phonological form, unless that form is zero or consists only of suprasegmental material.

NO CROWDING

1. (Syntax) Collins' (2020) No Crowding Constraint says that only the highest overt head in the Case Field is spelled out, with effects involving phi-agreement which have been noted in many languages since Kinyalolo (1991). | Neil Myler, 2023
2. (Syntax) There are many effects falling under the Doubly Filled Comp Filter in syntax. These are situations where the head and the specifier of a maximal projection cannot be filled overtly at the same time (see Collins 2007, Koopman 2000, Koopman and Szabolcsi 2000). The version from Collins 2007 is given below. (Edge(X) includes both the head and the specifier of X):

   No Crowding Condition

   1. Edge(X) must be phonetically overt.
   2. The condition in (a) applies in a minimal way so that either the head, or the specifier, but not both, are spelled-out overtly.

    | Chris Collins and Richard S. Kayne, 2020

NO TAMPERING CONDITION
(Syntax) 

No Tampering Condition

• Chomsky (2008)
   A natural requirement for efficient computation is a no-tampering condition:
  • Merge of X and Y leaves the two SOs unchanged.
   If so, then Merge of X and Y can be taken to yield the set { X, Y }, the simplest possibility worth considering. Merge cannot break up X or Y, or add new features to them. Therefore Merge is invariably "to the edge" and we also try to establish the inclusiveness principle, dispensing with bar levels, traces, indices, and similar descriptive technology introduced in the course of derivation of an expression.
• Collins and Kayne (2023)
   Third, once the winning vocabulary item is determined, its phonological form will be inserted into the terminal, so when the syntactic object is linearized, the phonological features of the vocabulary item are incorporated into the output. Such insertion changes the syntactic object formed (by replacing one of its morphemes with a morpheme specified for phonological form). So, it is important to stipulate that this process lies outside of syntax, which is constrained by the No Tampering Condition (no altering syntactic objects already formed).

NOLOGISM
(Morphology) When you think you've coined a neologism, but discover the word already exists. Worst of all is when you find out it's in common usage. Whilst writing this article, I "made up" the following nologisms: grasser, trest, kittenish and farrow. | Daniel G. Clark, 2020

NOMINAL ELLIPSIS

1. (Syntax) Ellipsis is distinguished by the structure having some "missing" elements, for example when there is a written sentence as in (1).
   1. Nelly liked the green tiles, I preferred the blue.
    In this type of sentence, it is nominal ellipsis because the omitted headword tiles is a noun. | Diani Syahputri, Hanifah, 2020
2. (Syntax) In Japanese, nominal ellipsis has been widely discussed in the case of genitives containing the morpheme -no, such as (1) and (2) (Kitagawa and Ross 1982, Saito and Murasugi 1990, 1999):
   1. Kono
      this

      hon-wa
      book-TOP

      Taroo
      Taroo

      no
      GEN

      hon
      book

      da.
      is

      'This book is Taroo's book.'
   2. Kono
      this

      hon-wa
      book-TOP

      Taroo
      Taroo

      no
      GEN

      da.
      is

      'This book is Taroo's.'
    | Richard K. Larson and Hiroko Yamakido, 2002
3. (Syntax) In an online experiment with adults, we had our target sentences contain a nominal ellipsis marked by a bare cardinal, as in example (1).
   1. Five ships appeared on the horizon. Three sank.
    | Frank Wijnen, Tom Roeper, and Hiske van der Meulen, 2004

NOMINAL FUNCTIONAL SEQUENCE
(Syntax) I adopt the idea that, universally, in the nominal domain case projections dominate number projections, which in turn dominate the lexical NP (see Moskal 2015 for especially strong evidence, and the references Moskal cites; compare also Universal 39 in Greenberg 1963 and the updating thereof in Kloudová 2020). Following Caha (2009, 2013), and Collins (2020), case is in fact a field of projections with a universal hierarchy of its own. Putting these ideas together yields the following partial hierarchy of projections for the nominal domain (where "≫" means 'dominates').

The Nominal Functional Sequence (partial)
AblP ≫ DatP ≫ GenP ≫ AccP ≫ NomP ≫ NumP ≫ NP

NON-CONSTITUENT COORDINATION

1. (Syntax) In common with other generative theories of the period, Kaplan and Maxwell (1988) dealt only with cases of constituent coordination, like Bill ate rice and recited a haiku (VP → VP and VP), ignoring the grab-bag of other cases of coordination commonly negatively classified as nonconstituent coordination, such as conjunction reduction (1a), Right-Node Raising (1b), Gapping (1c), Ellipsis (1d), and non-symmetric coordination (1e).
   1. a. Bill gave the girls spades and the boys recorders.
      b. Bill likes, and Joe is thought to like cigars from Cuba.
      c. Bill gave a rhino to Fred, and Sue a camera to Marjorie.
      d. Bill likes big cars, and Sally does too.
      e. Bill went and took the test.
    | John T. Maxwell III and Christoper D. Manning, 1996
2. (Syntax) The aspect of coordination that is perhaps most vexing for theories of coordination concerns non-constituent conjuncts (Osborne 2019). Coordination is, namely, not limited to coordinating just constituents, but rather it is quite capable of coordinating non-constituent strings:
   1. [When did he] and [why did he] do that?
   2. [She has] but [he has not] understood the task.
   3. Susan [asked you] but [forced me] to read the book on syntax.
   4. [Jill has been promising] but [Fred is actually trying] to solve the problem.
   5. [The old] and [the new] submarines submerged side-by-side.
   6. [Before the first] and [after the second] presentation, there will be coffee.
   7. Fred sent [Uncle Willy chocolates] and [Aunt Samantha ear rings].
   8. We expect [Connor to laugh] and [Jilian to cry].
    While some of these coordinate structures require a non-standard intonation contour, they can all be acceptable. This situation is problematic for theories of syntax, because most of the coordinated strings do not qualify as constituents. Hence, since the constituent is widely assumed to be the fundamental unit of syntactic analysis, such data seem to require that the theory of coordination admit additional theoretical apparatus. Two examples of the sort of apparatus that has been posited are so-called conjunction reduction (Akmajian and Heny 1980, a.o.) and right node raising (Hudson 1984, McCawley 1988, a.o.). | Wikipedia, 2023

NON-CULMINANT SENTENCE
(Prosody) A sentence lacking a single main stress. It lacks a single culminant sentential stress.
 Chichewa is a non-culminant language, i.e. it does not always show a single main sentential stress. Instead, the heads of any available phonological phrases emerge with the same stress, tone realization and intonation, providing no stress-related cue to what constituent is focused (Downing 2003). | Vieri Samek-Lodovici, 2005

NON-OBLIGATORY CONTROL
(Syntax) 

1. Properties of Obligatory Control (OC)
   The understood subject of OC clauses requires a theta-marked argument as its antecedent; this must be local, c-commanding and unique:
   1.  Bill_i tried [ PRO_i to organize himself ]
   2. * It_i was tried [ PRO_i to organize himself ]
   3. * Bill_i thinks it was tried [ PRO_i to organize himself]
   4. * Bill's_i aunt tried [ PRO_i to organize himself ]
   5. * Bill_i asked Ben_j [ PRO_i&j to kiss Bobby behind the bike shed ]
    Example (b) shows that the antecedent must be a theta-role-bearing argument, whilst (c) demonstrates locality. Example (d) establishes that c-command is operative, and (e) shows the ban on split antecedents.
2. Properties of Non-Obligatory Control (NOC)
    The restrictions operative in OC do not regulate NOC. NOC relations may conform to some of them, but they do not exhibit all and in some instances lack them entirely (see Williams 1980). These criteria give us the following candidates for NOC: infinitival subject clauses, as in (a), controlled interrogative complements, shown in (b), verbal gerunds as in (c), control with implicit arguments, displayed in (d) and (e) and long-distance control, in example (f).
   1. PRO To go to the lecture drunk wasn't one of your best ideas
   2. Peter knows how PRO to fix the head gasket
   3. PRO Walking back home yesterday, a brick fell on my head
   4. It is fun PRO to dance (It is fun for x, for x to dance)
   5. PRO To finish off one sentence in peace would be nice (for x)
   6. Peter said that PRO to get there on time would be very difficult
    Infinitival subjects, verbal gerunds and implicit control constructions have no structurally represented antecedent. The interrogative complement has a non-local argument in the super-ordinate clause, but this is not the antecedent for the implicit subject, which carries a generic interpretation. Long-distance control breaks locality, but also tolerates split antecedents, separating it further from OC:
     g. Peter said to Rita that PRO to get there on time would be very difficult for them

NON-REFERENTIAL MEANING
(Semantics) Antonym: referential meaning. A word that does not have reference is a word that has non-referential meaning. Examples of such words are and and but; these words have meaning but do not have reference such as table or chair. According to Chaer (2013):

 Bila kata-kata mempunyai referen, yaitu sesuatu diluar bahasa yang diacu oleh kata itu maka kata tersebut disebut kata bermakna referensial. Kalau kata-kata itu tidak mempunyai referen maka kata itu disebut dengan kata bermakna nonreferensial.
 
 'When words have a referent, that is, something outside the language that is referred to by the word, then the word is called a word with referential meaning. If the word does not have a referent, then the word is called a meaningful word nonreferential.' [Google translation]

NON-VERIDICALITY

1. (Semantics) From a sentence such as If it is raining outside, Sue will stay home, we cannot infer that (the speaker believes) it is raining outside, in contrast to one such as Because it is raining outside, Sue will stay home. The difference between the conditional vs. causal connective that is intuitive to naïve language users can be captured by the theoretical notion of (non)veridicality, as defined in (1).
   1. Epistemic model of an individual (Giannakidou 1999: 45)
      A model M_E(x) ∈ M is a set of worlds associated with an individual x representing worlds compatible with what x believes and knows.
      1. A propositional operator F is veridical iff Fp entails or presupposes that p is true in some individual's model M_E(x); p is true in M_E(x), if M_E(x) ⊂ p, i.e. if all worlds in M_E(x) are p-worlds.
      2. If (a) is not the case, F is nonveridical.
      3. F is antiveridical iff Fp entails ¬p in some individual's model: iff M_E(x) ∩ p = ø.
    By these definitions, because is a veridical operator with regard to its first argument p (i.e. the cause content), as it entails or presupposes that p is true in the speaker's belief model. In contrast, if is a nonveridical propositional operator with regard to its first argument (i.e. the content in the antecedent). Based on Giannakidou (1998, 1999), Giannakidou (2014) relates the notion of (non)veridicality to one of (epistemic) commitment (i.e. credence), veridicality to "full commitment of an individual", anti-veridicality to "counter-commitment" and nonveridicality to "weakened commitment". | Mingya Liu, 2019
2. (Examples)
   • (Semantics) The variation illustrates, in the clearest way, the complexity one is confronted with when trying to establish a general pattern of mood choice across a number of languages—and how difficult it is to come up with a single generalization that will be able to handle all cases. In the present paper, we take the variation to suggest that a more nuanced approach is needed, one that might allow verb meanings to combine veridical with nonveridical components. This can be done if we distinguish between what a selecting verb asserts and what it presupposes. Once we make this distinction, we see that verb meanings can exhibit what we call mixed (non)veridicality, i.e. they can combine a nonveridical assertion with veridical presupposition and vice versa. | Anastasia Giannakidou and Alda Mari, 2015
   • (Semantics) In recent works, veridicality and nonveridicality have been proposed to regulate a number of limited distribution phenomena as NPI licensing, free choice indefinites (Giannakidou 1997, 1998, 1999, 2006, 2011, Giannakidou and Quer 2013, Zwarts 1995, Bernardi 2001), mood selection and the so-called polarity subjunctive (Giannakidou1998, 2009, 2011, Quer 1998, 2001, 2009, Paducheva 1985, Marques 2004, 2010, Smirnova 2012), expletive negation (Yoon 2010), negator selection in ancient Greek (Chatzopoulou 2012), the genitive of negation in Russian (Partee 1998, Borchev et al. 2008, Partee et al. 2012, Kagan 2009), to mention just some studies. These studies offer compelling evidence from a substantial number of languages that a big portion of limited distribution phenomena (known as polarity) are about referential deficiency (Giannakidou 1997, 1998)—or, "low referentiality" (Partee 1998), "referential vagueness" (Giannakidou and Quer 2013). Referentially deficient items (also known as "weak" or anti-specific indefinites) favor generally nonveridical contexts. | Anastasia Giannakidou, 2014
   • (Semantics) So, if we take (non)veridicality into consideration, the distinction between assertion and question is not categorical: assertions do not form a natural class, and nonveridical assertions pattern epistemically with questions. This means that the difference between questions and assertions as a division of labor between informativity and inquisitiveness cannot be categorical either. These conclusions support the original tenet of inquisitive semantics that meaning is semantically non-dichotomous. ... I argue that questions convey a true nonveridical equilibrium between p and ¬p. | Anastasia Giannakidou, 2013
   • (Semantics) Montague observes that there would appear to be two senses of the perceptual verb see, a veridical and a nonveridical one. According to the former, there is a unicorn is a logical consequence of Jones sees a unicorn; according to the latter, it is not, for one is not prevented from seeing a unicorn by the fact that there are no unicorns. | Frans Zwarts, 1995

NONCE WORD
(Morphology) Or, occasionalism. Any word (lexeme), or any sequence of sounds or letters (phonemes or graphemes), created for a single occasion or utterance but not otherwise understood or recognized as a word within a given language (Cambridge Dictionaries Online 2011, Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language, 1995). Nonce words have a variety of functions and are most commonly used for humor, poetry, children's literature, linguistic experiments, psychological studies, and medical diagnoses, or they arise by accident.
 Some nonce words have a meaning at their inception or gradually acquire a fixed meaning inferred from context and use, but if they eventually become an established part of the language (neologisms), they stop being nonce words (Crystal 1997).
 Other nonce words may be essentially meaningless and disposable (nonsense words), but they are useful for exactly that reason—the words wug and blicket, for instance, were invented by researchers to be used in child language testing (Hadley 2001).
 Nonsense words often share orthographic and phonetic similarity with (meaningful) words (Klein and McMullen 1999), as is the case with pseudowords, which make no sense but can still be pronounced in accordance with a language's phonotactic rules (Rathvon 2004). Such invented words are used by psychological and linguistic researchers and educators as a tool to assess a learner's phonetic decoding ability, and the ability to infer the (hypothetical) meaning of a nonsense word from context is used to test for brain damage (Lezak 2004).
 Proper names of real or fictional entities sometimes originate as nonce words. | Wikipedia, 2023

NORMS AND EXPLOITATIONS
(Acquisition) The theory proposed is that anyone (or any machine) acquiring a natural language must acquire competence in not one, but two, interlinked systems of rule-governed behavior. In the first place, there is competence to use words normally and idiomatically. But the whole picture is complicated by the fact that as soon as a human acquires a rule-governed norm for using a word, he or she goes on—or at least has the potential to go on—to exploit that norm in various ways. People play with words and enjoy doing so—but, more importantly, it is this feature of semantic exploitability that enables language users to use existing conventions to say new things. For example, we can say that some new experience is like a familiar experience, and we can leave it to our interlocutors to work out for themselves the question, In what respect?
 A word's syntagmatic preferences consist of a mixture of primary norms, secondary norms, alternations, and exploitations. A word's meaning potential is an intricate web of interlinked semantic and pragmatic norms, not always internally consistent.
 Exploitations are cognitively salient. Social (or statistical) salience may be defined as (or is recognizable as) frequent usage, while cognitive salience involves ease of recall.
 For this reason, exploitations are rhetorically effective. As noted by Quintilian and other rhetoricians of classical antiquity, metaphors and other figures of speech (many of which are imaginative exploitations of norms) are much more memorable than the general run of talk about people talking to people, so classical rhetoricians encouraged their pupils to use them.
 Exploitations make a nonsense of the term selectional restrictions. There is no such thing as a selectional restriction; there are only selectional preferences. Exploitations are perfectly well-formed, meaningful, and intentional uses of language, even though they may lie well outside the scope of a word's selectional preferences. They are not ruled out by a restriction. A problem for the lexical analyst is that there is not a sharp division between norms and exploitations; some words are more normal than others.
 A language consists of a constantly moving and developing double helix of rules governing linguistic behavior: normal uses and exploitations of normal use. | Patrick Hanks, 2013

NOUN CLASS

1. (Grammar) In many languages in various families (Niger-Congo, Caucasic, Sino-Tibetan, Oceanic, Australian, Amerindian of all families, etc.) nominal items are formally divided by diverse means, according to criteria that have to do either with "natural" categories such as being a human (of either sex), or a plant, or an animal, or a dangerous thing, or with descriptive properties of the denoted object, like being elongated, or flat, or liquid, and so forth. Noun classes and classifiers are the names for what these languages present.
    Classical studies for such systems are Dixon (1972) and Lakoff (1987). See Miller and Johnson-Laird (1976) for arguments to the effect that shape is the most basic and stable descriptive property (also see Grandi 2002). | Alain Kihm, 2005
2. (Grammar) A grammatical category; an obligatory grammatical system, where each noun chooses one from a small number of possibilities. Ways of marking noun class include a prefix to the noun (and usually also to other constituents in the noun phrase, or in the sentence, that show concord with it), as in Bantu languages; an obligatory article, as in French and German; or an inflectional suffix that shows a portmanteau of case and noun class, as in Latin.
    Noun classifiers are always separate lexemes, which may be included with a noun in certain syntactic environments. There is usually a largish set of classifiers (perhaps not clearly delimited in scope), but not every specific noun may be able to occur with one.
    In many languages classifiers are required in the context of numeral quantification of a specific noun (see e.g. Adams and DeLancey 1983), but in some languages noun classification exists independently of numeral quantification (e.g. Jacaltec as described in Craig 1983, and many Australian languages, see Dixon 1982. Rude (1983) provides a fascinating description of Eqyptian where the form of lexemes was only partially specified in the hieroglyphic writing system and classifiers thus filled an important disambiguating function. | R.M.W. Dixon, 1983

NOUN INCORPORATION
(Morphology) A process in word formation by which a compound is created by affixing or infixing a noun to a verb, as in baby-sit, house-hunt, and sleep-walk.
 Or, this process resulting in a complex verb, as in the Mohawk and Inuit languages. | Dictionary dot com, 2023
See Also INCORPORATION.

NOUNY PROPOSITIONAL EXPRESSION
(Grammar) Or, nominalized proposition. Abbreviated NomProp. Japanese -no (1,2) and Korean -kes (3,4) head nominalized finite clauses. These can appear under propositional attitude verbs just as their non-nominalized counterparts. We call these NomProps—nominalized propositions.
 
 NomProp complements

1. Japanese
   Watashi-wa
   I-TOP

   [kare-ga
   he-NOM

   shukudai-o
   homework-ACC

   zembu
   all

   shi-ta-(to-yuu)-no-o]
   do-PST-to-yuu-no-ACC

   shinji-teiru.
   believe-ASP

   'I believe that he finished his homework.'
2. Korean
   Na-nun
   I-TOP

   [kay-ka
   he-NOM

   swukecey-lul
   homework-ACC

   ta
   all

   ha-yass-ta-nun
   do-PST-DEC-ADN

   kes-ul]
   kes-ACC

   mit-e.
   believe-DEC

   'I believe that he finished his homework.'

3. Japanese
   Watashi-wa
   I-TOP

   [kare-ga
   he-NOM

   shukudai-o
   homework-ACC

   zembu
   all

   shi-ta-to]
   do-PST-to

   shinji-teiru.
   believe-ASP

   'I believe that he finished his homework.'
4. Korean
   Na-nun
   I-TOP

   [kay-ka
   he-NOM

   swukecey-lul
   homework-ACC

   ta
   all

   ha-yass-ta-ko]
   do-PST-DEC-ko

   mit-e.
   believe-ASP

   'I believe that he finished his homework.'

Page Last Modified April 10, 2024

 

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