Sank's Glossary of Linguistics 
T-Tom

TAUTOSYLLABIC

  1. (Phonology) Part of the same syllable. E.g. a phonological diphthong analyzed into a sequence of two tautosyllabic vowels. | ?
  2. (Phonology) Two or more segments are tautosyllabic (with each other) if they occur in the same syllable. For instance, the English word cat, /kæt/, is monosyllabic and so its three phonemes /k/, /æ/ and /t/ are tautosyllabic. They can also be described as sharing a tautosyllabic distribution.
      Phonemes that are not tautosyllabic are heterosyllabic. For example, in the English word "mustard" /ˈmʌstərd/, /m/ and /t/ are heterosyllabic since they are members of different syllables. | Wikipedia, 2022

TEAM CREDIT INTERPRETATION
(Semantics) Example (1) is judged as true in a scenario where just a few of the kids actually built the raft, and the others sat idly and watched. This is known as a team credit interpretation.

  1. The kids built a raft.
| Omri Amraz, 2022

TELICITY
(Grammar) From the Greek τέλος, meaning 'end' or 'goal'. The property of a verb or verb phrase that presents an action or event as being complete in some sense. A verb or verb phrase with this property is said to be telic, while a verb or verb phrase that presents an action or event as being incomplete is said to be atelic. | Wikipedia, 2017
See Also LEXICAL ASPECT.

TEMPLATIC MORPHOLOGY

  1. (Morphology) Or, position class morphology or slot-and-filler morphology. Typically understood as one form of morphological organization in which the linear order of morphemes bears little apparent relationship to other synchronic semantic, syntactic, or phonological factors (Good 2011). Although templatic morphological structures have been reported in many language families, Dene (Athapaskan, Athabaskan) languages are often upheld as offering particularly striking examples of morphological templates in action, with some Dene verbal constructions analyzed as having upwards of twenty distinct template positions (cf. Kari 1989). | Christopher Cox, 2017
  2. (Morphology) Morphology that imposes invariant shape on the word. | John J. McCarthy and Alan Prince, 1990
  3. (Morphology) In Arabic, various morphological distinctions are expressed by specifying a fixed canonical form of the stem that does not vary despite independent morphological or lexical changes in the consonants or vowels that fill this canonical form. For example, (1) demonstrates theproperty of shape-invariance for the Arabic causative, known as the faʕʕala or Form 2:
      /ktb/ /drs/ /ʕm/ /sm/
      'write' 'study' 'know' 'poison'
    perfect active kattab darras ʕallam sammam
    perfect passive kuttib durris ʕullim summim
    imperfect active kattib darris ʕallim sammim
    imperfect passive kattab darras ʕallam sammam
    | John J. McCarthy and Alan Prince, 1990

TENSE
(Phonetics) Articulated, or claimed to be articulated, with greater effort of the relevant muscles. | Concise Oxford Dictionary of Linguistics, 2007

TENSE PHRASE
See TP.

TH-FRONTING
(Phonology) Th-fronting is the pronunciation of the English [θ] as [f] or [v]. When th-fronting is applied, [θ] becomes [f] (for example, three is pronounced as free) and [ð] becomes [v] (for example, bathe is pronounced as bave). (Here fronting refers to the position in the mouth where the sound is produced, not the position of the sound in the word, with the [θ] coming from the tongue as opposed to the [f] or [v] coming from the more-forward lower lip.) Unlike the fronting of [θ] to [f], the fronting of [ð] to [v] usually does not occur word-initially (for example, while bathe can be pronounced as bave, that is rarely pronounced as vat) although this was found in the speech of South-East London in a survey completed 1990-4 (Tollfree, 1999). Th-fronting is a prominent feature of several dialects of English. | Wikipedia, 2022

THAT-TRACE EFFECT aka THAT-T EFFECT
(Syntax) The phenomenon that the complementizer (that) cannot be followed by a trace (except in relative clauses) in some languages (e.g. English). Thus, in languages showing the that-t(race) effect, a subject cannot be extracted when it follows that. This is shown by the contrast in (1) and (2).

  1. who did you think [CP t' [C' e [IP t would win ]]]
  2. *who did you think [CP t' [C' that [IP t would win ]]]
As noted, the that-t effect is not a universal phenomenon. It is absent in e.g. Dutch, as shown by the fact that the Dutch translation of (2) is grammatical:
  1. wie denk je [CP t' [C' dat [IP t gewonnen heeft ]]]
(Chomsky 1977, 1981, 1986; Kayne 1984; Perlmutter 1971; Pesetsky 1982; Taraldsen 1978) | Utrecht Lexicon of Linguistics, 2001

THEMATIC ROLE

  1. (Semantics) Thematic roles such as Agent, Patient, and Goal have a long-standing presence in theories of linguistics and cognitive science. By way of illustration, the verb eat encodes a relation between someone who eats and something that gets eaten: these participants have been given the role labels Agent and Patient, respectively. Thematic roles are routinely invoked in studies of the syntax~semantics interface, language production and comprehension, and child language learning. They are argued to be part of innate, core knowledge (Carey 2009; Strickland 2016), to be cross-culturally universal (Fillmore 1968), and to have played a pivotal role in language evolution (Calvin and Bickerton 2000). Despite this prevalence, discussion of the problematic nature of thematic roles also has a long-standing tradition. Dowty (1991) states "there is perhaps no concept in modern syntactic and semantic theory which is so often involved in so wide a range of contexts, but on which there is so little agreement as to its nature and definition, as thematic role". Nearly 20 years later, Newmeyer (2010) evinces a similar sentiment: "there is no construct as murky in any subdivision of linguistic theory as that of 'thematic role'. Literally dozens have been proposed over the years, and nothing approaching a consensus has been achieved in terms of delineating the set that are needed for natural language semantics". | Lilia Rissman and Asifa Majid, 2019
  2. (Semantics) It is often convenient to identify arguments of (Fregean) predicates in terms of the following thematic roles:
    Agent, Cause, Instrument: Agents are arguments that bring about a state of affairs. The line between agents, on the one hand, and causes or instruments, on the other, can be fuzzy, but agents are (or are perceived to be) conscious or sentient, in a way that causes or instruments aren't.
    1. Agent: The lions devoured the wildebeest.
    2. Cause: Hurricane-force winds demolished much of the town.
    3. Instrument: This key opens the door to the main office.
    Experiencers are arguments that undergo a sensory, cognitive, or emotional experience.
    1. The rhesus monkey had never seen snow before.
    Recipients are arguments that receive something (whether good or bad) in a situation.
    1. They gave the workers a raise.
    Locations are simply places.
    1. We always eat breakfast in the kitchen.
    Paths connect locations.
    1. Lucky raced down the driveway.
     When locations serve as endpoints of paths, we generally refer to them as goals.
    1. We traveled to Paris quite a bit in those days.
    Measure or amount arguments express extensions along some dimension (length, duration, cost, and so on).
    1. They rowed for three days.
     Finally, the thematic role of theme is something of a catch-all. According to one definition, "theme" refers to an argument undergoing motion of some sort, including motion in a metaphorical sense, such as a change of state. As is usual in the syntactic literature, we will also use the term for arguments that are most "affected" in a situation or for the content of an experience.
    1. The lions devoured the wildebeest.
    2. This key opens the front door.
    3. Hurricane-force winds demolished much of the town.
    4. They gave the workers a raise.
    5. I'd like to send this package to France.
    6. Many people fear snakes.
     | Beatrice Santorini and Anthony Kroch, 2007
See Also THETA-ROLE.

THEMATIC VOWEL
(Morphology) Or, theme vowel. In Indo-European studies, the vowel *e or *o from ablaut placed before the ending of a Proto-Indo-European (PIE) word. Nouns, adjectives, and verbs in the Indo-European languages with this vowel are thematic, and those without it are athematic.
 Used more generally, a thematic vowel is any vowel found at the end of the stem of a word. Outside Indo-European, the term "thematic vowel" is also used in the grammar of Kartvelian languages.
 PIE verbs and nominals (nouns and adjectives) consist of three parts:

[Word [Stem root + suffix ] + ending ]
The thematic vowel, if present, occurs at the end of the suffix (which may include other vowels or consonants) and before the ending:
  1. *gwhér-mo-s 'heat' > Ancient Greek θέρμος (thérmos)
  2. *bhér-e-ti '(he) bears' > Sanskrit bhárati, Gothic baíriþ
Athematic forms, by contrast, have a suffix ending in a consonant, or no suffix at all (or arguably a null suffix) (Fortson 2004):
  1. *ph2-tér-s 'father' > English father
  2. *h1és-mi '(I) am' > English am
 For several reasons, athematic forms are thought to be older, and the thematic vowel was likely an innovation of late PIE. | Wikipedia, 2023

THEMATIZATION
(Discourse) Discourse producers, particularly those producing written discourse, will often arrange smaller chunks of the text in a certain order so as to give prominence to that chunk or to another chunk. These chunks are composed of thematically related material. For example, it is not uncommon for writers to begin with one discourse chunk made up of one or more broad propositions only to follow that chunk with another (or series of others) that draws specific points from those preceding propositions. This kind of organization is often referred to as "thematization".
 Given that linearization affects both the smaller and larger ranks of discourse (from the clause up), then it stands to reason that one ought to be able to determine the thematic structure at the discourse level by determining the thematization in each of its constituent parts. | James D. Dvorak, 2011

THETA CRITERION
(Syntax) 

Theta Criterion
Each argument of α appears in a chain containing a unique visible theta position P, and each theta position P is visible in a chain containing a unique argument α. (Chomsky 1986)
 | Abdul-Razak Sulemana, 2023

THETA-ROLE

  1. (Semantics) The semantic relationship of an argument with the predicate it is an argument of is expressed through the assignment of a role by the predicate to the argument, in conformity with the theta-criterion. Different theta-roles have different labels, such as Agent and Theme. E.g., in Ken sent me the argument Ken is the Agent of the predicate sent me, and the argument me is the Theme of the predicate sent. Other theta-roles that have been distinguished are Goal, Source, Experiencer. | Utrecht Lexicon of Linguistics, 2001
  2. (Semantics) Or, thematic role. The semantic relationship of an argument with its predicate is expressed through the assignment of a role by the predicate to the argument. Different theta-roles have different labels, such as Agent, Theme, Patient, Goal, Source, Experiencer, etc. Example:
    1. Bart kicked the ball.
      kicked → predicate
      Bart → Agent
      ball → Theme/Patient
    2. The ball was kicked by Bart.
      kicked → predicate
      Bart → Agent
      ball → Theme/Patient
     | Laura Kallmeyer and Benjamin Burkhardt, 2018
See Also THEMATIC ROLE.

THETIC CONSTRUCTION
(Grammar) A subtype of sentence focus construction characterized by a maximal degree of informational integration. Theticity is thus understood as referring to a range of formally defined (language-specific) construction types, not to a "logical" utterance type, despite the historical origin of the term in a more philosophical tradition (for discussion, see Kuroda 1972, Sasse 1987). Both the English example in (1) and the Hungarian example in (2) are typical sentence focus utterances of the thetic type, most felicitous as an answer to a general question such as What's going on?

  1. English:
    There's a knock on the door!
  2. Hungarian (Uralic):
    Jönnek
    come.PRS
    a
    DEF
    szomszédok.
    neighbor.PL
    'The NEIGHBORS are coming!' (Sasse 2006)
 | Eva Schultze-Berndt, 2022

THETICAL GRAMMAR
(Discourse) One of the two domains of discourse grammar, the other domain being sentence grammar. The building blocks of thetical grammar are theticals (Kaltenböck 2011), that is, linguistic expressions which are interpolated in, or juxtaposed to, clauses or sentences but syntactically, semantically and, typically, prosodically independent from these structures. The two domains are associated with contrasting principles of designing texts: Whereas sentence grammar is essentially restricted to the structure of sentences in a propositional format, thetical grammar concerns the overall contours of discourse beyond the sentence, thereby being responsible for a higher level of discourse production (Kaltenböck, Heine, and Kuteva 2011, Heine et al 2013).
 The following example, taken from the Comprehensive Grammar of English (1985), illustrates the main characteristics of thetical grammar.

  1. They considered Miss Hartley a very good teacher.
  2. They considered Miss Hartley, a very good teacher.
 The phrase a very good teacher is a complement of the sentence in (1), that is, it is part of the syntax of the sentence; in the framework of discourse grammar, it is therefore classified as belonging to sentence grammar. In (2), by contrast, the same phrase (but printed in italics) is not part of the syntax; it is syntactically independent from the rest of the sentence, commonly classified as a non-restrictive appositive. And it is also different in other ways: Whereas in (1) it is part of the prosody of the sentence, in (2) it is separated from the preceding clause by a tone unit boundary in spoken English and by a comma in written English. And third, there is also a difference in meaning: Whereas the meaning of a very good teacher in (1) is determined by its syntactic function as a complement of the sentence, it is fairly independent from the sentence meaning in (2); the former meaning has therefore been called restrictive and the latter non-restrictive (Huddleston and Pullum 2002). The phrase a very good teacher in (2) is classified as belonging to thetical grammar, that is, as a thetical. Theticals are defined in the following way:  | Wikipedia, 2022

TOBI

  1. (Prosody) "Tones and Break Indices". ToBI is a set of conventions for transcribing and annotating the prosody of speech.
      A full ToBI transcription consists of six parts:
    1. An audio recording.
    2. An electronic print-out or paper record of the F0 (fundamental pitch).
    3. A tones tier, with an analysis of the tonal events in terms of H and L.
    4. A words tier with the words of the utterance in ordinary writing.
    5. A break-index tier showing the strength of the junctures.
    6. A miscellaneous tier with comments. (Cooper 2015)
      Tonal events include:   Break indices are numbers indicating how strong the break is between words (R. Port, 1999):  | Wikipedia, 2022
  2. (Prosody) ToBi is the most useful method for transcribing English prosody (and many other languages). There are 3 types of tone: Pitch accents (H* peak, L* low, L*+H scoop, L+H* rising peak, H+!H downstep high), Phrasal tones (H-, L-) and final boundary tones (L%, H%). Some common patterns are the Declarative phrase intonation, List item intonation, and Nuclear accent (a pitch accent near the end of an intonation phrase). | Robert F. Port, 1999

Page Last Modified September 19, 2023

 
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