F0 DECLINATION
(Prosody) Or, F₀ declination. It has been observed in many languages that the pitch contour over the course of an utterance has a downward trend, normally called F0 declination in the literature. F0 declination is expected and used for normalization by listeners, e.g., when two stressed syllables sounded equal in pitch, the second was actually lower. | Jiahong Yuan and Mark Liberman, 2014

FACE-WORK

1. (Pragmatics) Speech participants utilize linguistic politeness to avoid and reduce social friction and enhance each other's face, or public self-image, during social interaction. It is face-work that underlies the interpersonal function of language use and encompasses all verbal and nonverbal realizations that bring forth one's positive social value, namely, face. Face-work is founded in and built into dynamic social relations; these social and cultural relations and context directly affect the enactment of face-work. | Jung-ran Park, 2008
2. (Examples)
    ○ Brown and Levinson (1987/2018) have also suggested a scale—three universal, independent, and culturally sensitive social variables—to measure the degree of politeness in a certain specific social context.
   • D, the social distance.
   • P, the variable of power.
   • R, the variable of the imposition ranking.
   
    Each of these variables is specifically intrinsic to a particular act in a particular situation. The variables of D, P, and R are added values through which the amount of face work is known and understood. If the variables D, P and R are minimally considered, then, the request to the hearer to open the door will be:
   1. Please, open the window!
   
    On the contrary, if the maximization of D, P and R are meant, then the above mentioned expression would be changed to the following:
   2. It is too warm, don`t you feel? Would you mind opening the window, please?
   
    | Mian Shah Bacha, Rabia Rustum, Muhammad Umer, and Khalid Azim Khan, 2021
    ○ It is generally assumed in pragmatics that face is essentially a "socially attributed aspect of self", and that politeness is one kind of facework, alongside other forms of facework such as impoliteness, mock impoliteness, mock politeness, self politeness and so on. | Michael Haugh, 2013
    ○ The concluding paragraph of Goffman's essay "On the nature of deference and demeanor" (1956) is a revealing sketch of a characteristically Western, individualist persona which also informs the author's seminal piece "On face-work" (1955). | Francesca Bargiela-Chiappini, 2003

FACTIVE PREDICATE
(Semantics) A predicate which entails or presupposes the truth of one of its arguments.
 A sentence such as John knows that Bill is ill can be true only if its propositional argument Bill is ill is true. Factive predicates are distinguished from non-factive predicates (such as believe) and counter-factives (such as pretend). Thus, the truth-value of John believes that Bill is ill does not depend on the truth-value of the proposition Bill is ill, whereas John pretends that he is ill can only be true if he is not ill. | Utrecht Lexicon of Linguistics, 2001

FACTORIAL TYPOLOGY

1. (Optimality Theory) One of the attractive properties of OT is that it provides a simple expression of the fact that the same configuration can be avoided in different ways and to different extents in different languages. The avoided configuration violates some markedness constraint(s), and each way of avoiding it violates some faithfulness constraint. Different rankings of these constraints yield different ways of avoiding the marked configuration, as well as the case in which the marked structure is allowed. These different results can be displayed in a factorial typology, in which each possible ranking of the relevant set of constraints is shown to be attested in some language. | Scott P. Myers, 2002
2. (Examples)
    ○ The factorial typology for moraic codas, nonmoraic codas, and final extrasyllabicity is summarized in (1).

   1. Factorial Typology

   Final Consonant Type	Ranking	Language
   Moraic Codas	WBP ≫ SSP ≫ WEAKEDGE, MAX	Maitihili
   Nonmoraic Codas	SSP ≫ WEAKEDGE ≫ WBP, MAX	Malayalam
   Extrasyllabic	WEAKEDGE, MAX ≫ SSP, WBP	Russian

    | Trevor Driscoll, 2019
    ○ OT posits a universal set of constraints, and the factorial typology of the constraints, i.e. through all logically possible permutations of constraints to generate all possible constraint rankings, is predicted to produce possible grammars and exclude impossible ones. | Yen-Hwei Lin, 2015
    ○ We think that factorial typology should be given precedence over holistic conceptions of language types, both for theoretical and for practical reasons. One obvious problem with a holistic approach to language types is the fact that it is hard to decide on which phenomena a holistic typology should be based. One cannot compare languages as a whole, and it is not clear whether determining, for instance, the morphological type of a language allows more essential conclusions about a holistic language type than, let's say, the statement of its system of morphophonemics. Thus, for very practical reasons, holistic typologists will always end up doing factorial typology, at least for a start. | Daniel Hole, 2000
    ○ To construct a factorial typology of a set of constraints, we sum up all logically possible rankings of this set of constraints, and compute the different outcomes. With large sets of constraints the number of possible rankings rises steeply, as with a constraint set of size n, we must consider all n! rankings. (This equals 2 rankings for 2 constraints, 6 rankings for 3, 24 for 4, 120 for 5, 720 for 6, etc.) Fortunately, many of the individual rankings in a factorial typology produce identical surface patterns. Therefore the number of predicted patterns is much smaller than the total number of logically possible rankings. | René Kager, 1999

FAITHFULNESS CONSTRAINTS

1. (Optimality Theory) Suppose that the input-output relation is governed by conditions on the well-formedness of the output, markedness constraints, and by conditions asking for the exact preservation of the input in the output along various dimensions, faithfulness constraints. | Alan Prince and Paul Smolensky, 1993/2004
2. (Optimality Theory) In contrast with markedness constraints, faithfulness constraints make a rather different type of requirement of surface forms: that they match specific properties of other forms, for example their lexical input. Their effect is to prohibit deletions, insertions, featural changes, or other changes in mappings from inputs to outputs. Faithfulness constraints are the natural antagonists of markedness constraints, since the former preserve lexical properties that the latter may ban at the surface. | Amalia Gnanadesikan, 2004
3. (Optimality Theory) Faithfulness is the force that attempts to make the output identical to the input.
    There are three constraints representing Faithfulness:
   1. MAX-IO: each segment in the input (I) has a corresponding segment in the output (O).
       Deletion of segments is prohibited.
   2. DEP-IO: each segment in the output has a corresponding segment in the input; the output is dependent on the input, and the constraint is violated by an inserted segment.
       Insertion of segments is prohibited.
   3. IDENT (F): every feature (F) of the input segment is identical to every feature in the output segment.
       A segment in the input is identical to the corresponding segment in the output.
   
    | Zita McRobbie, 2011

FALLACY OF PERFECTION

1. (Optimality Theory) Constraints are intrinsically conflicting, hence perfect output candidates will never occur in any tableau:

   Fallacy of perfection
   No output form is possible that satisfies all constraints.

    An output is optimal since there is no such thing as a "perfect" output: all that grammars may accomplish is to select the most harmonic output, the one which incurs the minimal violation of constraints, taking into account their ranking. Nothing better is available. | René Kager, 1999
2. (Examples)
    ○ Translation also incorporates OT's assumption that there are no optimal perfect outputs, dubbed fallacy of perfection (Kager 1999/2004). It is commonly assumed that no translated text is fully identical to the source text. Even the optimal translation that any translator seeks to achieve violates some language structures or constraints of the target text. No optimal target text is perfect in that it satisfies all source text and target text constraints. Therefore, translators attempt to produce a translated text that is the most harmonic one compared to any other competing candidates, the one that involves minimal violations of ranked constraints. | Ahmed Smirkou, 2021
    ○ OT has a fallacy of perfection. That is, no output form is possible to satisfy all constraints. In our study, some Taiwanese (Sino-Tibetan; Taiwan, China) names satisfy all constraints. The reason is that our constraints do not include all possible ones in naming. Say for example, fortune teller's suggestions or family's pedigree names are beyond our discussion. | Chi-hua Hsiao, 2005
    ○ It is important to note that usually not all of these parameters can be optimized in any given form. The principle underlying this circumstance is often called the fallacy of perfection. (Cf. also Vennemann 1988.) For instance, words that are entirely made up of CV syllables—this being the "optimal" syllable structure—may be lengthy or otherwise clumsy to pronounce. | Lutz Edzard, 2000

FAMILIARITY MARKER
(Examples)
 ○ In the Magahi (Indo-European; India) noun phrase, there is a familiarity marker -waa with the following allomorphs: -waa, -aa, -(i)yaa, -(i)yãã, -maa. -waa requires a definite interpretation and is incompatible with indefinites, generics, and kinds.
 -waa is called a familiarity marker (Alok 2012, 2022, Kumar 2020, Sharma 2025) because it requires nouns it attaches to to be familiar in the discourse. | Aidan Sharma, 2025
 ○ Emotional valence results were converted into extremity of valence values (the higher the score, the more positive or negative the stimulus is; Rocklage et al., 2017/2018) to calculate statistical variances/correlations in order to account for the dualistic nature of emotionality. On the other hand, familiarity values were included as originally provided by the participants on a 7­-point Likert scale. Extremity of valence and familiarity values proved to be closely linked as results indicate a moderate positive correlation r(961)=.553, p<.05, echoing with de Sousa's (2002) note that the emotional aspect of recognition is subject to a familiarity marker. | Yu Kanazawa, Louis Lafleur, 2023
 ○ Another case in point is -aa, which is a familiarity marker that is often affixed to NPs in Magahi (Indo-European; India). NPs bearing this element normally trigger nonhonorific (NH) agreement on the verb, as in (1).

1.  
    

   Santee-aa
   Santee-FM

   Bantee-aa-ke
   Bantee-FM-DAT

   kahl-ai
   tell:PFV-3.NH.S

   ki
   that

   ...
   ...

    'Santee told Bantee that ...'

1. a.
    

   pesar-a-ro
   boy-E-RA

   did-am.
   saw-1SG

     'I saw the boy.' (familiar to hearer)
   b.
    

   ye pesar-i-ro
   a-boy-I-RA

   did-am
   saw-1SG

     'I saw a (specific) boy.' (unfamiliar to hearer)

FAST MAPPING

1. (Acquisition) A hypothesized process enabling children to rapidly create lexical representations for the unfamiliar words they encounter. | Chris Dollaghan, 1985
2. (Acquisition) In a classic study by Carey and Bartlett (1978), preschool children were presented with two trays and prompted to: Bring me the chromium tray, not the blue one. The chromium one. One week later, a new task context was used to test what children thought chromium refers to (e.g., Show me the chromium one). Results show that 3- and 4-year-olds were able to learn the meaning of chromium even after a single exposure. This phenomenon was termed fast mapping. It captures the mental process of narrowing down the meaning of a word during a casual experience.
    Fast mapping shows the impressive ability of children to learn. It helps explain the steep learning curve during language acquisition. And it gives credence to the claim of implicit learning: the process by which information is remembered spontaneously, even when there is no specific requirement to learn. Crucially, findings on fast mapping illustrate the importance of background knowledge during learning. | Heidi Kloos and Hannah McIntire, 2025
3. (Acquisition) Carey and Bartlett (1978) introduced the term fast mapping, which has become central to developmental psychology's narrative about how words are learned. In this narrative, it is children's accuracy in fast mapping that cries out for explanation. How can children arrive at the correct meaning of a word given only indirect and incomplete evidence? Yet in Carey and Bartlett's famous "chromium" study, fast mapping was not so successful. Fewer than one in ten of the 3-year-olds appeared to have linked the word chromium to its intended meaning ('olive green'). The children who had been exposed to the word in the study's naturalistic teaching context (bring me the chromium one; not the red one, the chromium one) were scarcely more likely than controls to pick out the correct referent from an array of color patches upon hearing the word.
    For Carey and Bartlett, the demonstration of fast mapping was noteworthy not because children appropriately determined that chromium was a color word (the sort of pragmatic inference that was dissected in dozens of follow-up studies). Rather, it was noteworthy because after very few exposures children were able to create a new lexical entry and maintain it in memory for several days, and because children's exposure to the word often changed their interpretation of how the color space is lexicalized. | Daniel Swingley, 2010

FATHER-FRONTING
(Sociolinguistics; Phonology) For many English speakers in North America, the first vowel of father and that of bother are pronounced the same. In eastern New england, however, these two vowels are traditionally unmerged. For such speakers, the [a] vowel of the father lexical set is distinct from the [ɒ] or [ɑ] vowel of the bother set. The father set includes the words father, palm, calm, ma, and pa. Bother words include bother, cot, hot, socks, and shot. According to The Atlas of North American English, the fronting of the father vowel is the "aspect of the vowel system that distinguishes NeNe [North East New England] most clearly from other sections of New England." | James N. Stanford, Thomas A. Leddy-Cecere, and Kenneth P Baclawski, 2012

FAVE
(Phonetics) The FAVE (Forced Alignment & Vowel Extraction) program suite allows you to automatically align and extract large quantities of vowel formant measurements from sociolinguistic interviews or other bodies of orthographically transcribed data.
 FAVE is a pair of programs:

1. FAVE-align: A forced alignment program adapted for sociolinguistic interviews or other texts with multiple speakers. It accepts as input a sound file with its corresponding orthographic transcript, and returns a Praat TextGrid file with two tiers per speaker, a phone tier and a word tier.
2. FAVE-extract: Automatically measures the formant values for F1 and F2 for all vowels for a given speaker. Its input is a sound file, plus a corresponding aligned TextGrid with word and phone tiers for each speaker (typically the output of FAVE-align).

FEATURAL AFFIXATION

1. (Morphology) Affixes often involve segmental concatenation but may also be realized as featural changes. These non-concatenative patterns are often referred to as featural affixation or mutation (Wolf 2007).

   Examples of Different Types of Mutations

   Type	Example	Featural Affix	Language
   Vowel Quality	ʈʂhu 'water.ABS' ʈʂhyː 'water.GEN'	GEN: [-back, +long]	Tibetan
   Consonant Quality	dænæg 'hit.3SG.PERF.MASC' dænægw '... MASC.SG.OBJ'	OBJ: [+round]	Chaha (Afro-Asiatic)
   Length	katai 'hard' katːai 'hard.EMPH'	EMPH: [+long]	Japanese (Shizuoka)
   Tone	mágásɛ́ːt 'skin.OBL' màgásɛ̀ːt 'skin.NOM'	NOM: LHL	Kipsigis (Nilo-Saharan)

    | Christine Gu, 2025
2. (Examples)
    ○ My underlying assumption is that root-vowel fronting and backing are the result of featural affixation (see Akinlabi 1996). In Fungwa (Niger-Congo; Nigeria), the featural affixes are a diminutive morpheme with a [−back] feature and an augmentative morpheme with a [+back] feature as their phonetic exponents. The realization of the featural affixes on the root morpheme causes the root-vowel mutations. | Samuel Akinbo, 2021
    ○ This analysis adds to a growing body of work on featural affixes (McCarthy 1983, Lieber 1987, Wiese 1994/1996, Akinlabi 1996, Wolf 2007, Trommer 2012, etc.), showing that this is a viable and not uncommon phenomenon cross-linguistically. | Laura McPherson, 2017
    ○ Underlying free (floating) features occur crosslinguistically. These features sometime function as morphemes. Such features, like segmental morphemes, often refer to specific edges of the stem, hence they are "featural affixes". They get associated with the base to be prosodically licensed. | Akinbiyi Akinlabi, 1996

FEATURAL NON-DISTINCTNESS

1. (Syntax) We propose that the identification requirement on ellipsis is satisfied by "featural non-distinctness", as opposed to featural identity, an idea whose roots are found in Chomsky (1965). [I.e.,] the identification requirement on ellipsis is satisfied by featural non-distinctness, as opposed to strict identity.
    Our analysis proposes that mismatches at any level that violate featural non-distinctness are banned, whereas mismatches at any level that satisfy featural non-distinctness are allowed. | Rodrigo Ranero, 2023
2. (Syntax) To account for Kaqchikel mismatches, Ranero (2019, 2021) proposes a modified syntactic identity condition, seen in (1), which evaluates featural non-distinctness rather than true identity. He argues that Agent Focus morphology in Kaqchikel actually realizes the absence of Voice⁰, which is considered non-distinct from a Voice head in the antecedent.
   1. Syntactic identity condition (Ranero 2019, 2021)
      Antecedent and material properly contained within the ellipsis site must be featurally non-distinct.
    Under this view, syntactic identity only rules out heads which are present in both clauses but with distinct featural specifications—for instance, active and passive voice in English. However, if a head is present in one clause but absent in another, syntactic identity is satisfied because the two clauses are non-distinct. This allows Agent Focus clauses, which have no Voice⁰ head, to co-occur with any other Voice specification, while ruling out combinations of featurally-specified voices like antipassive and active. | Emily Drummond, 2021

FEATURAL RELATIVIZED MINIMALITY

1. (Syntax) According to fRM, the local relation between an extracted element and its trace is disrupted when it crosses an intervening element whose morphosyntactic featural specification matches the specification of the elements it separates. | Sandra Villata, Luigi Rizzi and Julie Franck, 2016
2. (Syntax) Friedmann, Belletti and Rizzi (2009) and Villata, Rizzi and Franck (2016) advance "featural Relativized Minimality" (1), which incorporates revisions to the original Relativized Minimality (RM) proposal put forward by Rizzi (1990).
   1. featural Relativized Minimality
      In a configuration X ... Z ... Y ..., a local relation between X and Y is disrupted when:
      1. Z structurally intervenes between X and Y (i.e., Z c-commands Y and Z does not c-command X).
      2. Z matches the specification in morphosyntactic features of X.
    RM (including featural RM) is a syntactic locality principle, governing the behaviour of various kinds of dependencies, including the A' dependencies involved in relative clauses. A dependency relationship must be established between the relative head (=X) and the position (the gap) from which movement has taken place or where the head is interpreted (=Y), in other words, the subject or object position, depending on the type of relative clause. A local dependency can be disrupted by intervening material, the disruption being worse if the intervenor shares certain kinds of features with the elements that it intervenes between. | Vera Yunxiao Xia, Lydia White, Natália Brambatti Guzzo, 2020

FEATURAL SPECIFICATIONS
(Phonology) For example, the featural specification of vowels in Bondu-so (Dogon; Mali):

	V-Place		V-Manner
	[dorsal]	[closed]	[open]	[ATR]
/i/		✓		✓
/ɪ/		✓
/u/	✓	✓		✓
/ʊ/	✓	✓
/e/		✓	✓	✓
/ɛ/		✓	✓
/o/	✓	✓	✓	✓
/ɔ/	✓	✓	✓
/a̘/	✓		✓	✓
/a/	✓		✓

FEATURE BLINDNESS
(General) A deficit in marking a specific class of linguistic features. | M. Gopnik, 1990

FEATURE CHECKING
(Syntax) Notion in checking theory. Feature checking is a relation between two elements such that one or more designated features they share are eliminated. Example:

1. who did you see

2. *you saw who

FEATURE GEOMETRY

1. (Phonology) This theory, in its simplest and most general form, characterizes segment-internal feature structure in terms of a feature tree whose terminal nodes are features, whose intermediate nodes are feature classes, and whose root node groups all features defining the segment. The principle objective of this approach is to provide a formal characterization of the class of possible phonological processes. | G.N. Clements, 2006
2. (Phonology) A fundamental problem in phonological theory is the fact that processes often operate on consistent subsets of the distinctive features within a segment, like the features that characterize place of articulation. Recent research has responded to this problem by proposing a hierarchical organization of the features into functionally related classes, grouped under nodes of a tree structure. | J.J. McCarthy, 1988

FEATURE INHERITANCE

1. (Syntax) Chomsky (2008) proposes a reinterpretation of the relation between the functional heads C and T: the Agree (φ-) and Tense features associated with the inflectional system are not an inherent property of T; instead, they belong to the phase head C. Traditional subject agreement and EPP (Extended Projection Principle) effects associated with T (A-movement of the formal subject to Spec,T, expletives, etc.) then arise via a mechanism of feature inheritance, whereby uninterpretable features are passed down from the phase head to its complement. It follows that T lacks uninterpretable features unless it is selected by C. That is, T is no longer a probe in its own right; it cannot initiate operations directly or independently of C.
    Clearly, in this way, feature inheritance captures the long-standing observation that raising/ECM (exceptional Case marking)-infinitival T, which lacks C, also lacks φ-features (failing to value Case on DP) and independent tense (see Chomsky 2000, 2004, 2005). However, where the previous system had to stipulate this connection by means of a selectional restriction (C selects φ-complete T; V selects φ-defective T), the feature inheritance model offers an arguably more explanatory account of T's featural dependence on C: the features are simply C's, not T's. This, in turn, allows a uniform characterization of phase heads (C, v*) as the locus of uninterpretable features, as is desirable on computational grounds. | Marc D. Richards, 2007
2. (Syntax) Recent minimalist reinterpretation of the C-T dependency: T does not enter the derivation with an own set of inflectional features; rather, T inherits its feature content (φ- and Tense-features) from the phase head C before agreement with the subject is established (Chomsky 2004, 2008 and subsequent work). | Eric Fuß, 2012
3. (Example)
    ○ Feature Inheritance (FI) of Chomsky (2008) is clearly an instance of feature splitting, as illustrated in (1).
   1.  [_CP
       
       
       

      C
      [φ]
      ↓__
      FI

      [_TP
       
      ____
       

      T
      [φ]
      _↑ ↓_
       

      [_vP
       
      ____
      Agree

      ...
       
      ____
       

      DP
       
      _↑
       

      ...
      
      
      

      ] ] ]
      
      
      
   
    | Brian Agbayani and Masao Ochi, 2020

FEATURE MATRIX

1. (General; Semantics) A set of features that characterizes a given set of linguistic units with respect to a finite set of properties. In lexical semantics, feature matrices can be used to determine the meaning of specific word fields.

   	[male]	[adult]
   man	+	+
   woman	−	+
   boy	+	−
   girl	−	−

    | Glottopedia, 2009
2. (Morphosyntax) The alternative proposal presented in this paper is to represent complex grammatical categories as feature matrices. This solution is inspired by "distinctive features" in phonology that are used for classifying sounds in terms of binary values such as [voiced +] for /d/ and [voiced −] for /t/. We can easily extrapolate this idea to grammar and treat grammatical paradigms in terms of relevant distinctions.
    How can we capture relevant distinctions for German case? Assume that case is not a feature with a single value, but an array of the case paradigm of that language. Each case is explicitly represented as a feature whose value can be "+" or "−", or left unspecified through a variable (indicated by a question mark).

   The feature matrix for German case

   Case	S-M	S-F	S-N	PL
   ?NOM	?nom-s-m	?nom-s-f	?nom-s-n	?nom-pl
   ?ACC	?acc-s-m	?acc-s-f	?acc-s-n	?acc-pl
   ?DAT	?dat-s-m	?dat-s-f	?dat-s-n	?dat-pl
   ?GEN	?gen-s-m	?gen-s-f	?gen-s-n	?gen-pl

    Each cell in this matrix represents a specific feature bundle that combines the features case, number, and person. For example, the variable ?nom-s-m stands for 'nominative singular masculine'. Since plural forms do not mark differences in gender, only one plural cell is included for each case. Note that also the cases themselves have their own variable (?nom, ?acc, ?dat and ?gen). This column allows us to single out a specific dimension of the matrix for constructions that only care about case distinctions but abstract away from gender or number. Moreover, this additional column of variables captures crucial correlations between the various alternatives of case-gender-number assignment. | Remi van Trijp, 2011
3. (Phonology) The complete set of specified features of a sound segment. | Utrecht Lexicon of Linguistics, 2001
4. (Examples)
    ○ The table below shows features for a subset of Shilluk (Western Nilotic; Sudan, South Sudan) consonants.

   Shilluk
   PanPhon Feature Matrix (Mortensen et al. 2016)

   	[PLACE]	[SON]	[CONT]	[NAS]	[DENT]	[VOI]
   /p/	LAB	−	−	−	−	−
   /m/	LAB	+	−	+	−	+
   /t/	COR	−	−	−	−	−
   /d/	COR	−	−	−	−	+
   /n/	COR	+	−	+	+	+
   /d/	COR	−	−	−	−	+
   /t̪/	COR	−	−	−	+	−
   /d̪/	COR	−	−	−	+	+
   /n̪/	COR	+	−	+	+	+
   /l/	COR	+	+	−	−	+

    | Lydia Quevedo and Kate Mooney, 2025
    ○ The paper focuses on the different functions of the Hijazi Arabic (HA) maa and contributes to the HA literature by describing these different functions and claiming that they are not instances of homonymy, but of multifunctionality. Those different functions are governed by the different syntactic environments that maa occurs in. Its occurrence in multiple syntactic environments suggests that maa has a feature matrix that includes its morphosyntactic features and their specifications that express the appropriate use and interpretation of a given structure. | Mohammad Ali Al Zahrani, 2020
    ○ Consider the normal interpretation of a two-dimensional feature matrix such as the following:

   	p	i	n
   syllabic	−	+	−
   sonorant	−	+	+
   continuant	−	+	−
   high	−	−	−
   back	−	−	−
   voiced	−	+	+
   ⋮	⋮	⋮	⋮

    Each phoneme in this matrix is defined by the set of feature values occurring in its column. More exactly, in the conception of Chomsky and Halle (1968), a feature column is a function assigning a certain entity, a phoneme, to a set of phonetic categories which determine its physical properties. | G.N. Clements, 1985

FEATURE MOVEMENT
(Examples)
 ○ According to Roberts and Roussou (2003), the process of grammaticalization is technically based on head movement. Since functional heads are bundles of features or maybe a single feature, I suggest that grammaticalization can arise via feature movement as well. | Ivona Kučerová, 2023
 ○ Inflectional features must be licensed on a V by Feature Transmission, i.e. feature movement. | Karlos Arregi and Peter Klecha, 2014
 ○ Another option could be that the [DEF] feature moves to right-adjoin directly to the AP. However, this is not a valid movement for features under the classical formulation of feature movement in Chomsky 1995. | Ruth Kramer, 2010
 ○ Under Cheng's (2000) analysis, the wh-feature first moves into the embedded CP, and this triggers pied-piping of the category. The wh-feature then moves on to the matrix CP where it is spelled out. This subsequent feature movement leaves the wh-phrase behind in the embedded CP. Given such an analysis, the existence of "partial" wh-movement, like the behavior of English wh-subjects, suggests that feature movement may indeed apply and that it may apply independently of category pied-piping in overt syntax. | Brian Agbayani, 2006
 ○ There are arguments that binding relations cannot be established via feature movement in LF (see Lasnik and Uriagereka 2005). | Dorian Roehrs, 2006
 ○ When the subject is a common-noun phrase, on the other hand, checking is postponed until LF and the finite verb will be perfectly capable of having its formal features checked against the wh phrase in SpecCP, after feature movement to C. | Marcel den Dikken, 2000
 ○ The account of long-distance binding in Russian in this work is not logophoric but syntactic. It is based on the head movement framework, but I modify this framework and implement it in the Minimalist framework. I consider reflexive movement as [+R] feature movement: the [+R] feature of the reflexive moves to the T whose specifier is the reflexive's antecedent. | Elena Leonidonna Rudnitskaya, 2000 
 ○ Chomsky (1995) proposes that all movement is in essence feature movement. | Man-Ki Lee, 1996

FEATURE RETRIEVAL COST
(Psycholinguistics) To predict processing difficulties at retrieval, we associate a cost to the memory buffer access: this cost grows exponentially with respect to the number of items stored (m), linearly with respect to the number of new features to be retrieved from memory (nF), and it is mitigated (linearly, again) by the number of distinct cued features (dF) by x (the region where retrieval is requested, e.g. the verbal predicate). This is the core of the "Feature Retrieval Cost" (FRC) function:

Feature Retrieval Cost (FRC)
FRC(x) = Πⁿ_i=1 (1 + nFi)^m_i / (1 + dFi)

FEATURE SPLITTING

1. (Syntax) I propose allowing for feature-splitting, in the spirit of Saito 2001/2003, whereby only the formal features attracted by a particular head move (or are retained, under a copy theory), the others remain behind (or are deleted, under a copy theory). | John Frederick Bailyn, 2003
2. (Examples)
    ○ Feature Splitting under External Merge makes interesting predictions for Parasitic Gap constructions. | Brian Agbayani and Masao Ochi, 2022
    ○ The growth of causative structures in child language suggests that an operation of Feature-splitting must exist. | Thomas Roeper, 1999

FEATURE-SPLITTING INTERNAL MERGE

1. (Syntax) One may wonder how to derive sentences with object wh-movement like What did you buy t?. In this case, vP is of the form

   [_γ v [_β t′_IA [_α R_[uPhi] t_IA]]]

   where what involving [vPhi] is escaped from Spec-R, and hence the uPhi on R cannot participate in feature-sharing with vPhi on the IA. This problem may be solved by the feature-splitting Internal Merge proposed by Obata and Epstein (2008), although it remains unclear whether it is compatible with the present framework by Chomsky (2013, 2015, 2020), where feature-driven IM is dispensed with. According to Obata and Epstein, a copy of a wh-phrase in an A-position involves uCase and vPhi but lacks an interrogative feature Q, whereas the one in an A′-position has Q but lacks uCase and vPhi. Given this, What did you buy t? is structured like

   [what_[Q] C ... [_γ what v [_β what_{[vPhi][uCase]} [_α R_[uPhi] what]]]]

   where the lower copy of what in Spec-R involves vPhi and uCase. Given this, the lower copy of what participates in feature-sharing with R, thereby identifying β as TD. | Takanori Nakashima, 2020
2. (Syntax) I propose Feature-Splitting Internal Merge, where features on a single element are split into two landing sites, which enables valued [uCase] not to appear at a phase edge, but rather it is split off to a non-edge landing site inside the phasal domain. One of the direct consequences obtained from the proposed mechanism is to explain improper movement phenomena, which has been a longstanding problem since Chomsky (1973) discovered it. Under the feature-splitting system, improper movement is ruled out by causing featural crash. In addition, this system implies a new way to define two types of syntactic positions—A/A′-positions. | Miki Obata, 2010
3. (Syntax) Chomsky (2007, 2008) proposes a feature inheritance mechanism, by which T and V do not inherently bear φ-features but rather inherit those features from C and v, respectively. Under this system, C and T (similarly, v and V) serve as probes simultaneously, which enables him to explain suppression of the subject condition. Feature-splitting Internal Merge, which is proposed in Obata and Epstein (2008, 2011), is a new mechanism for structure building evoked in such a context whereby a bundle of features on a single goal/element is split into two landing sites as a consequence of simultaneous application of Internal Merge triggered by C and T (and also by v and V). Given this mechanism, when T and C simultaneously attract a subject DP, T attracts only the features which it agreed with and C attracts the rest. That is, a copy moved to the edge of CP does not bear features which are involved in Agree by T, namely φ-features and Case-features. This system rules out so-called improper movement phenomena as featural crash. According to the proposed mechanism, improper movement (i.e. long-distance A-movement via an A′-edge, first discussed in Chomsky (1973)) induces crash because whenever a moving element reaches an A′-position it must necessarily (and simultaneously) φ-agree with the local T; therefore any element which has moved into an A′-position will be unable to value φ-features on a higher, probing T.
    One of the consequences of the proposed feature-splitting system is that the A/A′-distinction may be defined solely based on features, and not positions in a phrase structure tree. | Miki Obata, 2012
4. (Example)
    ○ We claim that improper movement is excluded by virtue of Agree failure between a moving element and a finite T as a consequence of "feature-splitting" Internal Merge. We propose feature splitting as the most (or at least a very) natural implementation of Chomsky's φ-feature-inheritance system and Richards's (2007) value-transfer simultaneity. | Miki Obata and Samuel David Epstein, 2011

FEEDING
(Syntax) The relation between rules which are ordered in such a way that the application of the earlier rule enlarges the set of forms that the later will apply to. | Concise Oxford Dictionary of Linguistics, 2003

FELICITOUS

1. (Pragmatics) Semantically and pragmatically coherent, fitting in the context.
   1. This sentence is grammatical, it is just not felicitous.
    | Wiktionary, 2023
2. (Pragmatics) While "constantive" utterances can be true or false, performative utterances can work or not work. Austin talked about this in terms of being happy: a performative can be happy or unhappy. A performative is happy, or "felicitous", if it does what it was meant to do. If it doesn't do what it was meant to do, it is unhappy, or infelicitous.
    There are many conditions that need to hold for a performative to work (i.e., to be felicitous).
   • The people involved need to be the ones who have the right or authority to do the thing (as as in ship namings or marriage pronouncements).
   • Some ritual, procedure, or convention associated with that performative needs to exist (e.g. I punish thee!), etc.
    Austin spends a lot of time describing and categorizing these felicity conditions, although we don't need to concern ourselves too much with the details here; the point is just that it often makes more sense to talk about whether a performative is felicitous (i.e., whether or not the conditions are met for the performative to do what it is supposed to do) than whether it is true. | Stephen Politzer-Ahles, 2022

FELICITY CONDITIONS
(Pragmatics) Several types of conditions, including the following (from English Language and Linguistics Online):

• Propositional content, which requires participants to understand language, not to act like actors.
• Preparatory, where the authority of the speaker and the circumstances of the speech act are appropriate to its being performed successfully.
• Sincerity, where the speech act is being performed seriously and sincerely.
• Essential, where the speaker intends that an utterance be acted upon by the addressee.

"Suppose I am in a play and deliver the line, I promise to kill the evil Don Fernando. I have not, in fact, promised to kill anyone. ... The speech act fails because, among other things, I must have a certain institutional authority for my words to have the appropriate illocutionary force. ... [The] speech act [also] fails because the words are uttered in a context where they are not used by the speaker, but in effect quoted from a text."

• He does not meet the propositional content condition: He is actually acting.
• He also does not meet the preparatory condition because he certainly does not have the authority to kill anyone.
• He doesn't meet the sincerity condition because he doesn't actually intend to kill anyone—as noted, he is only acting.
• And he doesn't meet the essential condition because he's not expecting that his words will be acted upon; in other words, he doesn't actually intend for someone else to kill Fernando.

FIGURATION

1. (Pragmatics) A superordinate term for metaphor, metonymy and other tropes. | Ionathan Charteris-Black, 2000
2. (Stylistics) Traditional approaches to the mechanisms of deference tend to regard "figuration" (and by extension, deference in general) as an essentially marked or playful use of language, which is associated with a pronounced stylistic effect. For linguistic purposes, however, there is no reason for assigning a special place to deferred uses that are stylistically notable—the sorts of usages that people sometimes qualify with a phrase like figuratively speaking. There is no important linguistic difference between using redcoat to refer to a British soldier and using suit to refer to a corporate executive (as in A couple of suits stopped by to talk about the new products). What creates the stylistic effect of the latter is not the mechanism that generates it, but the marked background assumptions that license it—here, the playful presupposition that certain executives are better classified by their attire than by their function. Those differences have an undoubted cultural interest, but they don't have any bearing on the more pedestrian question of how such usages arise in the first place. | Geoffrey Nunberg, 2002
3. (Cognitive; Diachronic) Refers to a meaning that is dependent on a figurative extension from another meaning.
    Figurative language has got an inherently second-order nature. Figurative expressions (such as it made my blood boil) can only be recognized as such because of their contrast with more literal expressions (as in it made me angry).
    From a diachronic perspective, figurative expressions are historically later than the corresponding conventional ones. As Croft and Cruse (2004) put it, metaphors have their own life-cycle that normally runs from a first coinage as an instance of semantic innovation (a novel metaphor requiring an interpretative strategy on the side of the language user) to a more commonplace metaphor (a conventional metaphor whose meaning has become well-established in the speakers' mental lexicon). Eventually, the literal meaning of an expression may fall out of use, interrupting its dependency relationship with the corresponding figurative meaning (a dead metaphor). | Javier A. Díaz-Vera, 2014

FILL

1. (Optimality Theory) We also need the counterpart of Prosodic Licensing that looks down from a given node to be sure that its immediate contents are appropriate. Let's call this family of constraints FILL, the idea being that every node must be filled properly; the idea dates back to Emonds 1970. In the case at hand, we are interested in syllable structure, and the constraint can be stated like this:

   FILL
   Syllable positions are filled with segmental material.

    The appropriate approach to epenthetic structure within OT involves this constraint. | Alan Prince and Paul Smolensky, 1993/2004
2. (Example)
    ○ There are reasons to doubt that all logically possible rankings of constraints are actually attested. As an example, the Faithfulness constraints (the PARSE and FILL families) have been highly ranked in fragments of OT grammars proposed to date. | Mark S. Hewitt and Megan J. Crowhurst, 2020
    ○ 
     DEP(voi) or FILL(voi): voi → voi
     "Voicing features appear on the surface only if they are also underlying."
   
    | Jason Eisner, 1997
    ○ The constraint implicated here is obviously ONSET. When morphemic combination brings together /V+V/, the heterosyllabic parse [V.V] produces an onsetless syllable. All such faithfully parsed candidates are sub-optimal; competing with them are unfaithful candidate forms, which satisfy ONSET by positing FILL violation (that is, the empty consonant □) or unparsed segments. Of these, PARSE violators—with phonetic loss of one or the other of the V's—are never found. Thus, PARSE is undominated and so unviolated. FILL-violation is the pattern seen.
    The appearance of □ satisfies the requirement that syllables have onsets. This means that ONSET dominates FILL in the constraint ranking, as the following tableau shows:

   ONSET ≫ FILL, from /iN-koma-i/

   Candidates	ONSET	FILL
   ☞ .iŋ.ko.ma.□i.	*	*
   .iŋ.ko.ma.i.	**!

    | John J. McCarthy and Alan Prince, 1993/2004

FILTER
(Grammar) A rule, principle, etc., formulated as an output condition on structures at some level of representation. "Filters" may be very specific or very general. | Concise Oxford Dictionary of Linguistics, 2003

Page Last Modified November 10, 2025

 

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