Sank's Glossary of Linguistics
Mer-Mn |
MEREOLOGY
(Philosophy, Mathematical Logic) From the Greek μέρος, root: μερε(σ)-, 'part' and the suffix -logy 'study, discussion, science'. The study of parts and the wholes they form. Whereas set theory is founded on the membership relation between a set and its elements, mereology emphasizes the meronomic relation between entities, which—from a set-theoretic perspective—is closer to the concept of inclusion between sets.
Mereology has been explored in various ways as applications of predicate logic to formal ontology, in each of which mereology is an important part. Each of these fields provides its own axiomatic definition of mereology. A common element of such axiomatizations is the assumption, shared with inclusion, that the part-whole relation orders its universe, meaning that everything is a part of itself (reflexivity), that a part of a part of a whole is itself a part of that whole (transitivity), and that two distinct entities cannot each be a part of the other (antisymmetry), thus forming a poset. A variant of this axiomatization denies that anything is ever part of itself (irreflexivity) while accepting transitivity, from which antisymmetry follows automatically.
Although mereology is an application of mathematical logic, what could be argued to be a sort of "proto-geometry", it has been wholly developed by logicians, ontologists, linguists, engineers, and computer scientists, especially those working in artificial intelligence. | Wikipedia, 2023
MERGE
(Syntax) Usually capitalized. One of the basic operations in the Minimalist Program, a leading approach to generative syntax, when two syntactic objects are combined to form a new syntactic unit (a set). Merge also has the property of recursion in that it may apply to its own output: the objects combined by Merge are either lexical items or sets that were themselves formed by Merge. This recursive property of Merge has been claimed to be a fundamental characteristic that distinguishes language from other cognitive faculties. As Noam Chomsky (1999) puts it, Merge is "an indispensable operation of a recursive system ... which takes two syntactic objects A and B and forms the new object G={A,B}." | Wikipedia, 2022
MERGE, PAIR- and SET-
(Syntax) Two primitive structure-building operations have been proposed by Chomsky (2000, 2004) to capture argument-adjunct asymmetries: "Set-Merge" and "Pair-Merge". They roughly correspond to Substitution and Adjunction, respectively, in Government and Binding theory (May 1985; Chomsky 1986) and early Minimalist Program (Chomsky 1995). To be more concrete, taking two Syntactic Objects (SOs), Set-Merge generates simple unordered sets, while Pair-Merge yields ordered pairs:
MERGER
(Sociolinguistics) In a simple model of sound change, there are two possible events: splits and mergers. A merger takes two existing categories and merges them; all their tokens now belong to one category. | Ollie Sayeed, 2022
METAPHONY
METAPHRASE
Or, structural translation. It differs from any other kind of translation, because its practical purpose is the understanding and transposition of structural meaning and not of total meaning as commonly understood. If the process of understanding resembles a journey at the beginning of which the traveler is surrounded by totally un-understood form and at the end of which he arrives at a total understanding in which form is only stylistically important if at all, then structural translation most definitely takes him only part of the way. To wonder how far is as fascinating an occupation as to consider where exactly form becomes meaning. | Gerda M. Seligson, 1960
METATHESIS
METRICAL HEAD
(Prosody) In every foot, there must be an element which is more prominent, i.e. the metrical head of the foot. | K. Arregui-Urbina, 2002
MIDDLE FIELD
(Syntax) While a sentence in the canonical SVO order such as (1) is used in a neutral, all-new information context (for example as a response to the question what happened?), two main areas of the clause, which I will refer to as the left periphery and the "middle field", can host elements with non-neutral
interpretation in discourse. The sentences in (2b) and (2c) respectively illustrate cases where the left periphery and the middle field host a displaced PP, namely do Chomsky 'by Chomsky', which refers back to a salient referent in the question in (2a) and is interpreted as a topic.
MINIMAL GOVERNING CATEGORY
(Syntax) Implementation of the notion binding domain, proposed in Chomsky (1981). The MGC of α is defined as the minimal XP (maximal projection) that contains α, a subject accessible to α, and the governor of α.
In (1), the MGC of the anaphor each other is the embedded IP, since it contains each other, the accessible subject the men, and the governor like. Hence, each other must be bound within this IP in compliance with condition A of the binding theory, and may not be coindexed with the girls, which is not contained in its MGC.
MINIMAL LINK CONDITION
(Syntax) Or, Shortest Link, or, Shortest Move. The MLC states that derivations with shorter links are preferred over derivations with longer links. In the Minimalist Program, the MLC accounts for superiority condition effects, wh-islands, and super raising. In chapter 4 of the Minimalist Program, the MLC is incorporated into the definition of Attract. | Utrecht Lexicon of Linguistics, 2001
MINIMAL SEARCH
MINIMALISM
(General) Roughly speaking, a quest for parsimony in theoretical axioms and methodological tools as well as the trimming down of a theoretical framework, not any particular version of linguistic theory (Chomsky 1998). | Phoevos Panagiotidis, 2002
MIRATIVITY
(Grammar) Initially proposed by Scott DeLancey, a category, independent of evidentiality, that encodes the speaker's surprise or the unpreparedness of their mind. Grammatical elements that encode the semantic category of mirativity are called miratives (abbreviated MIR) (DeLancey 1997, T. Peterson 2016).
DeLancey (1997) first promoted the mirative as a cross-linguistic category, identifying Turkish, Hare, Sunwar, Lhasa Tibetan, and Korean as languages exhibiting this category. Citing DeLancey as a predecessor, many researchers have reported miratives in other languages, especially Tibeto-Burman languages. However, Lazard (1999) and Hill (2012) question the validity of this category.
Albanian has a series of verb forms called miratives or admiratives. These may express surprise on the part of the speaker, but may also have other functions, such as expressing irony, doubt, or reportedness (Freedman 1986). They may therefore sometimes be translated using the English apparently. | Wikipedia, 2021
MIRROR ALIGNMENT PRINCIPLE
(Optimality Theory)
Mirror Alignment PrincipleThis generates Mirror Principle ordering.
If a terminal node α asymmetrically c-commands a terminal node β, then the alignment constraint referencing α dominates the alignment constraint referencing β.
Shorthand: If α c-commands β → ALIGN-α ≫ ALIGN-β
MIRROR PRINCIPLE
MIXED EFFECTS MODEL
(Statistics) Or, mixed model, or mixed error-component model. A statistical model containing both fixed effects and random effects (Baltagi 2008, Gomes 2022). These models are useful in a wide variety of disciplines in the physical, biological and social sciences. They are particularly useful in settings where repeated measurements are made on the same statistical units (longitudinal study), or where measurements are made on clusters of related statistical units (Gomes 2022). Because of their advantage in dealing with missing values, mixed effects models are often preferred over more traditional approaches such as repeated measures analysis of variance. | Wikipedia, 2022
MIXED EXPRESSIVE CONTENT
(Semantics) Conveys both expressive and truth-conditional meaning. | ?
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