Sank's Glossary of Linguistics 
Regr-Rem

REGRESSIVE ASSIMILATION

  1. (Phonology) Or, anticipatory assimilation, or, right-to-left assimilation. An assimilation in which the sound that undergoes the change (the target) comes earlier in the word than the trigger of assimilation, in other words the change operates backwards: Latin septem 'seven' > Italian sette. In case of progressive assimilation the trigger comes before the target so that the assimilation operates forwards: Proto-Germantic *wulno 'wool' > Old English wull. In rare cases of reciprocal assimilation there is a mutual influence between the two sounds. | Glottopedia, 2014
  2. (Phonology) In case of anticipatory assimilation, some properties of the sound form of the next word are present in advance, i.e. before that next word. That is, the assimilated word contains phonetic cues about the subsequent word. (The artificial mis-match between these phonetic cues and the subsequent word would presumably surprise listeners, thus slowing down responses to the first word.) In the case of complete assimilation in lea[m] bacon, the realization of the first word indicates that the second word begins with a bilabial. Even in the case of partial assimilation, a realization as [linw] would indicate the same. Hence, some properties of the second word may be anticipated, on the basis of phonetic assimilatory cues. Our hypothesis is that such advance information, resulting from anticipatory assimilation, facilitates recognition of the second word.
     This hypothesis was investigated in Dutch, where Regressive Voice Assimilation (RVA) provides a relevant assimilation process. In Dutch, obstruents in coda position are always devoiced. Hence, if two adjacent plosives differ with respect to phonological voicing, then their phonological pattern is always Unvoiced-Voiced (and never V-U), as in zak+doek, op+drinken, riet blazen, sleep dragen. In these contexts, anticipatory assimilation of voice (RVA) changes the voicing feature of the first, coda consonant, yielding za[g]doek, o[b]drinken, rie[d] blazen, slee[b] dragen. Hence, voicing in the final plosive of riet can only be caused by the voicing of the following initial plosive of blazen. This anticipatory information about the voiced onset of the second word may facilitate perception of that word. | Hugo Quené, Maya van Rossum, and Mieke van Wijck, 1998

REGULAR PHONOLOGICAL PATTERNS
(Phonology) Computational analysis reveals a restrictive, universal property of phonological patterns: they are regular. What are regular patterns? A definition is given in (1).

  1. A pattern is regular if and only if (iff) it is possible to partition the set of logically possible words into finitely many blocks such that
    1. all words in any block either obey the pattern or all do not, and
    2. for any block, if it contains words w1 and w2 then, for all words v, there is a block which contains both w1v and w2v.
 | Jeffrey Heinz, 2010

REGULARIZATION
(Language Acquisition, Language Development, Language Change) A phenomenon typified by the replacement of irregular forms in morphology or syntax by regular ones. Examples are gooses instead of geese in child speech and replacement of the Middle English plural form for cow, kine, with cows. Regularization is a common process in natural languages; regularized forms can replace loanword forms (such as with cows and kine) or coexist with them (such as with formulae and formulas or hepatitides and hepatitises). | Wikipedia, 2022

RELATIONAL NOUN
(Syntax) Or, relator noun. A class of words, used in many languages, which are characterized as functioning syntactically as nouns, although they convey the meaning for which other languages use adpositions (i.e. prepositions and postpositions). In Mesoamerica, the use of relational nouns constitutes an areal feature of the Mesoamerican Linguistic Area, including the Mayan languages, Mixe-Zoquean languages, and Oto-Manguean languages (Campbell, Kaufman, and Stark 1986). Relational nouns are also widespread in South-East Asia (e.g. Vietnamese, Thai), East Asia (e.g. Mandarin Chinese, Japanese, Tibetan), Central Asia (e.g. the Turkic languages), the Munda languages of South Asia (e.g. Sora), and in Micronesian languages.
 A relational noun is grammatically speaking a simple noun, but because its meaning describes a spatial or temporal relation rather than a "thing", it describes location, movement, and other relations just as prepositions do in the languages that have them. When used the noun is owned by another noun and describes a relation between its owner and a third noun. For example, one could say the cup is the table its-surface, where its-surface is a relational noun denoting the position of something standing on a flat surface.

  1. Classical Nahuatl
    Ca
    Be
    Ī-pan
    its-on
    petlatl
    mat
    in
    the
    mistōn
    cat
    'The cat is on the mat.'
  2. Japanese
    Neko
    Cat
    wa
    TOP
    mushiro
    mat
    no
    's
    ue
    top/above
    ni
    [CASE.MARKER]
    neteiru
    sleeps/lies
    'The cat is sleeping on top of the mat.'
  3. Mandarin Chinese

    She
    zài
    be.at
    fángzi
    house
    lĭtou
    interior
    'She is in the house.'
  4. Turkish
    Otel-in
    Hotel-'s
    ön-ün-de
    front-its-at
    bir
    one
    araba
    car
    var
    existent
    'There is a car in front of the hotel.'
 Often relational nouns will be derived from, or related in meaning to, words for bodyparts, so that for example to say inside one will say its stomach or to say on top of one will say its back. | Wikipedia, 2023

RELATIVIZED MINIMALITY

  1. (Syntax) Recall that the Head Movement Constraint demands that heads do not move over the top of other heads. It appears that the restriction on subject movement is that it cannot cross over the top of another subject. A general way to express both these restrictions is to claim that a moving element cannot move over the top of a like element. This principle, known as Relativized Minimality, was introduced by Rizzi (1990) as a way of accounting for locality conditions on movement. | Mark Newson et al., 2004
  2. (Syntax) In order to express the effect precisely, I will adopt the following principle (a simplification and updating of RM in Rizzi 1990):
    1. Y is in a Minimal Configuration (MC) with X iff there is no Z such that
      a. Z is of the same structural type as X, and
      b. Z intervenes between X and Y
     | Luigi Rizzi, 2001
  3. (Syntax) Rizzi (1987) proposes that the antecedent government of traces is subject to a relativized minimality condition. At an intuitive level, his idea is that the closest element that is both categorially and positionally appropriate to be the antecedent of a trace must be the actual antecedent of that trace. Thus, if Z is an appropriate antecedent t in the abstract structure in (1), then the indexing in (1a) will be grammatical, but the indexing in (1b) will not be. If, on the other hand, Z is inappropriate as an antecedent for t, the indexing in (1a) will be bad, but the indexing in (1b) will potentially be good.
    1. a. [ ... X ... [ ... Zi ... [ ... ti ...] ] ]
      b. [ ... Xi ... [ ... Zk ... [ ... ti ... ] ] ], where ki
     Rizzi builds this into the Empty Category Principle with the following definitions (recast somewhat):
    1. Antecedent Government
      X antecedent-governs Y if and only if
      a. X and Y are coindexed
      b. X c-commands Y
      c. No barrier intervenes (see Chomsky 1986)
      d. For all categories Z, if Z is a potential antedecent governor for Y, then Z c-commands X.
     (2d) is the Relativized Minimality Condition. | Mark Baker and Kenneth Hale, 1990

RELATIVIZER
(Grammar) Abbreviated REL. A type of conjunction that introduces a relative clause (Schacter 1985). For example, in English, the conjunction that may be considered a relativizer in a sentence such as I have one that you can use (Fox and Thompson 2007).
 Relativizers do not appear, at least overtly, in all languages. Even in languages that do have overt or pronounced relativizers, they do not necessarily appear all of the time (Kordić 1999). For these reasons it has been suggested that in some cases, a zero relativizer may be present, meaning that a relativizer is implied in the grammar but is not actually realized in speech or writing (Fox and Thompson 2007). For example, the word that can be omitted in the above English example, producing I have one you can use, using (on this analysis) a zero relativizer. | Wikipedia, 2023

RELEVANCE THEORY

  1. (Cognitive Linguistics) An attempt to provide a psychologically realistic, explicit account of communication. It makes foundational claims about both cognition in general and utterance and how they are processed in particular. The former is the cognitive principle of relevance: cognition tends to seek maximal relevance, where an input to a cognitive process is more relevant the more positive effects it has on the mind's representations of the world and less relevant the greater is the effort required to derive them. Although on this view we have a tendency to seek the greatest possible pay-off for the least possible effort, there is no general guarantee that an input to a cognitive process will be relevant. However, communication is special. Speakers want to be understood and therefore tailor their utterances to their audience. Relevance theory claims that this raises a defeasible expectation that the utterance will be optimally relevant, i.e. that it is both relevant enough to be worth processing and as relevant as the speaker is willing to make it. (This is the communicative principle of relevance.) It further claims that this mandates the relevance-theoretic comprehension heuristic: a fast and frugal procedure dedicated to processing utterances.
     Relevance theory claims that what a speaker communicates falls into two classes: explicatures, i.e. propositions which are developments of the logical form of the sentence uttered, and other propositions conveyed, which are implicatures. A further fundamental assumption of relevance theory is that linguistically encoded meaning radically underdetermines the content that a speaker intends to convey. | Nicholas Allott, 2013
  2. (Pragmatics, Cognitive Linguistics) A framework for understanding the interpretation of utterances. It was first proposed by Dan Sperber and Deirdre Wilson (see e.g. 1986, 2006). The theory was originally inspired by the work of Paul Grice and developed out of his ideas but has since become a pragmatic framework in its own right. The seminal book, Relevance, was first published in 1986 and revised in 1995.
     The theory takes its name from the principle that "every utterance conveys the information that it is relevant enough for it to be worth the addressee's effort to process it", that is, if I say something to you, you can safely assume that I believe that the conveyed information is worth your effort to listen to and comprehend it; and also that it is "the most relevant one compatible with the communicator's abilities and preferences", that is, I tried to make the utterance as easy to understand as possible, given its information content and my communicative skills.
     Other key ingredients of relevance theory are that utterances are ostensive (they draw their addressees' attention to the fact that the communicator wants to convey some information) and inferential (the addressee has to infer what the communicator wanted to convey, based on the utterance's "literal meaning" along with the addressee's real-world knowledge, sensory input, and other information). | Wikipedia, 2023

REMNANT
(Syntax) A constituent out of which something has been moved. | Utrecht Lexicon of Linguistics, 2001

 

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