Hello everyone,
Seeing as I'm in a benevolent mood, I've decided to post the metalanguage definitions I had to compile in the holidays before I started the 3/4. I'd recommend that you all do your own lists and find your own examples - you'll absorb a lot more - but feel free to use this as one of your resources. The examples aren't very original, so I'd definitely stress the importance of making your own list. You'll learn a LOT more, and it'll pay off.
Phoneme: A unit of sound.
The IPA: The International Phonetic Alphabet; a tool used by linguists to notate speech sounds.
Diphthongs: A vowel where there is a single, noticeable change in the quality during a syllable. It’s probably easier to consider a diphthong a vowel containing two vowels.
Pitch: The pitch of speech refers to the frequency of the sound emitted by the speaker (in other words, how high or low the speech is).
Intonation: Variations in pitch that occur in speech. Intonation is a main prosodic feature and can be used to determine the background and intention of a speaker.
The HRT or High Rising Tone: A rise in pitch that occurs at the end of a declarative sentence; particularly prevalent in Australian English among female youths.
Morpheme: The smallest possible unit of meaning.
Affix: A bound morpheme attached to a stem to create a new word. Affixes are usually suffixes and prefixes.
Suffix: An affix (bound morpheme) added to the end of a stem to create a new word.
Eg. “-ed”, “-ing”, “-ness”
Prefix: An affix (bound morpheme) added to the start of a stem to create a new word.
Eg. “un-“, “de-“, “re-“
Free Morpheme: A morpheme that can stand on its own as a word.
Eg. Stalk, bury, love
Bound Morpheme: A morpheme that cannot stand on its own as a word. Bound morphemes must be attached to a stem.
Word Stem/Root: A free morpheme; represents the core of the word.
Derivational Morpheme: Derived from and add new meaning to words. When a derivational affix is added to a stem it creates a new word and usually changes the class of the word.
Eg. Happy -> Happiness (the suffix ‘ness’ changes the class of the word from an adjective to a noun)
Garden -> Gardening (the suffix ‘ing’ changes the class of the word from a noun to a verb)
Inflectional Morpheme: A morpheme that adds extra grammatical information
Eg: -‘ed’
- ‘s’
- ‘ing’
Open Class Words: Classes of words that readily accept new members.
Examples of open classes of words include adjectives, adverbs, verbs and nouns.
Closed Class Words: Classes of words that do not readily accept new members. Closed class words are often the grammatical elements of sentences.
Examples of closed classes of words include prepositions, modals, auxiliaries, conjunctions, determiners and pronouns.
Conjunctions: Conjunctions are function words that join words, phrases or clauses. Conjunctions like ‘when’, ‘although’ and ‘if’ typically join clauses that are subordinate (not equal) in importance, whereas conjunctions like ‘and’ and ‘but’ join coordinate clauses.
Adverb: A word providing information on a noun.
Subordinate, or subordinating conjunction: A conjunction connecting two parts of a sentence that are not equal.
Determiners: Determiners indicate quantity, possession, definiteness or indefiniteness.
Eg. My book, some candles, the supermarket, a chocolate block…
Prepositions: Typically shows the relationship between two nouns. A preposition introduces a prepositional phrase.
Eg. Under the table; up the hill; after the movie
Phrase: A group of words (without a verb) that have a grammatical relationship.
Modals: Verbs that allow us to vary the meaning of another verb to include possibility, obligation or probability.
Some examples of modals include can, could, might, may, should, would, must and shall.
Clause: A clause usually contains a subject and a predicate, and always contains a verb. Clauses can be joined together to form a sentence.
Intransitive verb: A verb that cannot take a direct object
Eg. “to die”.
Transitive verb: A verb that takes a direct object.
Eg. “To wear”
I wear school uniform.
“To drink”
I drink coffee.
Passive voice: The subject of the sentence experiences the action. The auxiliary of “to be” is often used with the past participle.
Eg. Bill was mistaken by Jenny as her long lost brother.
Active voice: The subject of the sentence does the action in the active voice.
Eg. Jenny mistook Bill as her long lost brother.
Subject: The person or thing that the sentence is about.
Eg. The purple glass was shattered by the careless housekeeper.
Predicate: What is written or said about the subject (the part of the sentence that is not the subject)
Eg. The blue cat crept along the alleyway.
Simple Sentence: A sentence that contains a single independent clause.
Eg. The sun was shining.
Compound Sentence: A sentence containing two or more independent clauses. Compound sentences are most often used in speech.
Eg. The cat climbed the tree and the dog followed suit.
Complex Sentence: A sentence consisting of an independent clause with one or more subordinate clauses. Complex sentences are most often used in formal writing.
Eg. Jennifer completed her maths homework although her English Language teacher had scheduled a SAC on the following day.
Content Word: A word to which an independent meaning can be assigned.
Function Word: A word serving a grammatical purpose within a sentence. Articles, pronouns, conjunctions, auxiliaries, interjections and particles are all considered to be function words.
Idiom: Fixed phrases with a non literal meaning. These are highly dependent on a cultural context.
Eg. -> “Spill the beans”
“Cat got your tongue?”
“It’s raining cats and dogs”
Collocation: A sequence of words that that co-occur more often than would be expected with chance.
“cosmetic surgery”, “nuclear physics”, “crystal clear”, “middle management”…
Denotative Meaning: The denotative meaning of a word is the meaning supplied by a dictionary or similar source.
Connotative Meaning: The connotative meaning of a word is the meaning generated by examining the connotations (or associations) with other properties.
Synonym: A word with a similar meaning to the word originally specified.
Eg. Happy, elated, stoked
HOWEVER, synonyms will never have identical meanings because of the different connotations embodied in each lexeme.
Antonym: A word with an opposite meaning to the word originally specified.
Eg. Happy/sad, proud/ashamed, cold/hot
Metaphor: A figurative device that states that something IS something else.
Eg. “The river is a slithering serpent”
Simile: A figurative device that likens one thing to another.
Eg. Your smile is like a moonbeam.
Personification: The practice of giving human qualities to inanimate objects
Eg. “The weather was kind”
“The door groaned in misery”
Irony: A literary device used to suggest an intention or attribute contrary to what actually occurs.
Homonym: A word that is spelt identically to another word.
Eg. Wind (the verb) and wind (the noun)
Homophone: A word that sounds the same as another word.
Eg. There, their and they’re
Flapping: The substitution of the phoneme /t/ with /d/
Yod-dropping: The dropping of the /j/ phoneme in speech (common in American accents).
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