marina-denel.ucoz.ru - Glossary of Linguistics and Rhetoric e-n

echolalia

the immediate and involuntary repetition of words or phrases just spoken by others, often a symptom of autism or some types of schizophrenia.

elision

the omission of a letter or syllable. "Don't" instead of "do not."

ellipsis

the omission of words in a sentence needed to complete an idea explicitly. "I took my son to the barber and my daughter to the hairdresser."

embolalia

See: embololalia.

embololalia

interpolation of meaningless sounds or words into speech. Same as "embolalia."

enallage

substitution of one part of speech, gender, number case, person, tense, mode, or voice for another. The royal "we," as a substitute for "I." See also: nosism.

enclitic

a word or syllable which is joined with the preceding word in such a way as to lose its own independent accent. "Prithee," which is a shortening of "pray thee," and "'em," in, "Get 'em!". See also: proclitic,synaloepha.

endophoric

characteristic of a reference to something outside the speech or text in which the reference occurs. See also: exophoric.

epanalepsis

a figure of speech in which the same word, phrase, or clause is repeated after intervening words.

epanorthosis

immediate rephrasing for emphasis, intensification, or justification. "You, young lad, are most brave! Brave, did I say? No, heroic!"

epenthesis

the process by which a new word is formed by inserting a sound into another word. "Thunder," an English word derived from the Old English word "thunor" by process of epenthesis. See also: anaptyxis,dissimilation, haplology, metathesis, paragoge.

epexegesis

when one interprets what one has just said, often signaled by "that is to say...."

epistrophe

repetition of the same word or phrase at the end of successive phrases, clauses, or sentences. "In 1931, ten years ago, Japan invaded Manchukuo -- without warning. In 1935, Italy invaded Ethiopia -- without warning. In 1938, Hitler occupied Austria -- without warning. In 1939, Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia -- without warning. Later in 1939, Hitler invaded Poland -- without warning. And now Japan has attacked Malaya and Thailand -- and the United States -- without warning." Franklin D. Roosevelt. See also: anadiplosis, anaphora, symploce.

epithet

a descriptive word or phrase. "The Great Emancipator," as a substitute for Abraham Lincoln. Also, an abusive or contemptuous word or phrase; a slur.

epitrope

a figure of speech in which permission is granted to do what someone proposes to do or is already doing.

epizeuxis

repetition of a word with vehemence or emphasis. "Alone, alone, all all alone. Alone on a wide wide sea." -- Samuel Taylor Coleridge. See: palilogy, ploce.

eponymy

the introduction of words into a language that are derived from the names of people or places.

equivoke

See: equivoque.

equivoque

an equivocal word, phrase, or expression; also, a pun or double meaning; also, ambiguity. Same as "equivoke."

etymon

an earlier form of a word in the same language or an ancestor language. See also: Wanderwort.

euphemism

substitution of a harsh, offensive, or unpleasant word with one that is less so. "When the final news came, there would be a ring at the front door -- a wife in this situation finds herself staring at the front door as if she no longer owns it or controls it -- and outside the door would be a man...come to inform her that unfortunately something has happened out there, and her husband's body now lies incinerated in the swamps or the pines or the palmetto grass, 'burned beyond recognition,' which anyone who had been around an air base very long (fortunately Jane had not) realized was quite an artful euphemism to describe a human body that now looked like an enormous fowl that has burned up in a stove, burned a blackish brown all over, greasy and blistered, fried, in a word, with not only the entire face and all the hair and the ears burned off, not to mention all the clothing, but also the hands and feet, with what remains of the arms and legs bent at the knees and elbows and burned into absolutely rigid angles, burned a greasy blackish brown like the bursting body itself, so that this husband, father, officer, gentleman, this ornamentum of some mother's eye, His Majesty the Baby of just twenty-odd years back, has been reduced to a charred hulk with wings and shanks sticking out of it." -- Tom Wolfe. See also: dysphemism, eusystolism.

eusystolism

use of initials, instead of full words, as a euphemism, often to avoid speaking harsh words. See also: euphemism.

exergasia

repeating a point by using different figures of speech to give the impression of saying something new.

exonym

a name by which one people or social group refers to another but which is not used by said group to refer to themselves.

exophoric

characteristic of a reference to something inside the speech or text in which the reference occurs. See also: endophoric.

extraposition

placement of a subject at a later position in the sentence than where it would normally be. "To sit down," in, "It is nice to sit down," which would normally be phrased, "To sit down is nice."

factitive

pertaining to the case when the action indicated by a transitive verb is not merely received by an object but produces some change in the object. "The boy popped the balloon," is factitive, because "balloon" is a factitive object, that is, an object changed by the verb "popped." But "The boy held the balloon," is not factitive, because the object "balloon" is only the recipient of the action indicated by the verb "held" and is not changed by it.

fis phenomenon

the phenomenon where children reject well-meaning adult attempts to mispronounce a word in the same way as a child. Child: "Fis." / Adult: "Yes, it's a 'fis'." / Child: "No, 'fis'!" / Adult: "Oh, a fish." / Child: "Yes, a fis."

Fog Index

a scheme by which the readability of a particular text may be evaluated; it is computed by adding the average sentence length (expressed in number of words per sentence) to the percentage of words with more than two syllables.

frequentative

expressing repeated action; also, a frequentative verb.

glossogenetics

the theory that humans are genetically predisposed to learn languages.

glossolalia

fabricated, nonmeaningful speech, especially such speech associated with a trance state or some schizophrenic syndromes.

glottochronology

the determination of how long ago different languages evolved from a common source language.

glyph

a symbol, such as on a public sign, that imparts information without words, especially a figure or character incised or in relief.

gradation

See: ablaut.

grammar

the study of how linguistic units combine to form sentences; also, the system of rules implicit in a language.

graphospasm

writer's cramp.

guttural

a sound articulated with the throat with the back of the tongue, much retracted, and the soft palate.

hapax legomenon

a word that occurs only once in the recorded corpus of a given language. "Flother," a synonym for "snowflake," which, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, is used in a manuscript from circa 1275 and not known to have been used elsewhere.

haplology

the process by which a word is formed by removing one of two identical or similar adjacent syllables in an earlier word. "Nutrix," the Latin word meaning "nurse," was formed from the earlier word "nutritrix." See also: anaptyxis, dissimilation, epenthesis, metathesis, paragoge.

hendiadys

the use of a conjunction rather than the subordination of one word to another. "I will try and arrive promptly this time," instead of "I will try to arrive promptly this time." Also "nice and warm" instead of "nicely warm."

heterogenium

evading an issue or question by changing the subject. "Has our logging company endangered the spotted owl? I'll tell you what we've endangered: the unemployment rate in Oregon."

heterography

a method of spelling in which the same letters represent different sounds in different words, as in ordinary English orthography. See also: homography, orthography.

heteronym

a word which has the same spelling but different meaning and pronunciation as another; a type of homograph. "Produce," meaning, "fruits and vegetables," and "produce," meaning, "to bring forth." See also:homogram, homograph, homonym, homophone.

heterophemy

the unconscious saying, in speech or in writing, of something that one does not intend to say, especially when what is said is the reverse of what was intended.

hobson-jobson

an Anglicized word or phrase corrupted from one or more words of an Asian language.

holalphabetic

a phrase, clause, sentence, or other sequence of letters which contains every letter of the alphabet at least once. See also: pangram.

holonym

a concept that has another concept as a part. A house is a holonym of a room. See also: meronym.

holophrasis

use of a holophrase, that is, a single word expressing a complex idea.

homogram

See: homograph.

homograph

a word which has the same spelling as another but different meaning, derivation, or pronunciation. Same as "homogram." See also: heteronym, homonym, homophone.

homography

a method of spelling in which every sound is represented by a single character, which indicates that sound and no other. See also: heterography, orthography.

homonym

a word that has the same spelling and pronunciation as another but different meanings or derivations; a word that is both a homograph and a homophone. See also: heteronym, homogram, homograph, homophone.

homophone

a word which has the same pronunciation as another but different meaning, derivation, or spelling. See also: heteronym, homogram, homograph, homonym.

honorific

a title or phrase conferring respect, especially when used in addressing a social superior. See also: autonomasia.

hypallage

interchange of two elements in a phrase or clause from the order in which they would normally appear. "A mind is a terrible thing to waste," instead of "To waste a mind is a terrible thing."

hyperbaton

deviation of normal or logical word order. See also: anastrophe, hysteron proteron, synchysis.

hyperbole

exaggeration for emphasis or rhetorical or dramatic effect. See also: meiosis.

hypercorrect

characteristic of an incorrect linguistic construction in which the error is produced from a mistaken effort to be correct. "Between you and I," which should be "between you and me." See also: hyponym.

hypernym

a word that is more generic than a given word. See also: hyponym.

hypocorism

use of pet names, diminutives, baby talk, or terms of endearment. "Comfy" instead of "comfortable."

hyponym

a word that is more specific than a given word. See also: hypernym.

hypophora

asking a question, often one it is anticipated readers or listeners will have, and subsequently answering it. See also: procatalepsis.

hypostatize

to ascribe material existence to, especially to a conceptual entity. See also: personification.

hypotaxis

the dependent or subordinate relationship of clauses with connectives.

hysteron proteron

reversal of the normal order of terms; a type of hyperbaton. "Gentlemen and ladies." (Also note the first line of the ultra-condensation of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner on RinkWorks' own Book-A-Minutefeature.) See also: hyperbaton.

ideogram

See: logogram.

idiolect

the speech of an individual, considered as a linguistic pattern unique among other speakers of the same language or dialect.

illeism

the practice of referring to oneself in the third person. See also: illeist.

illeist

one who habitually practices illeism. See also: illeism.

ingressive

characteristic of a speech sound produced with an inhalation of breath.

irony

expression that comes across contrary to the intended meaning, often because the audience knows what the speaker does not.

isocolon

a sequence of parallel structures, having the same number of words and sometimes the same number of syllables. "What else can one do when he is alone in a jail cell, other than write long letters, think long thoughts, and pray long prayers?" -- Martin Luther King.

isogloss

a geographic boundary which delimits an area in which a given linguistic feature occurs.

kenning

replacement of a common noun by a colorful compound. "Information superhighway" instead of "Internet."

klang association

See: phonaesthesia.

koine

a regional dialect or language that becomes the standard language over a wider area, losing its most extreme local features in the process; also, a lingua franca: a common hybrid or other language used by speakers of different languages. See also: lingua franca.

langue

language viewed as a system including vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation of a particular community.

ligature

a character that combines two or more letters, such as æ.

lingua franca

a common hybrid or other language used by speakers of different languages. See also: koine.

lipogram

writing composed of words lacking a certain specific letter or letters. See also: univocalic.

litotes

understatement by negating the opposite; a type of meiosis. "I was not disappointed with the news." See also: meiosis.

loan translation

See: calque.

loanword

a word adopted from another language and completely or partially naturalized. See also: calque, Wanderwort.

logocentrism

obsession with the word. See also: phonocentrism.

logogram

a written symbol that represents an entire word without expressing its pronunciation. Same as "ideogram" and "logograph." The numerals 0-9 are each logograms.

logograph

See: logogram.

logogriph

a word puzzle in which it is required to discover a chosen word from various combinations of its letters, or some of its letters, which form other words.

logomisia

disgust or hatred of particular words.

lucus a non lucendo

an etymological contradiction in which a modern word is derived from an older word of contradictory meaning. "Beldam," meaning, "ugly hag," comes from the French word "bellum," meaning, "beautiful thing."

macaronic

of or containing a mixture of Latin words and vernacular words jumbled together, as a macaronic verse.

macrology

long and tedious talk lacking in substance; superfluity of words.

malapropism

ludicrous misuse of a word by confusion with one that sounds similar.

meiosis

understatement for emphasis or rhetorical or dramatic effect. "When my wife left me because I'd been fired and crippled in an accident on my way home, I was a little saddened." See also: hyperbole, litotes.

melioration

linguistic process of a word gradually becoming more positive in meaning or connotation over time. Although both melioration and amelioration can be used to describe the general process of improvement of anything, melioration is more commonly used with respect to the meaning of words undergoing this change. See also: pejoration.

mendaciloquence

lying as an art; adroit prevarication.

merism

a grouping of words that means something other than the combined meanings of each of the words individually.

meronym

a concept that is part of another concept. A room is a meronym of a house. See also: holonym.

metalepsis

the continuation of a trope in one word through a succession of significations, or the union of multiple tropes of a different kind in one word; substituting metonymy of one figurative sense for another.

metallage

a word or phrase treated as an object within another expression. "A lady's 'verily' is as potent as a lord's." -- William Shakespeare.

metanalysis

an interpretation or analysis of an unfamiliar name, which may involve associations to unrelated, similarly spelled words rather than to ideas related to the true meaning of the word.

metaphor

implied comparison between two things by calling or implying that one is the other. See also: catachresis, simile.

metaplasm

a change (including substitutions, additions, omissions, and inversions) in the letters or syllables of a word. See also: antisthecon, synaloepha.

metathesis

the process by which a new word is formed by transposing the letters, sounds, or syllables in an older word. "Bird," an English word derived from the Old English word "brid" by the process of metathesis. See also: anaptyxis, dissimilation, epenthesis, haplology, paragoge.

metonymy

substitution of a word or phrase with another which it suggests. "The pen is mightier than the sword," in which both "pen" and "sword" are substituted for "written prose" and "military." See also: synecdoche.

mogigraphia

writing with difficulty. See also: mogilalia.

mogilalia

speaking with difficulty. See also: mogigraphia.

mondegreen

a series of words, often humorous, that result from mishearing a statement or song lyric.

monepic

comprising of one word, or of single word sentences.

monologophobia

a compulsive avoidance of repetition. "A monologophobe would edit the Bible so that you would read, 'Let there by light and there was solar illumination.'" -- Harold Evans.

morpheme

a meaningful linguistic unit consisting of a root word or a word element that cannot be divided into smaller meaningful parts. "Pick" and "s", in the word "picks," are morphemes. See also: phoneme.

morphology

the study of structure and form of words in language, including inflection, derivation, and formation of compounds. See also: accidence.

Mummerset

a rustic accent or dialect for use on stage.

mumpsimus

a language error, such as with spelling or pronunciation, that is committed repeatedly, especially after correction; also, a person who repeatedly commits such an error or insists on perpetuating it.

noa word

a word free of any taboo in the languages under consideration, usually signifying that it may be employed without reservation in the creation of an international commercial name.

nomic

customary, ordinary; describing the usual English spelling of a word, as distinct from phonetic spellings.

nosism

the practice of referring to oneself as "we"; a type of enallage. See also: enallage.