Linguistics: English Vocabulary List

the fact of having an excessive number of words that results in being tedious

"The prolixity of his speech made everyone in the room very sleepy."

"The audience grew restless because of the prolixity of the professor's two-hour lecture."

the interconnectedness and referencing of texts, where one text refers to or influences another, creating layers of meaning and a complex web of relationships between texts

"The novel shows intertextuality."

"Intertextuality connects this poem to earlier literary works."

the overlapping and blending of language elements, such as sounds or grammatical structures, within speech or writing

"The imbrication was complex."

"The imbrication of overlapping roof tiles ensured that rainwater would flow down the slope without seeping through the gaps between the clay pieces."

(grammar) the use of two adjacent noun phrases having the same referent that have the same syntactical role in a sentence

"The apposition adds extra information about a noun."

"In grammar, apposition is used to give more detail about a noun in a sentence."

a new word that is formed by the combination of two other words blending their meaning and sounds

"Brunch is a portmanteau word from breakfast and lunch."

""Smog" is a portmanteau word because it combines the words "smoke" and "fog" into a single new term."

(linguistics) the smallest meaningful unit of a language that does not necessarily stand alone and cannot be divided

"The word 'cats' has two morphemes: 'cat' and the plural 's' sound."

"A morpheme is the smallest meaningful grammatical unit in a language"

(linguistics) a branch of linguistics that deals with meaning, reference, or truth

"Semantics is complex."

"Semantics studies the meaning of words and sentences."

the complete set of meaningful units in a language or a branch of knowledge, or words or phrases that a speaker uses

"The English lexicon has over a million words from many different languages."

"The lexicon of modern technology includes many borrowed words from English."

(grammar) a word or phrase that refers to a preceding word or phrase

"Anaphora repeats words at start."

"The poet used anaphora by repeating the same phrase at the beginning of several lines for emphasis."

the phenomenon in language where a single word has multiple related meanings or senses

"Polysemy is common."

"The word "bank" has polysemy because it can mean a financial institution, the side of a river, or the action of tilting an aircraft, depending on the context."

a variant pronunciation of a phoneme, which can occur due to phonetic differences in specific contexts or environments within a language

"This is an allophone."

"The aspirated "p" in "pin" and the unaspirated "p" in "spin" are allophones of the same phoneme in English, meaning they do not change the word's meaning."

(linguistics) a basic linguistic unit that is meaningful and underlies a set of words which are related through inflection

"A lexeme is basic."

"The words "run," "runs," "running," and "ran" are all forms of the same lexeme, representing different grammatical versions of the same basic vocabulary item."

the smallest unit of sound in a language that can distinguish meaning, often represented by a specific symbol in phonetic notation

"There are 44 phonemes."

"The English phoneme represented by the letter "t" is pronounced differently in "top," "stop," and "button," but speakers still hear it as the same sound category."

a word that is more general and encompasses a broader category of related terms

"Animal is a hypernym for dog"

""Fruit" is a hypernym of "apple" because it is a general category that includes apples, oranges, bananas, and many other specific types of fruit."

the process of inventing a word

"It is a neologism."

"The word "selfie" is a neologism that entered the dictionary after the invention of smartphone front cameras made self portraits extremely popular online."

the phenomenon in which an irregular form of a word, often a verb or adjective, is used instead of a regular form to express a different grammatical feature

"This shows suppletion."

"The verb "to be" shows suppletion because its past tense "was" and "were" come from a different root than the present tense forms "am," "is," and "are.""

a phonological process in which sounds or syllables in a word are rearranged or switched positions, resulting in a change in the order of phonemes or syllables within the word

"Metathesis changed the word."

"The word "ask" is sometimes pronounced "aks" by some English speakers, a process of metathesis where two adjacent sounds swap places in the word's pronunciation."

a phonological process in which a sound or phoneme is inserted into a word, typically to break up a consonant cluster or improve phonotactic constraints

"Epenthesis adds a sound."

"The pronunciation of "athlete" as "athalete" includes an unnecessary vowel sound between the two consonants, which is an example of epenthesis in casual speech."

the process of duplicating all or part of a word or morpheme to create a new form, often with a change in meaning or grammatical function

"Reduplication is used."

"The phrase "chit chat" uses reduplication, where a word or part of a word is repeated with slight variation to create a playful or rhythmic effect."

a word-formation process in which a word or name is modified to create a shorter, affectionate, or informal version, often used to express familiarity, endearment, or intimacy

"'Johnny' is a hypocorism."

"The nickname "Johnny" for John is a hypocorism, a shortened or altered form of a name that expresses affection or familiarity between close friends or family."

the redundant repetition of an idea using different words in a sentence or phrase

"That is a tautology."

"Saying 'free gift' is a tautology because a gift is inherently free and requires no payment."

a phonological process in which vowels within a word or across adjacent words become more similar or assimilate to each other in terms of certain phonetic features

"Vowel harmony exists."

"Turkish has clear rules of vowel harmony."

a word that represents a subset of a broader category

"Rose is a hyponym of flower"

""Poodle" is a hyponym of "dog" because it refers to a specific type of dog, just as "dog" is a type of animal and "animal" is a type of living creature."

relating to phenomena, especially in language, as they exist at a specific time, without reference to historical development

"The study is synchronic."

"Synchronic linguistics studies a language at a specific point in time rather than examining how it has changed throughout history."

related to the study or analysis of phenomena or changes over time, particularly within linguistics or historical contexts

"The analysis is diachronic."

"Diachronic linguistics examines how languages evolve over centuries and scholars trace the origins of words back to their ancient roots."

the study of techniques and principles for using language effectively, especially in public speaking

"His rhetoric was very persuasive."

"The politician's powerful rhetoric captivated the audience and swayed their opinions."

(linguistics) the way in which words and phrases are arranged to form grammatical sentences in a language

"Syntax is the study of sentence structure."

"The syntax of this sentence is so complex that even native speakers find it confusing."

(linguistics) a variety of language that is used in a particular social context, based on the communicative purpose and social status of the user

"This is formal register."

"The politician adopted a more formal register when addressing the distinguished assembly."

the process of shortening a word by dropping one or more syllables

"This is a clipping."

"The word 'ad' is a common clipping of 'advertisement'."