364 Glossary
SubordinateThat which is less important. Contrast to ”dominant”..
Subphrase A section of a phrase that can act as a phrase on its own..
SuffixSomething that is added to the end of a word to change its meaning
in some way. Contrast to ”prefix”..
Superlative The word that express the highest level of some quality. En-
glish superlatives are ”best”, ”most”, ”highest”, ”largest”, ”quick-
est”, etc..
Syllabaries The set of wriĴen characters of a language of which each char-
acter stands for a syllable..
Syllable A unit of spoken language, typically of uniform duration..
Syntax The compositional rules of a language, typically consisting of the
rules for how to write sounds and interpunction, and how to combine
entities in the language in grammatically sound ways..
Tangible Being perceivable by any of the physical senses (sight, hearing,
smell, taste or touch), especially the sense of touch. Contrast to ”in-
tangible”..
TenseIndicating the time frame in which the verb action takes place. For
instance, past, present or future..
Topic On the sentence level, the word that describes information previ-
ously mentioned that the rest of the sentence bears relation to. On
the discourse level, topic is the same as ”context”..
TransitiveA verb category that indicates verbs describing actions that are
being performed by some actor, taking place in the world. Contrast
to ”intransitive”..
TransliterationThe act of writing out a language in another language,
without translating it..
Verbal Relating to verbs..
Verbal adjectivesWords that act as adjective, aĴributing some quality to
nouns, which can be inflected to show tense, mood, and polarity in
the same way verbs can..