Glossaryrestrictive relative clause: a clause which modifies a noun by restricting its
application to one of a number of possibilities. Restrictive relatives come in
three forms: that-relative, wh-relative and zero relative.
rewrite rule: a phrase structure rule defining what the immediate constituents of
e.g. a phrase are. On the left of the rule we find the phrase-type being
defined followed by an arrow. On the right side of the arrow we can find the
immediate constituents of the given phrase, which may be further rewritten.
Bracketed constituents indicate optionality, the presence of a comma
means that the order of the constituents is not restricted to the order found in
the rule. See also adjunct rule, specifier rule, complement rule.
R-expression: referential expression, a nominal with independent reference, e.g.
Peter as opposed to he or himself.
semantics: the study of meaning. It covers both lexical meaning and the meaning of
sentences with special emphasis on their truth conditions (under what
circumstances a sentence is true/false).
sentence medial adverb: an adverb modifying the meaning of a verb appearing in a
position adjoined to the VP. In traditional approaches it is used as a
diagnostic test to decide whether a constituent moved upwards or
downwards. If the sentence medial adverb precedes the inflected verb the
inflectional head lowered onto the verbal head, e.g. in She ti always
enjoy-edi going to parties. If the sentence contains an inflected aspectual
auxiliary this constituent precedes the sentence medial adverb indicating
that the verbal head moved up to the inflectional head position: She is (bei
+s) always ti singing./She has (havei+s) always ti enjoyed going to parties.
sentential adverb: an adverb which modifies the meaning of the sentence, e.g.
fortunately.
singular noun: a noun denoting one entity, e.g. a teddy bear. Count nouns can be
singular or plural.
sister nodes: two nodes that have the same mother.
small clause: a clause where a subject–predicate relationship is established but no
inflectional element is present. The predicate can be expressed by an
AP (I consider [her reliable]), a DP (I consider [her the best student]),
or a PP (I want [these news in press]). Small clauses are often called
verbless clauses but it is misleading since small clauses can contain
VPs in certain cases like in I saw [him run away]. Such clauses are
analysed as IPs where the zero agreement morpheme can be found as in
several languages we find agreement markers on the subject and the
predicate in these structures.
specificity: a nominal expression is specific if the speaker knows the identity of its
reference. The sentence I am looking for a pen is ambiguous between a
specific and a non-specific interpretation: the pen may be a certain pen the
speaker has in mind or any pen may do.
specifier position: a position defined by X-bar Theory. The specifier is sister to
X', daughter of XP. It is a phrasal position, the nature of the phrase
depends on what it is the specifier of. E.g. the specifier of IP is the
subject, the specifier of DP is the possessor in possessive structures.