Agent (grammar)In linguistics, a grammatical agent is the thematic relation of the cause or initiator to an event. The agent is a semantic concept distinct from the subject of a sentence as well as from the topic. While the subject is determined syntactically, primarily through word order, the agent is determined through its relationship to the action expressed by the verb. For example, in the sentence "The little girl was bitten by the dog", girl is the subject, but dog is the agent.
Generalized quantifierIn formal semantics, a generalized quantifier (GQ) is an expression that denotes a set of sets. This is the standard semantics assigned to quantified noun phrases. For example, the generalized quantifier every boy denotes the set of sets of which every boy is a member: This treatment of quantifiers has been essential in achieving a compositional semantics for sentences containing quantifiers. A version of type theory is often used to make the semantics of different kinds of expressions explicit.
Nom épithèteLe nom épithète est un nom qui suit directement un autre nom sans marque de détachement. Il est dépourvu de déterminant et n'est donc employé que pour ses propriétés sémantiques. En effet, il arrive souvent qu’un nom caractérise un autre nom à la manière d’un adjectif. Voici quelques exemples : date limite, jupe ballon, roman-fleuve, carte réseau, chandail mode, sauce pesto, des enfants rois, des exemples types, des livres témoignages, des murs écrans, des opérations coups de poing, des restaurants bars, des talons aiguilles, des vaisseaux fantômes, un café crème, le style Picasso, des légumes vapeurs, etc.
Typologie linguistiqueLa typologie linguistique est une branche de la linguistique et un mode de classification des langues, qui s’occupe de l’établissement de groupes selon certains traits structurels communs, par lesquels ils se distinguent. Cette typologie diffère d’autres modes de classification des langues. L’une est généalogique, concernant l’étude comparative historique des ressemblances et différences entre langues apparentées, établissant des classes généalogiques (familles de langues et branches à l’intérieur de celles-ci).
Government and binding theoryGovernment and binding (GB, GBT) is a theory of syntax and a phrase structure grammar in the tradition of transformational grammar developed principally by Noam Chomsky in the 1980s. This theory is a radical revision of his earlier theories and was later revised in The Minimalist Program (1995) and several subsequent papers, the latest being Three Factors in Language Design (2005). Although there is a large literature on government and binding theory which is not written by Chomsky, Chomsky's papers have been foundational in setting the research agenda.
Grammatical relationIn linguistics, grammatical relations (also called grammatical functions, grammatical roles, or syntactic functions) are functional relationships between constituents in a clause. The standard examples of grammatical functions from traditional grammar are subject, direct object, and indirect object. In recent times, the syntactic functions (more generally referred to as grammatical relations), typified by the traditional categories of subject and object, have assumed an important role in linguistic theorizing, within a variety of approaches ranging from generative grammar to functional and cognitive theories.
Cataphore (grammaire)En linguistique, le terme ayant la forme française cataphore a été formé par le linguiste allemand Karl Bühler des éléments grecs anciens κατά (katá) « en bas » et φέρω (phéro) « je porte », donnant le mot καταφορά (kataphorá), par analogie avec le terme ἀναφορά (anaphorá) « anaphore ». C’est un phénomène syntactico-sémantique qui consiste en l’anticipation, par un élément linguistique ayant le statut de substitut, d’une entité également linguistique (mot, groupe de mots, phrase simple, phrase complexe) exprimée par la suite, ex.
Nom propreEn grammaire, on entend par nom propre une sous-catégorie de noms, s'opposant au nom commun. Un nom commun est un nom de substance non distincte de l'espèce (animée ou inanimée) à laquelle elle appartient. Il est pourvu d'une signification générale et d'une définition objective : un fleuve, un pays, une ville, une personne, un animal, un peuple, un dieu, un objet, un monument, une chanson, un roman, un film, une invention, un arbre... Un nom propre au contraire, désigne toute substance distincte de l'espèce à laquelle elle appartient.
Patient (grammar)In linguistics, a grammatical patient, also called the target or undergoer, is the participant of a situation upon whom an action is carried out or the thematic relation such a participant has with an action. Sometimes, theme and patient are used to mean the same thing. When used to mean different things, patient describes a receiver that changes state ("I crushed the car") and theme describes something that does not change state ("I have the car"). By that definition, stative verbs act on themes, and dynamic verbs act on patients.
Endocentric and exocentricIn theoretical linguistics, a distinction is made between endocentric and exocentric constructions. A grammatical construction (for instance, a phrase or compound) is said to be endocentric if it fulfils the same linguistic function as one of its parts, and exocentric if it does not. The distinction reaches back at least to Bloomfield's work of the 1930s, who based it on terms by Pāṇini and Patañjali in Sanskrit grammar. Such a distinction is possible only in phrase structure grammars (constituency grammars), since in dependency grammars all constructions are necessarily endocentric.
