A posteriori

NOMINATIVE: See case.

NON-DISTINCTIVE: In linguistics, any two sounds (often quite similar) that are not capable of signaling a difference in meaning. For instance, in Chinese, the letter t can be aspirated or unaspirated. This slight difference in sound can create two entirely different words. The Greeks also had the same sound distinction, and represented this by using both the letter theta and tau. However, in Roman Latin and modern English, the difference in aspiration is ignored, and both sounds are represented by a single letter. Since the two sounds are non-distinctive, creating two different letters for each one is unnecessary in Latin and English.

NON-FINITE FORM: In grammar, this category of verbs includes the infinitive and participle forms. Basically, a non-finite form is any form of a verb that doesn't indicate person, number, or tense.

NON-RHOTIC: In linguistics, any dialect lacking an /r/. Some dialects of English are non-rhotic. Others only pronounced the /r/ before a vowel sound.

NORMAN: An inhabitant of Normandy, a region along the northern coast of France. The word Norman comes from a cognate for "northmen," for the Norman aristocracy of the region originally descended from Danish (i.e. Viking) settlers who took over the French region in the ninth and tenth centuries. Charles the Simple, the somewhat incompetent king of France, was unable to eject these invaders from the region, so in 912 CE he signed a treaty with Rollo, the leader of the Danes in Normandy. This treaty made Rollo a vassal Duke. After a few centuries, these Viking Normans lost their Norse language and "went native" by adapting the French tongue, French dress, French custom, and French law. However, on the continent, Norman French gradually became considered "bad French" in contrast with the "sophisticated" Parisian French. This factor might have been one catalyst in how the Anglo-Normans gradually abandoned French after they conquered the British isles. In terms of English's linguistic development, Norman French profoundly influenced our language after the Norman Invasion of 1066.

NORMAN CONQUEST: Loosely, another term for the Norman Invasion, though technically some historians prefer to differentiate between the "Norman Invasion" and the "Norman Conquest" by limiting the scope of the invasion to the initial year 1066 when the Normans landed in England and using the term "Norman Conquest" to refer to the twenty-one year period over that in which Duke William expanded and solidified his control over all England. In this class, we will use the two terms synonymously. See Norman Invasion, below.

NORMAN INVASION: Not to be confused with D-Day during World War II, medieval historians use this title for a much earlier invasion in 1066. Duke William of Normandy's conquest of England from 1066-1087 had profound impact on English by importing Norman-French vocabulary into Anglo-Saxon, bringing about the formation of Middle English. See also Battle of Hastings and Norman.