Glossary of Linguistic Terms

conjugation The infl ection of verbs. A fi nite verb is conjugated or infl ected in correspondence with the subject of the clause: e.g., he likes to read/they like to read. Of the non-fi nite forms, the infi nitive may occur after auxiliary verbs (e.g., we will come) or verbs like want, like (I like to read); the present participle has the –ing ending and may occur in the progressive construction (e.g., they were running); the past participle may have an ending like –ed, –en and occur in the passive or perfect construction (e.g., books were selected; they have traveled).
consonant Refers to speech sounds other than vowels: e.g., [k, m, v, s]. A consonant is produced by restricting the fl ow of air at a specifi c point in the mouth, nose, or both. See further “Note on Phonetic Symbols and Orthography.”
consonant cluster Two or more consonants occurring together: e.g., [cl] in clean or [str] in string. Consonant cluster reduction or simplifi cation is observed in many varieties of English: e.g., mist may be pronounced as [mis] in AAVE, Chicano English, and Carribean creoles; kn- as in knee was a cluster in medieval English and was pronounced as [kn].
constituent A word or word group that forms a distinct grammatical unit within the clause: e.g., the clause in this year King Charles passed away consists of three constituents, namely, an adverbial phrase (in this year), a noun phrase (King Charles), and a verb phrase (passed away).
copula A verb that links a subject and its compliment: e.g., is in she is nice. Copula absence (e.g., she Ø nice) is observed in, for example, AAVE and Chicano English. creole Refers to languages developed typically through contacts between European languages and non-European languages in plantation colonies, and spoken by local populations for generations: e.g., Caribbean creoles and Gullah. See also pidgin.