Glossary of Linguistic Terms

standardization Establishment of a system of spelling, grammar, or pronunciation as a prestige variety.
stop Refers to consonants such as /p, t, k, b, d, g/. Produced by blocking the fl ow of air before articulating. Also called plosive. See further “Note on Phonetic Symbols and Orthography.”
stress Auditory prominence (loudness, duration, etc.) given to a syllable in the articulation of a word or sentence: e.g., in the word suc·cess, the syllable –cess is stressed. In poetry, each line has a metrical pattern created by stressed and unstressed syllables.
subject (S) See clause element.
subjunctive See mood.
subordinate clause See clause type.
substrate, substratum (pl. substrata) A non-dominant language or variety of language that has nonetheless infl uenced the dominant language or variety of language in a given community: e.g., Irish infl uences on the English language in Ireland; African infl uences on Gullah.
suffi x See affi x.
synchronic Pertaining to language at a specifi c historical point (and at least within a generation): e.g., analysis of syntax, phonology, etc. in PDE. Cf. diachronic.
syntax The study of the grammatical arrangement of words within sentences, clauses, or phrases.
synthetic language A language that uses infl ections to convey grammatical information: gentler, gentlest. An analytical language tends to use separate words to convey grammatical information: e.g., more gentle, most gentle. OE is more synthetic than ModE, whereas some English-based creoles are more analytical than PDE.
tense A grammatical category for the indication of time through the forms of verbs. Historically, Proto-Indo-European had fi ve to six formal tenses, but the number was reduced to two in Germanic. Hence English has two formal tenses: present (e.g., it works) and past or preterit (e.g., it worked). In addition, English has developed future indications through auxiliaries (e.g., it will work, I am going to rest).