Introducing English Linguistics

plement
: I
feel good, That tastes fine, She is my mother.
literal speech act:
Any speech act in which the speaker means what he or she says, as in I
like warm weather. Compare with non-literal speech act.
main clause:
A clause that typically contains a subject, predicator (with a finite verb),
and no markers of subordination. In Although we arrived on time, the movie
had already started, the second clause is a main clause that contains a sub-
ject (the movie), a finite verb (had), and no marker of subordination.
Because the first clause contains a marker of subordination (although), it is
not a main clause but a subordinate clause.
manner of
How the airstream flows through the mouth, whether it is completely 
articulation:
blocked and then released, as is the case with plosives, or flows rather
freely through the mouth, as in approximants.
marked tone unit:
A tone unit in which the tonic syllable does not occur on a syllable in the
last content word of the tone unit. In a marked tone unit, the syllable
containing the tonic syllable occurs in a word being emphasized.
markedness:
The extent to which a linguistic item is common or uncommon. In
English, SVO word order is common; therefore, this order is unmarked. In
contrast, OVS word order is quite uncommon, making this order (at least
for English) marked.
minimal pairs:
Words that differ by only one sound in the same position (e.g. fit /f
It/ and
kit /k
It/). Minimal pairs are useful for determining which sounds in a lan-
guage are phonemes.
modal auxiliaries:
A closed class of auxiliary verbs, including may, might, can, could, shall,
should, will, would. Modal auxiliaries always occur before primary auxil-
iaries
in the verb phrase: should have gone.
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GLOSSARY

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monophthong:
A vowel, such as /i/ in keep or /u/ in boot, whose pronunciation remains
fairly constant in a syllable. Compare with diphthong.
monosyllabic:
A word, such as hit or ask, that consists of a single syllable.
monotransitive verb:
A verb such as drive or write that takes a single object: I drive a Volvo, The
author wrote a book. Compare with ditransitive verbs.
morpheme:
The smallest meaningful unit in language. See also bound, free, deriva-