Introducing English Linguistics

petence
.
performative verb:
A verb such as order or promise that actually names the speech act that it
represents. Performative verbs are always in the present tense and occur
with a first person pronoun, as in I order you to leave.
phonemes:
An individual speech segment that is distinctive and that contrasts with
other speech segments. One way to determine phonemes in a language is
to look at minimal pairs. The minimal pairs hat and cat indicate that the
segments /h/ and /k/ are phonemes in English.
phonetic alphabet:
An alphabet used to study speech sounds in which every symbol corre-
sponds to one and only one sound.
phonotactic
Constraints on permissible sequences of sounds in a given language. For 
constraints:
instance, while English allows the sequence /pl/ at the start of a syllable
(as in play), it does not allow the sequence */pf/.
phrase:
A group of words centered around either a noun, verb, preposition, adjec-
tive, or adverb. For instance, very quickly is an adverb phrase centered on
the adverb quickly; in the morning is a prepositional phrase centered on the
preposition in. See also head.
pidgin:
A second language spoken by groups of speakers who speak different lan-
guages. For instance, Chinook Jargon was a pidgin spoken in the nine-
teenth century in the northwestern part of the United States by the
indigenous tribes there engaged in trade with Europeans.
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GLOSSARY

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place of articulation:
How the articulators – the tongue, teeth, lips, and various parts of the
mouth – are involved in the articulation of sounds. For instance, the
sounds /p/ and /b/ are bilabial sounds because their articulation involves
both lips.
plosives:
A manner of articulation involving consonants such as /t/ and /g/ whose
pronunciation involves complete blockage of the airstream in the oral
cavity followed by release of the air.
politeness:
Cultural conventions in a language governing polite levels of speech.
polysemous/polysemy:
Words such as bank that have more than one meaning.
Post-vocalic /r/:
The consonant /r/ following a vowel in the same syllable, as in the words
hurt and park.
pragmatic meaning:
Meaning that is determined by context. For instance, the sentence It’s cold
in here could mean not just that the temperature is low (its grammatical