Introducing English Linguistics

:
A speech act that conveys speaker intentions. The intent of I’m sorry I’m
late is to issue an apology (a type of expressive) for something the speaker
has done wrong.
imperative sentence:
A sentence such as Stop talking in which the base form of the verb is used,
and the subject is an implied you.
implicit speech act:
A speech act such as Shut the door that does not contain a performative
verb
.
indirect object:
A clause function that occurs before a direct object. For instance, in The
woman loaned the man some money, the man is the indirect object preceding
the direct object some money. One feature of many indirect objects is that
they can be moved after the direct object and preceded by the preposi-
tions to or for: The woman loaned some money to the man.
indirect speech act:
A speech act in which the speaker’s intentions are not directly conveyed, as
in somebody saying It’s cold in here as a request for the heat to be turned up.
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GLOSSARY

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inflections:
In English, a small group of suffixes, such as the plural marker on nouns
(-s) or various verb endings, such as -ing and -ed. Inflections mark gram-
matical relationships, and unlike derivational morphemes do not
change the meaning of a word or its part of speech.
internal influences
Changes that all languages undergo that are not influenced by language 
on language change
: contact. For instance, all languages experience mergers: distinctions that
are no longer maintained. For instance, in American English, the vowels
/ɔ/ and /ɑ/ are being merged so that many speakers use the vowel /ɔ/ in
words such as cot and caught, whereas others will use /ɑ/ in cot but /ɔ/ in
caught.
interrogative
A sentence in which a question is asked. There are two types of questions 
sentence:
in English: 
wh-questions and yes/no questions.
intimates:
Individuals (e.g. spouses, parents, children, close friends) who have a close
relationship.
intransitive verb:
A verb that does not take an object. The verb feel, for instance, is intransi-
tive because it can only take a subject complement, such as good in I feel
good. Compare with transitive verbs.
irregular verbs:
Verbs that do not follow the regular pattern of adding inflections to show
differences in tense or aspect. The base of some irregular verbs changes
form: go (base form) S went (past form). Other irregular verbs do not
change form at all in some instances: bet (base form) S bet (past or -ed