-A-

A-bar bound
°A-bar binding.

A-bar chain
°Chain.

A-bar free
SYNTAX: Anything which is not °A-bar bound, is A-bar free.

A-bar GF
SYNTAX: a °GF corresponding to an °A-bar-position.

A-bar movement
SYNTAX: movement to an °A-bar-position.

A-bar-position (A'-position)
°A-position.

A-binding
SYNTAX: a °binding relation in which the °antecedent is in an °A-position.

Ablaut
MORPHOLOGY: a process by which an inflected form of a word is formed by changing the vowel of the °base. EXAMPLE: in English it is possible to derive the past tense of °strong verbs by substituting the base vowel by another vowel: get:got, sing:sang and fall:fell.
LIT. Bloomfield (1933), Scalise (1984), Halle & Mohanan (1985), Spencer (1991).

A-bound
°A-binding.

Absolute neutralization
PHONOLOGY: the phenomenon that a °segment of the underlying representation of a °morpheme is not realized in any of its phonetic representations. EXAMPLE: Chomsky & Halle (1968) assume that the underlying representation of the word ellipse contains a final segment /e./ even though this segment is never pronounced. But the assumption of this segment in underlying representation explains the exceptional stress pattern of the word, i.e. that of trisyllabic words instead of that of bisyllabic words, i.e. /ellípse/ instead of /éllipse/. The segment /e./ is deleted after the assignment of stress: thus the opposition between /e./ and zero (the absence of a segment) is neutralized (see also: °contextual neutralization).
LIT. Kiparsky (1968).

Absolutive
°Ergative pattern.

Absorption
SYNTAX: when some element assumes a (syntactic) feature that is not usually assigned to such an element, it is said that this element absorbs that feature. EXAMPLE: Case is usually assigned to an NP, but Case can be absorbed instead by °passive morphology or by a °clitic pronoun (not an NP).
At °LF: rule that derives a kind of conjunction of referential indices:

(i) ... [NPi [NPj ... -> ... [NPi NPj]i,j ...

Abstract noun
SEMANTICS: a noun denoting a non-material, non-perceptible entity. Examples of abstract nouns are democracy and wisdom. The opposite of an abstract noun is a °concrete noun.

Accessibility
SYNTAX: in Chomsky's (1981) version of Binding Theory: a is accessible to b if and only if b is °c-commanded by a and coindexing of a and b would not violate the °i-within-i condition.
Also: condition on bound variable pronouns proposed in Higginbotham (1980) which accounts for °weak and °strong crossover.
LIT. Chomsky (1981), Higginbotham (1980).

Accessible
°Accessibility.

Accidental gap
MORPHOLOGY: a non-existing word which is expected to exist given the hypothesized morphological rules of a particular language. In the literature, an accidental gap is usually thought of as a 'hole' in a °paradigm. EXAMPLE: in English it is possible to derive nouns from verbs by adding the suffixes -al and -(a)tion to the verbal stem. However, some such derivations do not exist, although there are no grammatical reasons for their nonexistence. Compare the following examples:

(i)   recite	  recital      recitation
      propose	  proposal     proposition
(ii)  arrive	  arrival     *arrivation
      refuse	  refusal     *refusation
(iii) derive	 *derival      derivation
      describe   *describal    description

Accomplishment
°Aspectual classes.

Accusative verb
Verb that assigns structural accusative °Case. EXAMPLE: murder, see, love.

A-chain
°Chain.

Achievement
°Aspectual classes.

Acronym
MORPHOLOGY: a word composed of the initial characters of other words. EXAMPLE: the English acronyms NATO, FOP and FEC are made out of North Atlantic Treaty Organization, First Order Principle and Free Element Condition, respectively. Some Dutch examples are: TROS, KNAV and DAF.

Across-the-Board
SYNTAX: rules apply across-the-board (ATB) if they may affect all conjuncts in a coordinate structure at the same time. EXAMPLE: Wh-movement applies across-the-board in:

(i)  I wonder which booksi [Mary hates ei]C1 and [Sam likes ei]C2

Action tier
°Thematic theory.

Activity
°Aspectual classes.

Adicity
°Arity.

Adjacency
SYNTAX: two elements are adjacent if they are next to each other in the surface string without any intervening material. This notion is relevant to °Case assignment, at least in English:

(i)   John wrote a letter yesterday
(ii) *John wrote yesterday a letter

Adjacency Condition
MORPHOLOGY: a condition on word formation rules proposed in Siegel (1977) and taken up by Allen (1978) which states that an affixation rule can be made sensitive to the content of an embedded morpheme only if that morpheme is the one most recently attached by a morphological rule. Intuitively, the Adjacency Condition prevents a word formation rule from looking into the entire derivational history of morphologically complex words.
EXAMPLE: in Dutch, adjectives can be formed by adding the suffix -baar '-able' to verbal stems. However, this suffix takes °transitive verbs as its input only. Hence, vinden 'to find' vindbaar 'findable', but klimmen 'to climb' *klimbaar 'climbable'. When the transitivising prefix be- is added to the intransitive verb klimmen though, the derived transitive verb beklimmen 'climb' may undergo -baar suffixation (beklimbaar 'climbable'). The Adjacency Condition accounts for the contrast between *klimbaar and beklimbaar in the following way. In the first example, the content of the verb klimmen is structurally adjacent to the suffix -baar ([[klim]_V baar]_A), and given the condition on -baar suffixation, the adjective klimbaar will be ruled out. The situation is crucially different in the second example. In this form the content of the verb klimmen is not structurally adjacent to the suffix -baar ([[be [klim]_V]_V baar]_A), and the Adjacency Condition makes the -baar suffixation rule insensitive to the intransitive nature of the verb klimmen. Williams (1981a) has replaced this condition with his slightly different °Atom Condition.
LIT. Siegel (1977), Allen (1978) Scalise (1984), Spencer (1991).

Adjunct
SYNTAX: a constituent in an adjoined position. EXAMPLE: in [_X Y [_X ...]] Y is "Chomsky-adjoined" to X (see °adjunction). Usually the term 'adjunct' refers to °base-generated adjuncts only.

Adjunct Condition
SYNTAX: Condition which forbids extraction out of an adjunct. One of the °Conditions on Extraction Domains. EXAMPLE: This condition accounts for the ungrammaticality of sentences like (i) and (ii), where a wh-phrase has been extracted from the adjunct a.

(i)  *which concert did you sleep [a during t]
(ii) *how did you leave [a before fixing the car t]

Adjunction condition
SYNTAX: condition which says that heads can adjoin only to heads and maximal projections only to maximal projections.

Adjunction
SYNTAX: one of the two types of °movement operation, the other being °substitution. Traditionally, there are two types of adjunction: Chomsky-adjunction, which results in a structure like (i), and sister-adjunction, which results in a structure like (ii). Both structures are the result of adjunction of X to Yⁱ⁺¹, but only in (i) the node adjoined to is doubled, or split into two °segments to accommodate the adjoined element.

(i)	 Yi+1	        (ii)	 Yi+1
         /  \                   / | \
	X   Yi+1              X  Z  Yi+1
             / \
 	    Z	Yi

Advanced tongue root
PHONOLOGY: a °feature which characterizes phonemes which are produced by pushing the tongue root forward and often the tongue body upward, so that the resonating chamber of the pharynx is enlarged. [+ATR] vowels are [i, u, e, , o], [-ATR] are [I, U, e, , a].
LIT. Chomsky & Halle (1968), Halle & Clements (1983).

Adverb
A word which modifies a verb, an adjective or another adverb. SYNTAX: adverbs such as quickly, or probably, can also modify VPs, or sentences. It has been proposed that adverbs form a distinct category, ADV, because - unlike the °lexical categories - they do not project a phrase in the sense of X-bar-theory. Since adverbs never occur as a complement, they are treated as °adjuncts.

Affect alpha
SYNTAX: most general formulation of the syntactic operations that can be applied to any category a; affect a is short for 'do anything to any category'. In effect, Affect a is a cover term for °Move alpha, °Insert alpha, and °Delete alpha.
LIT. Lasnik & Saito (1984).

Affected object
SEMANTICS: the object that is affected by the action expressed by the verb. EXAMPLE: in He ate a sandwich, a sandwich denotes the affected object because the sandwich gradually disappears in the eating-process. In contrast, his father in He gave his father a book or He saw his father does not denote an affected object. A verb like eat is called an affectedness verb. The complement the wagon in he loaded the wagon with hay is called totally affected, in contrast to the wagon in he loaded hay on the wagon (only part of the wagon may be affected). The notion affected object is closely related to the notion °patient.
LIT. Jackendoff (1990), Tenny (1987).

Affectedness
°Affected object.

Affix
MORPHOLOGY: notion which generalizes over °prefix , °suffix, °infix, and °circumfix. EXAMPLE: the English word disagreement consists of the verbal base agree, and two affixes, viz. the prefix dis-, and the suffix -ment.

Affix Ordering Generalization
MORPHOLOGY: a generalization over °class I and class II affixes which entails that class II affixes can attach to words derived with class I affixes, but not vice versa (°Level Ordering Hypothesis). EXAMPLE: according to Siegel (1974) class I affixes in English such as -ion, -ity, -al and -ive trigger and undergo phonological processes, while class II affixes such as -ness, -less, -ful and -ly do not (e.g. op[ei]que: op[æ]city: op[ei]queness (Trisyllabic Shortening),párent: paréntal: párentless (Stress shift)). Next to these differences it appears that class I affixes cannot appear outside class II affixes (*hopefulity). Some well-known exceptions to the Affix Ordering Generalization are discussed in Aronoff (1976).
LIT. Chomsky & Halle (1968), Siegel (1974), Aronoff (1976), Allen (1978), Halle & Mohanan (1985), Sproat (1985).

Affix Rule
°Lexical transformation.

Affix substitution
MORPHOLOGY: a type of morphological operation by which one °affix takes the structural position of another affix. As a consequence of this operation, the two affixes in question cannot co-occur. Affix substitution is an alternative to °truncation. EXAMPLE: the English suffix -ee attaches to transitive verbs (employ:employee, pay:payee). Although pairs such as nomin+ate:nomin+ee, evacu+ate:evacu+ee are semantically related, the nouns ending in -ee lack the verbal suffix -ate, and if it is assumed that word formation rules can only take words as their base these forms are problematic. Some linguists have solved this problem by allowing for °truncation rules, which delete a morpheme (in our example -ate) which is internal to an affix (in our example -ee) (cf. Aronoff (1976). Others have tackled this problem by allowing for affix substitution: -ee takes the structural position of -ate, or, by the same token, -ate takes the position of -ee.
LIT. Sassen (1971), Van Marle (1985a, 1985b).

Affixation
MORPHOLOGY: a word-formation process which adds an °affix to a base. Affixation is a cover term which generalizes over °prefixation, °suffixation, °infixation and °circumfixion.

Affricate
PHONOLOGY: a phoneme produced like a °stop, but with slow release of the closure, resulting in a °fricative ending. The stop part and the fricative part have the same place of articulation (i.e. they are °homorganic). EXAMPLE: in German the combination [ts] is a fricative sound in Ziel 'goal' and Satz 'sentence'. The combination behaves phonologically as a unit in German, in contrast with English where [ts] are two phonemes, cf. hats.

A-free
SYNTAX: Anything which is not °A-bound, is A-free.

Agent
Type of °argument or °thematic role which designates an entity which is the cause of and has control over the action denoted by the predicate. EXAMPLE: in (i)-(iii) Miguel is the Agent.

(i)   Miguel chased Gianni
(ii)  Miguel gave Pedro some water
(iii) Pedro was hit by Miguel

Agentive verb
Verb that has an °Agent as one of its °arguments.

A-GF
SYNTAX: a °GF corresponding to an °A-position.

Agglutinating language
MORPHOLOGY: a language which has a morphological system in which words as a rule are polymorphemic and where each morpheme corresponds to a single lexical meaning. Classical examples of agglutinating languages are Turkish and Quechua:

(i)	Turkish
	ev-	ler-	i-	        den	   'from their house'
	house	plural	possessive	ablative

(ii)	Quechua
	maqa-	chi-	naku-	        rka-	n  'they let each other be beaten'
	beat	cause	reciprocal	plural	3

AGR
SYNTAX: the person and number feature complex in finite °INFL. Since Pollock (1989): a functional head containing °agreement features and/or an agreement suffix which projects its own syntactic °X-bar schema called Agreement Phrase (AGRP).
LIT. Chomsky (1981), Pollock (1989), Belletti (1991), Ouhalla (1990).

Agreement
Two elements a and b agree if they have at least one feature in common. Two elements a and b are in an agreement relation if they must agree in some way. A traditional term for agreement is concord. EXAMPLE: the subject and the finite verb in (i) are in an agreement relation: they must have the same features for person and number.

	(i)	John[3p,s] is[3p,s] reading

Aktionsart
°Aspectual classes.

Alienable possession
°Inalienable possession.

Allomorphy
MORPHOLOGY: the phenomenon that a single morpheme has different realizations, i.e. alternative forms depending on the phonological or morphological context in which it appears. In English, the plural suffix has three pronunciations: (a) /s/ after nouns ending in a voiceless consonant (cats /kats/), (b) /z/ after nouns ending in a voiced consonant (dogs /dogz/), and (c) /@z/ after nouns ending in a coronal sibilant (horses /hors@z/). In another type of allomorphy, the realization of a morpheme is conditioned by the presence of another morpheme. The English suffix -able is pronounced /@bl/ in adjectives such as possible and probable, but when the noun-forming suffix -ity is attached to it it is pronounced as /@bil/ (possibility, probability).
LIT. Aronoff (1976) , Scalise (1984), Spencer (1991).

Allomorphy rule
MORPHOLOGY: a special type of word formation rule (adjustment rule) proposed by Aronoff (1976) to account for allomorphic variation. Allomorphy rules apply to the output of the word formation rules, and instantiate phonological changes in certain morphemes in the immediate environment of some other morphemes. EXAMPLE: Aronoff assumes for English an allomorphy rule which changes the verbal suffix -fy (amplify, electrify) into -fic- if it is followed by the noun-forming suffix -ation (amplification, electrification).
LIT. Aronoff (1976), Scalise (1984), Spencer (1991).

Allophony
PHONOLOGY: the phenomenon that a °phoneme has different (context-dependent) variants. The different variants are called allophones. EXAMPLE: in English [th] in tin, [?t] in cat and [t] in stop are allophones of the phoneme /t/. Syllable-initially the phoneme is pronounced differently than in medial or in final position. The differences between the allophones can be expressed by phonological rules.

Alveolar
PHONOLOGY: alveolar sounds are produced by raising the tongue tip or blade towards the alveolar ridge. EXAMPLE: /t/, /d/, /s/, /z/, /l/ and /n/ in English and Dutch.

Ambiguity
SEMANTICS: the phenomenon that an expression has more than one meaning. Two different types of ambiguity can be distinguished on the basis of what is causing it: °lexical ambiguity (more than one word meaning) and °structural ambiguity (more than one syntactic structure). Ambiguity has to be distinguished from °vagueness and °context dependence.

Ambisyllabic
PHONOLOGY: a segment is ambisyllabic if it belongs to two syllables. EXAMPLE: the English word hammer cannot be divided into two syllables ha and mer; the [m] functions both as the final segment of the first syllable and as the initial consonant of the second syllable.
LIT. Kahn (1976).

A-movement
SYNTAX: movement to an °A-position.

Analogy
MORPHOLOGY: a diachronic process which changes words after the model of other forms. EXAMPLE: in Gothic, the stem of the noun meaning 'foot' is a so-called u-stem, i.e. a stem ending in a suffix -u, although originally this stem did not end in a suffix -u. Compare the nominative singular of the non-u-stem foot in Latin (pe:s), Ancient Greek (pó:s), Sanskrit (pá:t), and Gothic (fotus) with the nom.sg. of the u-stem son in Ancient Greek (huiós), Sanskrit (su:nús) and Gothic (sunus). The diachronic account of this class shift runs as follows. Historically, the accusative ending -m was syllabic after consonant-final roots. By a regular sound change this syllabic /m/ became -um in Germanic. Hence, the accusative of foot became fot-um. The result of this change was that the accusative fotum became indistinguishable from the accusative of u-stems (e.g. sunum), although their underlying morphological structure was different: fot-um vs. sun-u-m. If one assumes that the accusative fot-um is reanalyzed as fot-u-m, the change *fot > fotus (nom.sg.) can be schematized as sun-u-m:sun-u-s = fot-u-m:X, where X is fot-u-s.
LIT. Kiparsky (1965, 1968, 1970, 1974, 1978), King (1969), Wetzels (1981, 1983), Lahiri & Dresher (1983), Beekes (1990).

Analytic truth
SEMANTICS: a sentence which is true solely in virtue of its meaning. EXAMPLE: (i) is an analytic truth:

(i) Bachelors are unmarried

(ii) Every raven is black or not black

Anaphor
An element which depends for its reference on the reference of another element. SYNTAX: In binding theory, an element which must be A-bound (°bind) by an °antecedent within its °binding domain. EXAMPLE: himself in (i)a is an anaphor with John as its antecedent. The ill-formedness of (i)b and c is due to the lack of a proper antecedent: himself does not agree in person features with I in (i)b, and John is outside the binding domain in (i)c.

(i) a	John hates himself
    b  *I hate himself
    c  *John says that I hate himself

Anaphoric epithet
SYNTAX: °R-expression whose reference depends anaphorically upon some other element. EXAMPLE: the intended co-referentiality in (i) turns the bastard into an anaphoric epithet. In (ii), the epithet the idiot is interpreted as a °bound variable.

(i)  [John'si father] should have sent the bastardi to reform school.
(ii) every boy'si father sends the idioti to school

Anaphoric pronoun
SEMANTICS: a pronoun which 'refers back' to another constituent in the sentence. EXAMPLE: if his in John loves his mother has the same referent as John, it is an anaphoric pronoun. Pronouns which are not anaphoric pronouns are called °deictic pronouns. Not to be confused with °anaphor.

Angled brackets
PHONOLOGY: a notational convention used to collapse rules. EXAMPLE: the two rules (i) and (ii) can be collapsed as (iii).

(i)	A -> B /_____Y  X  Z
(ii)	A -> B /_____Y  Z
(iii)	A -> B /_____Y <X> Z

Anomaly
SEMANTICS: the phenomenon that a sentence is meaningless because there is an incompatibility in the meaning of the words. EXAMPLE: Colourless green ideas sleep furiously. Here at least colourless, green, and ideas have incompatible meanings. It is unclear whether anomaly is a linguistic phenomenon.
LIT. Chomsky (1957, 1965).

Antecedent
Element which determines the reference of another element. EXAMPLE: in (i)

(i) John loves his mother

Antecedent government
SYNTAX: relation that holds between a and b iff a °governs b and is coindexed with b. See °ECP.
LIT. Chomsky (1981, 1986b), Lasnik & Saito (1984, 1991), Rizzi (1990).

Anterior
PHONOLOGY: a °feature which characterizes phonemes that are produced with an obstruction located in the front of the palato-alveolar region of the mouth. The palato-alveolar region is where the ordinary /'cup'-s/ is produced. EXAMPLE: anterior sounds in English are /p/, /b/, /m/, /t/, /d/, /n/, /f/, and /v/.
LIT. Chomsky & Halle (1968), Halle & Clements (1983).

Antipersistence
°(Left) Downward monotonicity.

Antonymy
SEMANTICS: the relation between lexical items that are binary opposites in meaning (e.g. alive and dead), gradable opposites in meaning (e.g. young and old), or converse opposites (e.g. buy and sell).
LIT. Kempson (1977).

A-over-A
SYNTAX: the A-over-A Principle says that if a rule ambiguously refers to A in a structure of the form of (i), the rule must apply to the higher, more inclusive, node A. EXAMPLE: this principle prevents extraction of the NP Africa out of the NP my trip to Africa in which it is included in (ii)b, but allows the more inclusive NP to be fronted in (ii)c.

(i)	 ... [A ... [A ... 
(ii) a	 I won't forget [NP my trip to [NP Africa ]] 
     b  *Africa, I won't forget my trip to
     c	 my trip to Africa, I won't forget

Apical
PHONOLOGY: phonemes produced with the tip of the tongue are apical. The °feature involved is °coronal.

A-position
SYNTAX: a position that in °D-structure can be occupied by an °argument. A-positions are positions to which a °theta-role can be assigned (subject and object positions). EXAMPLE: the NPs John and apples in the sentence John eats apples are in A-positions (in D-structure). A-positions are also known as Argument positions. A position which is not an A-position is called an A'-position (A-bar-position). EXAMPLE: the position occupied by operators such as who in e.g. who does he see? is an A'-position. Another term for A'-position is Non-Argument position.
LIT. Chomsky (1981, 1986a, 1992).

Appositional compound
MORPHOLOGY: a °compound of the form [[a][b]], the meaning of which can be characterized as 'a AS WELL AS b'. EXAMPLE: player-coach means 'someone who is a player as well as a coach'. Many linguists consider appositional compounds a subtype of the so-called °dvanda compounds.

Arbitrary PRO
SYNTAX: instance of °PRO which is not controlled (°control) and has arbitrary reference. EXAMPLE: in (i) the PRO subject of to sit is not controlled and has the same arbitrary meaning as one in that one just sits there should be forbidden.

(i) Just PRO to sit there should be forbidden

Argument
SYNTAX: a phrase which is a °referential expression and which is associated with a °theta-role assigned by a lexical head. EXAMPLE: the NPs John and apples in (i)a are arguments of eat and the embedded sentence in (i)b is an argument of obvious. The phrase next week in (ii) is not an argument (of visit), and is assigned no theta-role.

(i)  a  John eats apples
     b	That you're in love, is obvious

(ii) Next week, I will visit you

	(iii)	Johni was hit ti

SEMANTICS: in the formula P(a), a is called the argument of the °predicate P. Generally, for a predicate with °arity n, in P(a₁,...,a_n), a₁,...,a_n are called the arguments of P.
LIT. Gamut (1991).

Argument-linking Principle
MORPHOLOGY: a principle intended to account for the interpretation of synthetic compounds proposed in Lieber (1983). This principle accounts for the fact that the interpretation of the non-head in °synthetic compounds such as truck driver and hand-woven - which are assumed to have the morphological structures [[[truck] [drive]] er] and [[[hand] [weave]] en] - is quite restricted. In these synthetic compounds, the non-heads truck and hand must be interpreted as the °internal argument of drive, or the °argument of weave, respectively.

Argument position
°A-position.

Argument structure
MORPHOLOGY/SYNTAX: what makes a lexical °head induce°argument positions in syntactic structure is called its argument structure. EXAMPLE: the head open has an argument structure which induces obligatorily one argument position (Theme), and optionally two more (Agent and Instrument). This argument structure explains what the sentences in (i) have in common. The argument structure of open is usually indicated as in (ii)a or b.

(i)	John opened Bill's door (with his key)
	John's key opened Bill's door
	Bill's door opened
	Bill's door was opened (by John)

(ii)  a:  OPEN	(John	door	key)
	          |	 |       |
		Agent	Theme	Instrument

      b:  OPEN	<Ag, Th, Instr>

Arity
SEMANTICS: the number of °arguments that a °predicate takes. The predicate P in the formula P(a,b) has arity 2 (is a two-place predicate) because it takes two arguments a and b. Generally, a predicate with arity n is called an n-place predicate. Another term for arity is adicity.
LIT. Gamut (1991).

Article
°Determiner.

Aspect
SEMANTICS: a cover term for those properties of a sentence that constitute the temporal structure of the event denoted by the verb and its arguments. Not all verbs have the same aspectual properties and so may belong to different °aspectual classes. The aspect of a sentence is in many languages expressed syntactically and/or morpho-phonologically. EXAMPLE: the opposition between the perfective (I have gone), the imperfective (I went) and the progressive aspect (I am going) in English. Also, it is considered a matter of aspect whether or not the event is bounded (e.g. I ran out of the room) or unbounded (e.g. I ran).
LIT. Comrie (1976), Dowty (1979), Tenny (1987), Verkuyl (1972, 1993).

Aspectual classes
SEMANTICS: A classification of verbs with respect to their aspectual properties, dating back to an Aristotelian classification of situations. The most popular aspectual classes are those proposed in Vendler (1967) (extending a classification in Kenny (1963)) and applied and formalized in Dowty (1979): States, Activities (unbounded processes), Accomplishments (bounded processes), and Achievements (point events). Examples are given in (i) to (iv):

(i)   States: Socrates is mortal, She is in danger, He loves potatoes
(ii)  Activities: John walked miles and miles, She drove him safely
(iii) Accomplishments: John walked home, She ate a sandwich
(iv)  Achievements: She reached the top, He won the race

(v)   For hours she was in danger
(vi)  ?For hours she reached the top

Aspiration
PHONOLOGY: the delay of vibration of the vocal cords after the production of a voiceless consonant. There is a short period of air stream heard as a 'h'-like puff, designated with the phonetic symbol [h], as in English pin: [phin]. In some languages (cf. English) aspiration is predictable and position-bound.
LIT. Chomsky & Halle (1968), Kenstowics & Kisseberth (1979).

Assertion
°Declarative sentence.

Assignment
SEMANTICS: the function which assigns a reference to a variable. The truth-value of quantified formulas is determined with respect to a given assignment. EXAMPLE: in order to determine whether All(v)[P] is true with respect to an assignment g we have to check whether P is true for every assignment g' differing at most from g in the value it assigns to v. Exists(v)[P] is true with respect to an assignment g when P is true for at least one assignment g' which may only differ from g in the value it assigns to v. The use of assignments to variables makes it possible to interpret multiply quantified formulas in a compositional way.
LIT. Gamut (1991).

Assimilation
PHONOLOGY: a process in which one or more °segments become adapted in one or more aspects to a neighbouring segment. EXAMPLE: in English the °alveolar nasal of the °prefix /in-/ changes to [l] in illegal (complete convergence) and to [m] in input (partial convergence). In the latter case the change is from alveolar to °labial under influence of the neighbouring labial segment [p]. When assimilation takes place between two vowels it is more commonly referred to as °vowel harmony.

Atelic aspect
°Aspectual classes

Atom Condition
MORPHOLOGY: a condition on word formation rules proposed in Williams (1981a) which says that:

 (i) the attachment of afx to Y can only be restricted 
     by features realized on Y.

Atomic formula
SEMANTICS: a °formula without °connectives or °quantifiers, made up only of a °predicate with °arguments, like P(a) or R(x,y). More complicated formulas like [P(a) & R(x,y)] or All(x)[P(x)] are not atomic formulas due to the presence of & and All.
LIT. Gamut (1991).

Atomicity of words
°Lexicalist hypothesis.

Attributive use
SEMANTICS: the use that a speaker makes of a definite noun phrase to say something about whatever fits the description of the noun phrase. The definite noun phrase in The murderer of Smith is insane is used attributively if the speaker does not intend to refer to a particular person which he knows to be the murderer of Smith (that would be the °referential use), but to the (possibly unknown) person who murdered Smith, whoever that person may be.
LIT. Donnellan (1966).

AUX
SYNTAX: name of what is now usually labeled °INFL. Also short for °auxiliary verb.

Auxiliary verb
SYNTAX: verb which 'helps' the main verb in expressing certain moods, aspects, tenses or voices; all the verbs beside the main verb in a simplex sentence are auxiliary verbs. EXAMPLE: was is the passive auxiliary in (i), has is the perfect auxiliary in (ii), and should, have and been are the modal, perfect and passive auxiliaries respectively in (iii).

(i)   Greg was defeated
(ii)  Miguel has defeated Greg
(iii) Erik should have been present

Avoid Pronoun Principle
SYNTAX: a principle which states: 'Avoid Pronoun'. This principle, which is considered a subcase of a conversational principle ('don't say more than is required'), is invoked to impose a choice of °PRO over an overt pronoun where possible. EXAMPLE: the principle explains why his in (i) does not refer to John, unless it is stressed.

(i) John would much prefer his going to the movie