| Noun | 1. | linguistics - the scientific study of language linguistic performance - (linguistics) a speaker's actual use of language in real situations; what the speaker actually says, including grammatical errors and other non-linguistic features such as hesitations and other disfluencies (contrasted with linguistic competence) tone - (linguistics) a pitch or change in pitch of the voice that serves to distinguish words in tonal languages; "the Beijing dialect uses four tones" complementary distribution, complementation - (linguistics) a distribution of related speech sounds or forms in such a way that they only appear in different contexts linguistic competence - (linguistics) a speaker's implicit, internalized knowledge of the rules of their language (contrasted with linguistic performance) feature of speech, feature - (linguistics) a distinctive characteristic of a linguistic unit that serves to distinguish it from other units of the same kind science, scientific discipline - a particular branch of scientific knowledge; "the science of genetics" cognitive science - the field of science concerned with cognition; includes parts of cognitive psychology and linguistics and computer science and cognitive neuroscience and philosophy of mind computational linguistics - the use of computers for linguistic research and applications dialect geography, linguistic geography - the study of the geographical distribution of linguistic features etymology - the study of the sources and development of words diachronic linguistics, diachrony, historical linguistics - the study of linguistic change; "the synchrony and diachrony of language" grammar - the branch of linguistics that deals with syntax and morphology (and sometimes also deals with semantics) descriptive grammar - a grammar that is produced by descriptive linguistics prescriptive grammar - a grammar that is produced by prescriptive linguistics syntax - studies of the rules for forming admissible sentences generative grammar - (linguistics) a type of grammar that describes syntax in terms of a set of logical rules that can generate all and only the infinite number of grammatical sentences in a language and assigns them all the correct structural description phonemics, phonology - the study of the sound system of a given language and the analysis and classification of its phonemes neurolinguistics - the branch of linguistics that studies the relation between language and the structure and function of the nervous system pragmatics - the study of language use semantics - the study of language meaning sociolinguistics - the study of language in relation to its sociocultural context structural linguistics, structuralism - linguistics defined as the analysis of formal structures in a text or discourse synchronic linguistics - the study of a language without reference to its historical context descriptive linguistics - a description (at a given point in time) of a language with respect to its phonology and morphology and syntax and semantics without value judgments prescriptive linguistics - an account of how a language should be used instead of how it is actually used; a prescription for the `correct' phonology and morphology and syntax and semantics descriptivism - (linguistics) a doctrine supporting or promoting descriptive linguistics prescriptivism - (linguistics) a doctrine supporting or promoting prescriptive linguistics derivative - (linguistics) a word that is derived from another word; "`electricity' is a derivative of `electric'" descriptor, form, signifier, word form - the phonological or orthographic sound or appearance of a word that can be used to describe or identify something; "the inflected forms of a word can be represented by a stem and a list of inflections to be attached" root word, stem, root, theme, radical, base - (linguistics) the form of a word after all affixes are removed; "thematic vowels are part of the stem" participant role, semantic role - (linguistics) the underlying relation that a constituent has with the main verb in a clause postposition - (linguistics) the placing of one linguistic element after another (as placing a modifier after the word that it modifies in a sentence or placing an affix after the base to which it is attached) preposition - (linguistics) the placing of one linguistic element before another (as placing a modifier before the word it modifies in a sentence or placing an affix before the base to which it is attached) topicalization - (linguistics) emphasis placed on the topic or focus of a sentence by preposing it to the beginning of the sentence; placing the topic at the beginning of the sentence is typical for English; "`Those girls, they giggle when they see me' and `Cigarettes, you couldn't pay me to smoke them' are examples of topicalization" |
| 2. | linguistics - the humanistic study of language and literature arts, humanistic discipline, humanities, liberal arts - studies intended to provide general knowledge and intellectual skills (rather than occupational or professional skills); "the college of arts and sciences" dialectology - the branch of philology that is devoted to the study of dialects lexicology - the branch of linguistics that studies the lexical component of language |