Vocabulary
(NOTE: Notice that each definition has some sentences and expressions given in bold; the original definitions do not have these sentences underlined, but we have underlined them so as to draw the reader’s attention to the most important part of each definition and make them appear more obvious and easy to understand.)
Dialect:
1. Manner of speaking, language, speech; esp. a manner of speech peculiar to, or characteristic of, a particular person or class; phraseology, idiom.
2. a. One of the subordinate forms or varieties of a language arising from local peculiarities of vocabulary, pronunciation, and idiom. (In relation to modern languages usually spec. A variety of speech differing from the standard or literary ‘language’; a provincial method of speech, as in ‘speakers of dialect’.) Also in a wider sense applied to a particular language in its relation to the family of languages to which it belongs.
Diachronic:
Linguistics. [tr. F. diachronique (F. de Saussure a 1913, in Cours de linguistique générale (1916) iii. 120).] Pertaining to or designating a method of linguistic study concerned with the historical development of a language; historical, as opposed to descriptive or synchronic. Also transf., in Anthropology, etc. Hence dia
Synchronic:
Linguistics. [tr. F. synchronique (F. de Saussure a 1913, in Cours de linguistique générale (1916) iii. 117).] Pertaining to or designating a method of linguistic study concerned with the state of a language at one time, past or present; descriptive, as opposed to historical or diachronic. Also transf. in Anthropology, etc.
Neogrammarian:
n. A linguist holding the view that phonetic changes operate without exception.
Lexical diffusion:
Chen and Wang (1975): “a phonological rule gradually extends its scope of operation to a larger and larger portion of the lexicon, until all relevant items have been transformed by the process.”
Register:
Linguistics. A variety of a language or a level of usage, spec. one regarded in terms of degree of formality and choice of vocabulary, pronunciation, and (when written) punctuation, and related to or determined by the social role of the user and appropriate to a particular need or context.
Prescriptive:
That prescribes or directs; giving definite, precise directions or instructions. In later use, in Linguistics: that lays down rules of usage.
In Linguistics, opposed to descriptive (see DESCRIPTIVE adj. 3b). See also normative grammar n. at NORMATIVE adj. and n. Special uses.
Descriptive:
Linguistics. Describing the structure of a language at a given time, avoiding comparisons with other languages or other historical phases, and free from social valuations; as in descriptive grammar, linguistics, etc. (Opp. normative, prescriptive, historical; cf. SYNCHRONIC a.)
Normative:
adj. That constitutes or serves as a norm or standard; implying or derived from a norm; prescriptive.
n. A normative standard, a norm.
normative grammar n. a system of grammatical rules set up as a standard to which language in use must conform; (also) a work setting out such rules.