SYNCHRONIC= 3. 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. 1922 L. BLOOMFIELD in Classical Weekly 13 Mar. 142/1 One is glad to see, therefore, that Dr. Sapir deals with synchronic matters (to use De Saussure's terminology) before he deals with diachronic. 1927, etc. [see DIACHRONIC a. 2]. 1937 [see SAUSSUREAN a.]. 1946 [see ONOMATOPY]. 1954 [see PROCESS n. 5b]. 1968 Jrnl. Assoc. Teachers of Russian XVII. 8 A synchronic study of a language studies the language of a particular period without reference to what went before or came after, and in practice the period in question is generally our own. 1975 Listener 20 Mar. 367/3 Though the ‘synchronic’ approach of the semiologists is for the moment more fashionable, it is impossible not to be interested in the history of social myths.

DIACHONIC= 2. 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 diachronically adv.; diachrony. 1927 Mod. Philology No. 218 De Saussure..outlines the relation of ‘synchronic’ to ‘diachronic’ linguistics. 1937 JESPERSEN Analytic Syntax xvii. 60 A view which is historically (diachronically) impeccable. 1938 R. H. LOWIE Hist. Ethnol. Theory xii. 228 We..ought to study the changes going on before our eyes: a ‘synchronic’ approach must be combined with a ‘diachronic’ one. 1951 E. E. EVANS-PRITCHARD Social Anthropol. iii. 61 Social anthropologists generally study synchronic problems while historians study diachronic problems. 1957 R. W. ZANDVOORT Handbk. Eng. Gram. p. v, Contemporary and historical (or, in the terminology of modern linguistics, synchronic and diachronic) grammar are..best treated separately. 1959 W. BASKIN tr. F. de Saussure's Course in Gen. Linguistics I. iii. 81 Everything that has to do with evolution is diachronic. Similarly, synchrony and diachrony designate respectively a language-state and an evolutionary phase. 1963 Canadian Jrnl. Linguistics Fall 54 The synchrony and diachrony of language are reflected in the synchrony and diachrony of grammatical theory. 1967 C. L. WRENN Word & Symbol 13 So too must the whole cultural significance of a country be examined with a minute appreciation of its language seen diachronically if its literature is to be fully apprehended. 1968 Assoc. Teachers of Russian Jrnl. XVII. 8 Diachronic study..is concerned with the movement of a language through time, with the changes that occur in all its planes and the reasons for them.

UNATTESTED= unattested n'testid → adj. not existing in any documented form: if a will contains unattested changes, the changes will be disregarded although large masonry instruments were not unattested in the world, they were constructed infrequently. • (Linguistics) denoting a form or usage or pronunciation of a word for which there is no evidence: logically possible but unattested word- formation. "unattested adj." The New Oxford American Dictionary, second edition. Ed. Erin McKean. Oxford University Press, 2005. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press. Universidad de Valencia. 3 March 2009

ERROR=[a. OF. error, errur, errour (mod.Fr. erreur) = Pr. and Sp. error, It. errore:L. errr-em, f. errre to wander, ERR. (Some of the early forms may be due to the influence of OF. erreüre:Lat. type *errtram). Down to the end of the 18th c. the prevailing form was errour, which is the form given by Johnson and by Todd (1818); Bailey's Dict. introduces error in 1753, and this spelling is now universal. (In words which have -rr- before the suffix, as horror, terror, mirror, the spelling of -or for an older -our is accepted by British as well as American writers.)] I. 1. The action of roaming or wandering; hence a devious or winding course, a roving, winding. Now only poet. The primary sense in Latin; in Fr. and Eng. it occurs only as a conscious imitation of Lat. usage. II. 2. Chagrin, fury, vexation; a wandering of the feelings; extravagance of passion. Obs. [A common use in OF.; cf. IROUR, a. OF. irour anger, which may have been confused with this word.] III. The action or state of erring. 3. a. The condition of erring in opinion; the holding of mistaken notions or beliefs; an instance of this, a mistaken notion or belief; false beliefs collectively. Phrases, to be, stand in, lead into error; without error = ‘doubtless’. b. personified. c. A delusion, trick. Obs. rare. 4. a. Something incorrectly done through ignorance or inadvertence; a mistake, e.g. in calculation, judgement, speech, writing, action, etc. Phrase, to commit an error. clerical error (see CLERICAL). b. A mistake in the making of a thing; a miscarriage, mishap; a flaw, malformation. nature's error = lusus naturæ. Obs. c. Law. A mistake in matter of law appearing on the proceedings of a court of record. writ of error: a writ brought to procure the reversal of a judgement, on the ground of error. By the Judicature Act of 1875 writs of error are limited to criminal cases; in civil cases appeal is substituted. plaintiff, defendant in error: the parties for or against whom the writ of error is used. court of error (U.S.), a court of appeal in cases of error. clerk of the errors (see quot. 1706). d. Math. The quantity by which a result obtained by observation or by approximate calculation differs from an accurate determination. error of a planet: the difference between its observed place and that indicated by calculation. error of a clock: the difference between the time which it indicates and that which it ought to indicate. law of error, random error (see quots.). probable error, standard error (see under the first element). 5. A departure from moral rectitude; a transgression, wrong-doing. In mod. use conveying the notion either of something not wholly voluntary, and so excusable, or of something imprudent as well as blameable. Cf. 4. 6. Comb., as error-blasted, -darkened, -free, -proof, -stricken, - tainted, -teaching, adjs.; error-analysis, -holder; error-correcting, - detecting vbl. ns. (so error-correction, -detection); error box Astr., a quadrilateral area of sky whose dimensions correspond to the uncertainty of a measured position inside it.

SCARE QUOTES= scare quotes n. quotation marks used to foreground a particular word or phrase, esp. with the intention of disassociating the user from the expression or from some implied connotation it carries.

DISSIMILATION=Change or process by which two sounds in a sequence become less like each other. E.g. French pèlerin ‘pilgrim’ is from Latin peregrin (us) ‘foreigner’ by, among other things, dissimilation to l of the first of two r's. Often sporadic: see Grassmann's Law for a more regular instance. "dissimilation" The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Linguistics. P. H. Matthews. Oxford University Press, 2007. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press. Universidad de Valencia. 2 March 2009

INTERLANGUAGE= interlanguage, n. Add: 2. Linguistics. A linguistic system typically developed by a student before acquiring fluency in a foreign language, and containing elements of both his or her native tongue and of the target language.

IMPLICATURE= Introduced by the linguist H. P. Grice (1913-88) in 1967, in a lecture given as one of the 1967-8 William James lectures at Harvard University and first published in 1975.] The act or an instance of (intentionally) implying a meaning which can be inferred from an utterance in conjunction with its conversational or semantic context, but is neither explicitly expressed nor logically entailed by the statement itself; a meaning that is implied contextually, but is neither entailed logically nor stated explicitly. Esp. in conversational implicature.

PROTOLANGUAGE=[< PROTO- comb. form + LANGUAGE n. Compare earlier URSPRACHE n.] A hypothetical parent language from which actual or historical languages or dialects are derived; a reconstruction of such a language. 1929 Jrnl. Internat. Afr. Instit. 2 42 Schleicher was so convinced that the Indo-European proto-language had actually been spoken in the form he had hypothetically deduced, that he even wrote a short fairy tale in it. 1948 Language 24 139 Our reconstruction of a proto-language is theoretical and partial. 1989 J. P. MALLORY In Search of Indo-Europeans iii. 106 A proto-language, at least to a linguist, must meet certain minimal linguistic requirements. 2001 Jrnl. Amer. Oriental Soc. 121 659/2 Without explicit reference to the historical proto-languages underlying dialect groupings, the meaning of taxonomic categories like ‘Mandarin’..remains somewhat vague.

FAMILIES OF LANGUAGES= A group of languages which are assumed to have arisen from a single source: ENGLISH, FRENCH, GERMAN, GREEK, PERSIAN, RUSSIAN, SANSKRIT, and WELSH are all members of the INDO-EUROPEAN language family, and are considered to have descended from a common ancestor. Common ancestry is established by finding systematic correspondences between languages: English repeatedly has /f/ where Latin has /p/ in words with similar meaning, as in father/pater, fish/piscis, flow/pluo rain. It also often has /s/ where Greek has /h/, as in six/héx, seven/heptá, serpent/hérpein to creep. In addition, English and German compare adjectives in similar ways, as in rich, richer, richest: reich, reicher, reichste. These and other correspondences indicate that the languages are cognate (genetically related). Various related words can be compared in order to reconstruct sections of a hypothetical ancestor language. The process of comparison and reconstruction is traditionally known as comparative PHILOLOGY, more recently as comparative historical linguistics. This process formed the backbone of 19c language study, though in the 20c it has become one branch among many. A ‘family tree’ diagram (not unlike a genealogy) is commonly used to represent the relationships between the members of a linguistic family, in which an initial parent language ‘gives birth’ to a number of ‘daughters’, which in turn give birth to others. This can be useful, but is rarely an accurate representation of how languages develop, since it suggests clean cuts between ‘generations’ and between ‘sister’ languages, and implies that languages always become more divergent. In fact, languages generally change gradually, and there is often considerable intermixing among those which remain geographically adjacent. See LANGUAGE CHANGE, LINGUISTIC TYPOLOGY. "LANGUAGE FAMILY" Concise Oxford Companion to the English Language. Ed. Tom mcarthur. Oxford University Press, 1998. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press. Universidad de Valencia. 2 March 2009

GENETIC TREE THEORY= tree diagram Any branching diagram in which different branches are connected only at a point of origin, and all are connected, directly or indirectly, to one node which is the origin of the whole: e.g. a ‘family tree’ which displays the genetic classification of languages, a phrase structure tree, a dependency tree. A ‘tree’ is technically one type of ‘graph’ defined in the branch of mathematics called ‘graph theory’. "tree diagram" The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Linguistics. P. H. Matthews. Oxford University Press, 2007. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press. Universidad de Valencia. 3 March 2009

WAVE THEORY= In historical linguistics, the wave model or wave theory (German Wellentheorie) is a model of language change in which new features of a language spread from a central point in continuously weakening concentric circles, similar to the waves created when a stone is thrown into a body of water. This should lead to convergence among dissimilar languages. The theory was directed against the doctrine of sound laws and the strict tree model introduced by the Neogrammarians and laid the foundations of modern sociolinguistics. Advocacy of the wave theory is attributed to Johannes Schmidt and Hugo Schuchardt. In modern linguistics, the wave model has contributed greatly to improve the tree model approach of the Comparative method. "wave model" Wikipedia. 2 March 2009

ABLAUT=[mod.G., f. ab off + laut sound.] Vowel permutation; systematic passage of the root vowel into others in derivation, as in sing, sang, song, sung, apart from the phonetic influence of a succeeding vowel as in umlaut.

TO GET(also have, etc.) ONE'S OATS= (esp. of a man) to achieve sexual gratification. 1923 J. MANCHON Le Slang 209 To have one's oats, faire des bêtises avec une femme, courir la gueuse. 1965 W. DICK Bunch of Ratbags 188, I was kissing her excitedly and passionately. You're doin' O.K., Cookie, you're gonna get your oats tonight for sure, I thought to myself. 1976 P. HILL Hunters vii. 90 She wouldn't let you have your oats... You wanted to go to bed with her..she wouldn't have it. 1994 Sunday Times 6 Mar. VII. 15/1 Sex education would explain..that it is sexual restraint and consideration for the opposite sex-and not ‘getting their oats’- that it is the sign of real manhood.

MIND BOGGLING= Overwhelming, startling, amazing. 1955 E. FROMM Sane Soc. 46 Consumerism in the America of the 1950s constructed a culture of mind-boggling banality and stifling homogeneity. 1964 Punch 19 Feb. 257/1 A lot of mind-boggling statistics. 1973 C. BONINGTON Next Horizon x. 146 A monstrous bergschrund, a huge, mind-boggling chasm about fifteen feet across. 1980 J. A. HOSTETLER Amish Society (ed. 3) xiii. 277 The symbols over which they dispute appear to be diverse... The list is mind-boggling. 1997 Art Room Catal. Midsummer 20/1 Escher's mind-bending visual puzzles are all the more mind-boggling when applied to this three- dimensional puzzle.

SLOVENRY=The quality or condition of being slovenly; neglect of neatness or cleanliness; slovenliness, carelessness, negligence. Common c 1600-1650; now rare. 1542 UDALL Erasm. Apoph. 74 Persones yt dooe glorie & braggue of their niggyshe sloovenry. 1586 HOOKER Hist. Irel. in Holinshed II. 86/2 The onelie meane..whereby hir husband his countrie was reclamed from sluttishnesse and slouenrie. 1648 J. BEAUMONT Psyche I. clxii, Never did Slovenry more misbecome Nor more confute its nasty self than here. 1681 RYCAUT tr. Gracian's Critick 198 It is a barbarous Slovenry after we have blown our Nose, to look on the Snot in our Handkerchief. 1847 Blackw. Mag. LXII. 662 It has a little dash of slovenry. 1895 Sotheran's Catal. Jan. 11 This first edition of the two novels is curiously mis-titled through the publisher's slovenry.

RUDE= a. An impolite or unsophisticated person. b. = rude boy s.v. RUDE a. 15. 1961 J. DAWSON Ha-Ha iv. 74 No Brains' Trust will work so long as you've always got to have a gaggle of rudes and silly old sages to balance the bright young men. 1975 [see rude boy s.v. RUDE a. 15].

A. adj. I. 1. a. Uneducated, unlearned; ignorant; lacking in knowledge or book-learning. ?a1366 CHAUCER Rom. Rose 752 She was nought rude ne vnmete, But couthe ynow of sich doyng As longeth vnto karolyng. 1390 GOWER Conf. II. 33, I am so rude in my degree And ek mi wittes ben so dulle. c1430 LYDG. Minor Poems (Percy Soc.) 81 To voyde al errour fro folkis that ben rude. 1508 DUNBAR Tua Mariit Wemen 368 Hely raise my renovne amang the rude peple. 1536 CROMWELL in Merriman Life & Lett. (1902) II. 27 They shall leave their cure not to a rude and unlerned person but to a good, lerned & experte curate. 1609 BIBLE (Douay) Gen. xvi. Comm., Some obey whilest they are rude or in a low state, but having got a little knowledge or advancement disdaine their advancers. 1651 HOBBES Leviath. II. xxvi. 141 The rude people taking pleasure in singing, or reciting them. c1710 C. FIENNES Diary (1888) 11 The Country people being a Clownish rude people. 1849 MACAULAY Hist. Eng. vi. II. 107 The London clergy..set an example which was bravely followed by their ruder brethren all over the country. 1865 MOZLEY Miracles 209 The new religion was first promulgated by rude men unacquainted with learning and rhetoric. b. absol. as pl. The unlearned or ignorant. c1400 Rom. Rose 2268 Loke..that they sitte so fetisly, That these ruyde may vttirly Merveyle. c1460 G. ASHBY Dicta Philos. 534 He muste abstene from Rude & Unkunnyng, And al suche vnthrifty folkys despise. 1515 BARCLAY Egloges iv. (1570) Cvjb, His sight infourmeth the rude & ignorant. 1568 T. HOWELL Arb. Amitie (1879) 53 Unto the weake shee was a strength,..Unto the rude, a lamp of light. 1655-60 STANLEY Hist. Philos. (1701) 121/2 Whatsoever they have, to the good seems sufficient, to the rude too little. [1892 PATER Wks. (1901) VIII. 228 Fritillaries.., Snake's heads, the rude call them, for their shape.]

SHIT HOUSE-shit-house a privy; also in gen. use as a term of disgust or contempt (freq. attrib.);

TO TALK SHOP= Disscuss matters concerning one's work, especially at a social occasion when this is inappropriate.

"shop noun" The Oxford Dictionary of English (revised edition). Ed. Catherine Soanes and Angus Stevenson. Oxford University Press, 2005. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press. Universidad de Valencia. 27 March 2009

PILLAGE= → verb [with obj.] rob a (place) using violence, especially in wartime: the abbey was plundered and pillaged. • steal (something) using violence, especially in wartime: artworks pillaged from churches and museums. → noun [mass noun] the action of pillaging a place or property, especially in war. "pillage verb" The Oxford Dictionary of English (revised edition). Ed. Catherine Soanes and Angus Stevenson. Oxford University Press, 2005. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press. Universidad de Valencia. 27 March 2009

VERNACULAR= n. 1. the language or dialect of a particular country (Latin gave place to the vernacular). 2. the language of a particular clan or group. 3. plain, direct speech. adj. (of language) of one’s native country; not of foreign origin or of learned formation. "vernacular n. & adj." The Oxford American Dictionary of Current English. Oxford University Press, 1999. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press. Universidad de Valencia. 27 March 2009

SHIBBOLETH= (a) M17 A word used as a test for detecting people from another district or country by their pronunciation; a word or sound very difficult for foreigners to pronounce correctly. (b) M17 A peculiarity of pronunciation or accent indicative of a person's origin; the distinctive mode of speech of a profession, class, etc. (c) E19 A custom, habit, style of dressing, etc., distinguishing a particular class or group of people. "shibboleth noun" The Oxford Essential Dictionary of Foreign Terms in English. Ed. Jennifer Speake. Berkley Books, 1999. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press. Universidad de Valencia. 27 March 2009