All That Fancy-Shmancy Terminology

I understand that many of you reading this have absolutely no linguistic background at all. That said, I'll compose a list of the terms that I use throughout the blog. This will be updated every time I use new terminology. When you encounter a word for the first time throughout the blog that utilizes a word found here, just click it and it should direct you straight to the word on this list that you clicked on.

• Agglutinative Language - An agglutinative language is one that uses a large number of affixes to administer certain functions to certain words. In contrast with English, which is considered partially "analytic" and partially "fusional," we use the syntax and a few word inflections to assign the same functions to words. For example:
  花火は、昨夜に友達のカメラで写した。
  Hanabi-wa, sakuya-ni tomodachi-no kamera-de utsushita.
  "I filmed the fireworks with my friend's camera last night."
  Wa (topic), ni (locative relation), no (possessor) and de (instrument) are all the agglutinatives, while English relies on the word order, prepositions and inflections to relay the same information.
• Article - A small word or set of words that is used with a noun to limit or give definiteness to it. In English, articles exist as a, an and the. 
• Cases - Inflections of a noun, pronoun or adjective that are designed to illustrate a certain grammatical function in a sentence. In English, I, me and mine would be examples of the same word in varying cases. 
• Colloquial - Describes a casuality of an expression as opposed to a strict, encyclopedic or overly proper one. "I cannot go for a walk due to rain." (Not very colloquial.) "It's raining, so I can't go walk." (Much more colloquial.)
• Conjugation - A verb which has a subject assigned to it, altering it from its base form. "I am" would be a conjugated form of "to be" (the base form), complete with its subject (I) and the conjugated form (am). 
• Declension - The act of changing a noun's case from its base form. I (base form/subject case) =declined to=> me (object case); mine (possessive case). 
• Diacritics - The marks above or below a letter to indicate a certain pronunciation. The same diacritic's indication may vary between languages. 
• Elision - The omission of one or more sounds in a word.
• Fusional Language - As opposed to an agglutinative language, a fusional one assigns grammatical meaning to words by changing their form. English is, in part, a fusional language; our verbs change slightly to indicate person or tense. Purely fusional languages tend to have large numbers of word forms to learn.
• Indo-European Language - "Indo-European" is a linguistic phylum that contains a great number of languages which share a common ancestor, Proto Indo-European, and are found in the region between Europe and India. 
• IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) - An alphabetic system used to denote the value of sounds in a language in a method that would be internationally recognized.
  
  - IPA for French - You can click the letters or symbols and a sound file will be played to show pronunciation.

• Number - Simply singularity or plurality. 
• Paradigm - A framework that usually contains all the parts of a particular concept. In a linguistic sense, paradigms are usually charts that show how to conjugate verbs or decline nouns.
  
  - Sample verb paradigm for the English verb 'to be.'

• Participle - A verb form that has properties of both a verb and an adjective. E.g. written: I have written the agreement. (Verbal; the verb form is "have written.") That is a written agreement. (Adjectival; "written" is describing "agreement.")
• Particle - A particle is simply a small word. This term technically has no precise definition; it's actually a safety net of a term that is meant to encompass a huge group of words that have no congruency in their usage and have no exact lexical definition. English particles include ah, well, oh, to (infinitive verb marker), no, etc. 
• Person - Who the subject of the verb is. Some examples of this in English are First Person (I), Second Person (you), Third Person (he, she, it, John, one, etc.).
• Stem Augmentation (Greek) - When the stem of a Greek verb has a short e psilon prefixed to it. This usually happens in the past tenses. Ex: Λύω (Lýō), "I loosen." > ἔλυον (élyon) "I loosened." 
• Syntax - The rules that govern the way a sentence is constructed.
• Tense - A distinct verb form used to express variations in time or duration of the action or state that the verb describes. E.g. I am, I was, I have been, I will be, etc. 
• Voice - The distinction a verb makes that indicates the relation of the subject to the verb. In English, the distinction is whether or not the subject is asserting the action (active voice) or the subject is itself acted upon by the verb (passive voice). "He strikes the punching bag." (Active Voice); "He is struck by the punching bag as it swings back at him." (Passive Voice)
• Vowel Augmentation (Greek) - When the stem of a Greek verb begins with a vowel, this vowel is lengthened by the e psilon that is attached for augmentation in the past tense. Ex: Ἄγω (Ágō) "I bring." > ἐ + ἄγον (e + ágon) = ἦγον (êgon) "I brought."  

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