From KneeQuickie

The intention of this article is not to undermine the intention of the rest of the ZBBWiki [, Vlad]. The point is to provide a much quicker, more succinct, albeit less thorough reference for linguistics and phonetics terms. If the ZBBWiki is an encyclopedia, then this is a dictionary. I believe it would be much easier for new people to quickly look up a new word or for oldbies to look up a word they've forgotten the specifics of.

P.S. Please correct any [of my] mistakes.

ZBBctionary

RP - Received Pronunciation (i.e. British English) AP - American Pronunciation

• ablaut RP: /???/; AP: /"{b.laUt/

Change of a vowel within a word for grammatical reasons, mainly associated with certain Indo-European languages, though similar changes may occur in other families. A form of apophony.

• abjad RP: /"{b.dZ{d/; AP: /"{b.dZ{d/

A writing system similar to an alphabet in which the consonants are indicated, but the vowels either optional or omitted See also: alphabet

• abugida RP: /"{.bju.gi.d@/; AP: /{."bju.gI.d@/ <---- are you serious?

An alphasyllabary in which each character represents a consonant with an inherint vowel that is either changed or muted by means of diacritics See also: syllabary, syllabic abjad, virama, matra

• anaptyxis RP: /%{.n@p."tIk.sIs/; AP: /{.n@ptIksIs/

See epenthesis

• aorist RP: //; AP: /eI.Or.Ist/

Found in Homeric Greek, it is used as a simple past as opposed to the perfect, imperfect, or pluperfect tenses.

• assimilation RP: /@."sIm.mI.%lEI.S@n/; AP: /@."sI.m@.%le.S@n/

The movement of a sound towards that of a nearby sound, as in "affix" from "ad-fix"

• calque RP: /k{lk/; AP: /k{lk/

A loan translation; a word borrowed into a language by translating morpheme-by-morpheme, as in English "superman" from German "übermensch"

• central RP: //; AP: /sEn.tr@l/

in reference to a vowel, between the palatal (front) and velar (back) regions. In reference to a consonant, articulated with the airflow in the middle of the mouth, as opposed to the sides for the lateral. See also lateral and central fricatives.

• conjunction RP: //; AP: /k@n.dZVnk.S@n/

links two clauses or phrases together, indicating some sort of relationship between them. This may range from mere concurrence to various sorts of transition.

• continuant RP: //; AP: /kAn"tInju@nt/

a sound in which there is some airflow; that is, any sound except a plosive. It is characteristic of continuants that they can be drawn out to any length; plosives can only be lengthened by holding them without release.

• dissimilation RP: /dI."sI.mI.%lEI.S@n/; AP: /dI."sI.m@.%le.S@n/

The movement of a sound away from that of a nearby sound, as in Spanish "arbol" from "arbor"

• epenthesis RP: /E."pEn.T@.sIs/; AP: /@."pEn.T@.sIs/

The insertion of a sound between two other sounds See also: syncope, prothesis

• excrescence RP: /Eks."krE.s@ns/; AP: /"Eks.kr@.sIns/

The insertion of a consonant between two other consonants. Examples include Latin ml > mpl and Spanish mn > mbr.

• ligature RP: //; AP: /"lI.g@.tS@r/

Combination of two or more characters into a single character, such as æ from the combination of a and e. Ligatures are relatively rare in the Roman script but form a fundamental component of scripts such as Devanagari.

• metathesis RP: //; AP: /m@"t{.T@.sIs/

What you call it when two sounds change place, whether they are right next to each other or in different syllables. Examples include Old English acsian from ascian (and modern English *ax for ask), Gaelic baird from earlier bardī, and slips of the tongue such as droner and tum instead of toner and drum.

• modal RP: /"m@U.d@l/; AP: /"mo.d@l/

Word or morpheme that modifies the mood of a verb, as in English "might", "could", etc.

• negation RP: //; AP: /nE"geI.S@n/

Indicates that the event described by the utterance does not occur and often marked through the use of a particle or modal inflection. The opposite of indicative.

• prothesis RP: /"pr@U.T@.sIs/; AP: /"pro.T@.sIs/

The addition of a sound at the beginning of a word

• schwa RP: //; AP: /Swa/

Central mid-height vowel of neutral roundedness, represented in the IPA by the symbol /ə/ and in X-SAMPA by /@/. It occurs in the vowel reductions of English, Russian and Catalan, for example, such as in English ahead. According to Prokosch, 1939, the term is taken from traditional Hebrew Grammar (šəwā' ).

• stop RP: //; AP: /stAp/

Consonant produced with complete blockage of the oral airflow. Stop consonants are divided by the presence or absence of nasal airflow; stops with nasal airflow are called nasal stops or simply "nasals"; those without are called plosives or simply "stops" (though this latter usage is, for obvious reasons, confusing and best avoided).

• svarabhakti RP: //; AP: /sParab"hakti/

See epenthesis

• transitive RP: //; AP: /"tr{nz@tIv/

Generally, a verb with two arguments, usually a subject and an object or an agent and a patient. Some languages use a more stringent analysis of transitivity, however, such as requiring that one participant act directly upon another participant for a verb to be considered transitive.