A Sample of Self-Definers—Syntax & Grammar: Part I
The SpecGram Book Elves™
Here is a thirteenth hand-curated selection from “Appendix A: A Self-Defining Linguistic Glossary”, a.k.a. “The only truly reliable cram sheet for your Linguistics 101 final”, from The Speculative Grammarian Essential Guide to Linguistics.
- The subject c-commands the verb and the object.
- It’s a cleft that this sentence is.
- Fred reads more articles on comparative deletion than Susan reads.
- Copular inversion is this phenomenon.
- To the lectern came a specialist in directive inversion.
- The point is, is that the double copula is nonstandard.
- Ain’t no double negatives around here.
- This is an equative clause.
- There are existential clauses.
- frikkin’ expletive
- John investigated gapping, and Susan coordination.
- The horse raced past the garden path fell.
- Intransitive clauses just sit there.
- A locational clause is in this list.
- Where it’s at is locative inversion.
- α-move
- John studied not-stripping, not Bill.
- I enjoy observing object complement clauses.
- Glad that English isn’t a pro-drop language.
- An inverted pseudo-cleft is what this is.
More to come...
