A Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics David Crystal

‘consonant’ refers to the phonological sense. Its opposite is vocoid. resonants
with a central airflow (e.g. [j] and vocoids) are also called non-contoids.
contour (n.) (1) A term used in suprasegmental phonology, particularly by
those phonologists working within an American tradition, to refer to a distinctive
configuration of pitches, tones or stresses in an utterance. Several
types of contour are recognized, e.g. ‘primary’, ‘secondary’ and ‘terminal’ contours,
which relate to major patterns in the analysis of intonation, or the notion
of stress contour in generative phonology, which refers to a sequence of stresses
assigned through the application of the transformational cycle. Rising and
falling tones are sometimes referred to as contour tones. A contour tone system
is used in some tone languages (e.g. Thai) where the critical feature is the direction
of tonal movement rather than the relative level of the tone (a contour tone
language as opposed to a register tone language).
(2) In some models of non-linear phonology, a sequence of different features
which belong to a segment in a hierarchical feature representation.
Such segments (e.g. affricates, pre-nasalized stops) are known as contour
segments. Such segments display phonological edge effects, in that the segment
behaves as though it has the feature [+F] with regard to segments on one side
and [−F] with regard to those on the other.
(3) In a windows model of coarticulation, the term refers to the connection
path between individual windows, representing articulatory or acoustic variation
over time in a specific context; also referred to as a path.
contour tone see contour 1
contrafactive 111
contraction (n.) A term used in linguistics to refer to the process or result of
phonologically reducing a linguistic form so that it comes to be attached to
an adjacent linguistic form, or fusing a sequence of forms so that they appear as
a single form. The first kind of contracted form (or contraction) can be illustrated
by I’ve from I have, haven’t from have not, and WANNA-contraction.
The second kind is seen in French du, des from *de le and *de les respectively.
contradiction (n.) An application of the general sense of this term in semantics,
where it refers to a sentence which cannot be true, by virtue of its form and
meaning. For example, This table is more than 10 feet long, but it is less than
10 feet long.
contradictory (adj./n.) A term sometimes used in semantics to refer to a sense
relation between lexical items. ‘Contradictory terms’ (or ‘contradictories’) display
a type of oppositeness of meaning, illustrated by such pairs as male/female
and single/married. Because of the technical use of this term in logic (where it
refers to a relationship between two propositions such that they cannot both be
true or both false), some semanticists prefer to use complementarity to refer
to the linguistic relationship involved in such opposites.
contrafactive (adj./n.) A term used in the classification of verb-complement
constructions, in which the proposition expressed in the complement clause
is presupposed to be false, e.g. I wish John would go, where it is presupposed