A Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics David Crystal

112 contrary
that John has not gone. Contrafactive verbs (or ‘contrafactives’) are usually
distinguished from factive and ‘non-factive’ verbs.
contrary (adj./n.) A term sometimes used in semantics to refer to a sense
relation between lexical items. ‘Contrary terms’ (or ‘contraries’) display a type
of oppositeness of meaning, illustrated by such pairs as big/little, happy/sad.
Because of the technical use of this term in logic (where it refers to the relationship
between two propositions such that both cannot be true, though both can
be false), some semanticists prefer to use antonymy to refer to the linguistic
relationship involved in such opposites.
contrast (n.) A term used in linguistics for a difference between units, especially
one which serves to distinguish meanings in a language (it is contrastive).
Such differences are also referred to as distinctive, functional or significant.
The principle of contrast (or contrastivity) is considered fundamental to linguistic
analysis. It can be illustrated with reference to the notions of phoneme
(in particular), distinctive feature, morpheme, etc., which may all be defined
as ‘minimally contrastive units’ at some level of analysis. Examples in phonology
are the contrast between English /p/ and /b/, or voiced v. voiceless; in
grammar, between inflectional endings, or the various possibilities of wordorder.
Many linguists use the term opposition in the same way, but in some
approaches this term is given separate definition, referring only to the paradigmatic
differences between units (‘contrast’ being reserved for syntagmatic
differences).
contrastive accent see accent (2)
contrastive analysis (CA) A general approach to the investigation of language
(contrastive linguistics), particularly as carried on in certain areas of applied
linguistics, such as foreign-language teaching and translation. In a contrastive
analysis of two languages, the points of structural difference are identified,
and these are then studied as areas of potential difficulty (interference or
‘negative transfer’) in foreign-language learning. The claim that these differences
are the source of difficulty in foreign-language learning, and thus govern
the progress of the learner, is known as the contrastive analysis hypothesis.
Although strongly influential (motivating audio-lingual methods of language
teaching), by the 1980s the validity of the hypothesis had been seriously questioned,
especially following research into the nature of interlanguage and into
the cognitive contribution which individuals themselves bring to the learning
task. Contrastive analyses are synchronic; analogous ‘contrastive’ studies of
two states in the history of a language would be grouped under a different
heading, such as comparative or historical linguistics.
contrastive rhetoric
see rhetoric
contrastive stress
see stress
control (n.) A term used in one of the (sub-)theories of government-binding
theory (control theory), which determines the potential for reference of