A Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics David Crystal

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emphasize the difference between human language, where environmental learning
has such a large role to play, and animal systems of communication, where
instinct is more important.
cumulative (adj.) (1) A term used in semantics to designate a reading peculiar
to sentences containing more than one plural noun phrase, in which none
of the plural noun phrases is interpreted as being in the scope of the others. For
example, the cumulative reading of Six hundred Dutch firms have five thousand
American computers is paraphrasable as ‘The number of Dutch firms which
have an American computer is 600, and the number of American computers
possessed by a Dutch firm is 5000’.
(2) In semantics, a predicate is said to have cumulative reference if, whenever
it accurately applies to two individuals, it also applies to their sum. plural
and mass nouns are generally cumulative. If X and Y are both accurately
described as water, then the sum of X and Y can also be accurately described as
water.
cupping (n.) A term sometimes used in phonetics for one of the transverse
articulations which may be made by the tongue: specifically, it refers to the
way the tongue body is able to adopt a concave, hollowed shape during an
articulation, by allowing the mid-line of the tongue to drop lower than the sides.
The effect is common in the formation of retroflex consonants. A contrast
can be drawn with grooving.
curly brackets
see bracketing
CV, CVC, etc. (1) Abbreviations for consonant and vowel sequences, used
especially in describing the types of syllable which exist in a language; e.g. in
English the statement of the phonotactic possibilities will include the information
that it is possible to have CCCV- initially, as in splice, and -VCCCC
finally, as in sixths.
(2) CV is also a commonly used abbreviation for cardinal vowel.
CV phonology A term used in phonology for a model which adds a consonant
(C) and vowel (V) tier to the syllabic and segmental tiers previously
recognized in autosegmental phonology. The addition of this tier removes
the need for the feature [syllabic] at the skeletal tier.
CV rule see onset (1)
CV-tier (n.)
see skeletal tier
cycle (n.) (1) A principle in transformational generative grammar that
allows rules to apply in a repeated ordered way to sections of a phrasemarker
where a particular structural description is met, instead of in a
single scan to the phrase structure as a whole. This application of the rules
is referred to as cyclic (or cyclical), and the whole process is known as the
transformational cycle or cyclic principle. Its formalization requires that
the rules apply first to the underlying sentence most deeply embedded in a