A Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics David Crystal

190 finite automata
independent sentence (or main clause); it permits formal contrasts in tense
and mood. Non-finite forms of the verb, on the other hand, occur on their own
only in dependent clauses, and lack tense and mood contrasts. All forms except
the infinitives and participles (-ing and -en forms) are finite, e.g. is walking,
have walked, walks. Clauses which contain a finite verb are finite clauses (these
in English always contain a subject, except in the case of commands); otherwise,
they are non-finite clauses (e.g. walking down the street, to kick the ball).
finite automata
see automaton
finite-state grammar (FSG) A type of grammar discussed by Noam Chomsky in
his book Syntactic Structures (1957) as an illustration of a simple generative
device. Finite-state grammars generate by working through a sentence ‘from
left to right’; an initial element is selected, and thereafter the possibilities of
occurrence of all other elements are wholly determined by the nature of the
elements preceding them. For example, in the sentence The cat saw the dog, the
grammar would start by specifying the first word (i.e. selecting one of the set
of possible first words for a sentence in English), proceed from this ‘initial state’
to specify the next word (i.e. one of the set of words which can follow the),
and continue this process until the ‘final state’ of the sentence has been arrived
at. Chomsky shows how this extremely simple kind of grammar is incapable
of accounting for many important processes of sentence formation, as in discontinuous
constructions, e.g. The boys who saw John are going, where the
grammatical relationship of boys to are cannot be handled in a finite-state
grammar. Alternative grammars are discussed by Chomsky which improve on
this model in several respects (see phrase-structure and transformational
grammars). Finite-state grammars, also called ‘one-sided linear grammars’, ‘regular
grammars’ and ‘Type-3 grammars’ (see Chomsky hierarchy), generate finitestate
languages (FSLs).
first language
see language
first language acquisition
see acquisition
first person
see person
Firthian (adj.) Characteristic of, or a follower of, the linguistic principles
of J(ames) R(upert) Firth (1890–1960), Professor of General Linguistics in the
University of London (1944–56), and the formative influence on the development
of linguistics in Great Britain (the ‘London School’ of linguistics). A central
notion is polysystemicism, an approach to linguistic analysis based on the
view that language patterns cannot be accounted for in terms of a single
system of analytic principles and categories (monosystemic linguistics), but that
different systems may need to be set up at different places within a given level
of description. Other central Firthian notions include his contextual theory
of meaning, with its strong emphasis on the social context of situation;
prosodic (as opposed to phonemic) phonology, and collocation. Relatively
little of Firth’s teaching was published, but many of his ideas have been