A Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics David Crystal

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macrolinguistics (n.) A term used by some linguists, especially in the 1950s, to
identify an extremely broad conception of the subject of linguistic enquiry. In a
macrolinguistic approach, linguistics is seen in its overall relation to phonetic
and extralinguistic experience. It is divided into three main subfields: prelinguistics
(whose primary subject-matter is phonetics), microlinguistics
(whose primary subject-matter is phonology, morphology and syntax) and
metalinguistics (whose subject-matter is the relationship between language
and all extralinguistic features of communicative behaviour, e.g. including what
would now be called sociolinguistics). Some sociolinguists (e.g. Joshua Fishman
(b. 1926)) distinguish between the broad concerns of macrosociolinguistics
(e.g. multilingualism, language planning) and the detailed investigation of
microsociolinguistics (e.g. speech events, conversations).
macroparadigm (n.) A term sometimes used in morphology for a set of paradigms
whose differences can be explained with reference to formal criteria. An
example would be a pair of paradigms where the phonological differences in
the suffixes could be explained by showing that they are related through vowel
harmony (as in Hungarian and Turkish).
macro-phylum (n.)
see family
macro-role
see semantic role
macrosociolinguistics (n.)
see macrolinguistics
main (adj.) A term used in grammatical analysis as part of the classification
of clause types; opposed to subordinate or dependent. A main clause
is an independent clause, i.e. it can stand on its own as a sentence. The term is
also used to identify the more important structural member of a sequence of
items all belonging to the same class, e.g. ‘main verb’ (v. auxiliary verb).
maintenance (n.)
see language maintenance
major (adj.) (1) A term used by some linguists in the classification of
sentence types to refer to the most productive sentence patterns in a language.
A Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics 6th Edition. David Crystal
© 2008 David Crystal. ISBN: 978-1-405-15296-9