A Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics David Crystal

300 meaning construction
the imperative is derived from an underlying structure where its ‘imperativeness’
has been represented, then the application of the you-deletion transformation
would no longer change the structure’s meaning, but simply make tangible an
element of meaning which was already present (viz. Imp. + see ⇒ see). Other
examples of meaning-changing transformations include negative placement
(e.g. Not much shrapnel hit the soldier v. Much shrapnel did not hit the soldier)
and subject raising (e.g. It is certain that nobody will pass the test v. Nobody is
certain to pass the test).
meaning construction see construction (2)
meaning postulate
see meaning
mean length of utterance (MLU) A measure introduced by the American psychologist
Roger Brown (1925–1997) into language acquisition studies in the
1960s, which computes the length of an utterance in terms of morphemes.
The technique is then used to show the increasing length of a child’s utterances
over time, as a base-line for carrying out studies on the developmental complexity
of sentence structure. The notion was introduced to get round the
problem of correlating age with linguistic development.
medial (adj.) (med) The usual way of referring to an element occurring within
a linguistic unit, other than in initial and final positions. The term is
especially used in phonology, e.g. the phoneme /i/ occurs ‘in medial position’
(or ‘medially’) in the word seat.
medium (n.) A term used in the study of communication to refer to the
functionally distinct dimensions in which a message is transmitted. In linguistics,
the basic media are speech and writing, but others are not excluded (e.g.
signing). Of these, speech is generally held in linguistics to be the ‘primary
medium’, writing the ‘secondary’ or ‘derived’ medium, and the analysis of the
differences between these media in structural and functional terms is an
important topic in linguistics. The term is usually distinguished from channel (as
used in communication theory), which refers to the physical means whereby a
(spoken or written) message is transmitted, such as a wire, air, light, etc. Terms
such as mode and modality are used in various branches of linguistics in a
similar way to ‘medium’.
mel (n.)
see pitch
mellow (adj.) One of the features of sound set up by Jakobson and Halle (see
Jakobsonian) in their distinctive feature theory of phonology, to handle
variations in place of articulation; its opposite is strident. Mellow sounds
are defined articulatorily and acoustically, as those involving a less
complex or ‘smooth-edged’ constriction at the point of articulation, and marked
by acoustic energy of relatively low frequency and intensity, compared with
strident sounds. plosives and nasals are examples.
melodic tier In some models of non-linear phonology, a term referring to
a level in a prosodic hierarchy at which articulatory gestures can be