A Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics David Crystal

monovalent 311
creoles: monogenetic theories assume the diffusion of a single pidgin to other
areas via migration; polygenetic theories assume that the development of a pidgin
in one community is independent of the development of a pidgin in another.
monolingual (adj./n.)
see bilingual, multilingual
monomoraic (adj.)
see mora
monomorphemic (adj.)
see morpheme
monophthong (n.) A term used in the phonetic classification of vowel sounds
on the basis of their manner of articulation: it refers to a vowel (a pure
vowel) where there is no detectable change in quality during a syllable, as
in English cart, cut, cot. Vowels which change in quality are known as diphthongs
(or triphthongs). In some dialect and diachronic studies, a process
of monophthongization can be found, i.e. a change in vowel quality from a
diphthong to a monophthong.
monosemy (n.)
see polysemy
monostratal (adj.) A term sometimes used in linguistic theory to refer to a
grammar which contains only a single level of representation (roughly equivalent
to the transformational notion of surface structure). Examples are
generalized phrase-structure grammar, head-driven phrase-structure
grammar, and lexical-functional grammar. The contrast is intended with
generative grammars which recognize more than one level – typically, deep
structure as well as surface structure.
monosyllabic (adj.)
monosystemic (adj.)
see polysyllable
see polysystemicism
monotone (n.) A term used in generalized quantifier theory to refer to
a semantic property of noun phrases. A noun phrase is considered to be
monotone increasing if, whenever a set is in its denotation, all its supersets
will also be in its denotation. This has the effect that a sentence containing the
noun phrase as subject will systematically entail all sentences obtained by
replacing the verb phrase with a hypernym. For example, Every dog is monotone
increasing, so the sentence Every dog walks entails Every dog moves. The
reverse pattern is observed with monotone decreasing noun phrases: No dog is
monotone decreasing, so No dog moves entails No dog walks. This terminology
is sometimes extended to determiners, in which case the terms left monotone
increasing/decreasing and right monotone increasing/decreasing are used to
distinguish monotonicity properties based on the determiner’s common noun
and verb phrase arguments, respectively. See also the notions of ‘upward/
downward-entailing’ in entailment.
monotransitive (adj.)
see transitivity
monovalent (n.)
see privative (2), valency