A Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics David Crystal

354 past perfect
past perfect
see perfect
past tense In grammar, a tense form which refers to a time of action prior
to the moment of utterance. Languages make different distinctions within
this period, such as whether the reference is recent or distant, or whether the
action is completed or not. French, for example, recognizes imperfect, past
historic, perfect, pluperfect, and past anterior tenses, as well as future
and conditional perfect forms. A range of past tenses is also traditionally
recognized in English grammar, following the influence of Latin descriptive
models, though only a single past-tense form is represented inflectionally
(I walked), often called the simple past or preterite; other past time reference
uses auxiliary verbs (I have walked) and past time adverbials (yesterday,
last year).
path (n.) (1) A term used in generative grammar referring to an unbroken
series of branches and nodes moving in a single direction with respect to the
top of a tree diagram. The term is also used by some linguists as part of the
grammatical analysis of a sentence: an entity takes a path from a source to a
goal, e.g. in John rowed along the river, along is ‘path’. See also network
grammar.
(2) In a windows model of coarticulation, the term refers to the connection
made between individual windows, representing articulatory or acoustic
variation over time in a specific context; also referred to as a contour.
pathology (n.)
see language pathology
patient (n.) (P) A term used by some linguists as part of the grammatical
analysis of a sentence: it refers to the entity which is affected by the action of
the verb, e.g. The dog bit the man. goal and recipient have been used as
alternative terms. See semantic role.
pattern (n.) In the general sense of ‘a systematic arrangement of units’, this
term is found in linguistics and phonetics, without any special implication.
Certain theoretical implications may be added in some contexts, however. For
example, in language teaching, pattern drills (or ‘structure drills’) refer to the
use of a substitution-frame technique for the practice of a particular structure.
Also, in phonology, the term has been used to refer specifically to any
neatness of arrangement that can be demonstrated in a sound system – a unit
such as a phoneme being seen as a point in a pattern of sound relationships.
It is felt that a phonemic pattern ought to be regular and symmetrical, and
that the demonstration of pattern congruity in an analysis is a desirable feature.
Whether a sound cluster should be analysed as one phoneme or two, for example,
may depend on the parallel patterns that can be demonstrated between this
cluster and other phonemes; e.g. English /Ä/ and /u/ on this criterion would
be analysed as single phonemes, as a stop+fricative analysis would receive
little support elsewhere in the system. The phrase gap/hole in the pattern is
often used to refer to a lacuna which spoils the symmetry of an analysis, as
when a series of unrounded vowels might have a corresponding series of
rounded vowels except for one case (see gap).