A Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics David Crystal

382 predicate calculus
fixed number of names or other terms to form an atomic proposition, generally
providing information about the referents of those terms, as in The car is stolen/
big/beautiful . . . The predicate may be classed as ‘one-place’, ‘two-place’, etc.,
depending on the number of terms with which it must combine; for example, in
the sentence Jules saw Jim, the verb saw functions as a two-place predicate, the
names Jules and Jim serving as its two arguments. models based on this
system are used in several linguistic theories, especially in formal semantics
and in syntactic theories such as case grammar and dependency grammar.
predicate calculus see predicate (2)
predicate frame see predicate (1)
predication (n.) see predicate (1), (2)
predication theory A sub-theory of some versions of government-binding
theory, whose central principle is that a predicate requires a subject. This
accounts for the obligatory occurrence of expletive or dummy it in sentences
like It’s raining and It’s possible that John is ill. Not only verb phrases but
expressions like drunk in John arrived drunk are regarded as predicates in this
context.
predicative (adj.), predicator (n.) see predicate (1)
prefabricated language
see formulaic language
preferred argument structure
see argument
prefix (n.) (1) A term used in morphology referring to an affix which is
added initially to a root or stem. The process of prefixation (or prefixing) is
common in English, for forming new lexical items (e.g. para-, mini-, un-), but
English does not inflect words using prefixes. Languages which do inflect in
this way include German (e.g. the ge- of perfective forms), Greek, and many
American Indian languages (e.g. the Athapaskan family).
(2) See p-fix.
pre-head (n.)
see tone group
prehodiernal (adj.)
see hodiernal
pre-lexical (adj.) A term used in some models of generative grammar
(see Aspects model) to refer to the first stage in a two-stage generation of
deep structures. In this stage phrase-markers are generated in which the
terminal nodes are expressed as a ∆ (delta) element. In the second stage,
lexical items are inserted into these positions, in the form of complex
symbols (i.e. ‘lexical transformations’).
prelinguistic (adj.) (1) In the study of performance models of language, a
term used with reference to hypothetical stages in speech production which