A Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics David Crystal

productivity 389
handling of linguistic information. There are different views of the relationship
of processing to production: some see processing as separate from production;
some see production as a part of processing.
proclisis, proclitic (n.)
see clitic
pro-constituent (n.) A term used in later generative linguistics, usually abbreviated
to pro, and analogous to pro-form in other approaches, referring to an
element which substitutes for a lexical item elsewhere in a sentence. The
application of the term varies, depending on the grammatical model involved.
In government-binding theory, for example, the symbol PRO is associated
with a base-generated subject of certain infinitives.
procrastination (n.) In the minimalist programme, a general economy
constraint which states that all movements in a derivation should be delayed
as long as possible. An operation should take place only when it is needed,
and not before. The procrastinate principle prefers derivations which postpone
movements until after spell-out, so that the results of the movements do not
affect phonetic form.
pro-drop (adj.) A term used in government-binding theory for a parameter
which determines whether the subject of a clause can be suppressed.
Italian is a pro-drop language, in this sense, because it can have subjectless
sentences (e.g. E pericoloso ‘It is dangerous’); by contrast, English is a nonpro-drop
language, as the translation of the Italian sentence indicates. Other
properties of pro-drop languages have been suggested, such as that they have
a rich system of verb-agreement, and free inversion of subject and verb.
Pro-drop languages are also known as ‘null subject’ languages. Languages that
can drop not only subjects but also objects and other phrases are called radical
pro-drop (e.g. Japanese).
product (n.)
see lattice
production (n.) The general sense of this term is found in phonetics and
psycholinguistics, where it refers to the process of planning and executing
the act of speech. The study of speech production includes not only the
neuroanatomical and neurophysiological activities involved in speaking, but also
the construction and testing of models of the neural control system in the
brain’s organization of speech. A particular strategy is to analyse certain characteristics
of speech output (e.g. pause, tongue-slips, dynamic features), as a
means of inferring the properties of this system. Production is usually contrasted
with speech perception and comprehension.
productivity (n.) A general term used in linguistics to refer to the creative
capacity of language users to produce and understand an indefinitely large
number of sentences. It contrasts particularly with the unproductive communication
systems of animals, and in this context is seen by some linguists as one
of the design features of human language. The term is also used in a more
restricted sense with reference to the use made by a language of a specific feature