A Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics David Crystal

audio-visual integration 43
the verb (‘a little’, ‘less’). In some languages (e.g. Hungarian) the contrast is a
formal part of the aspect system.
attested (adj.) A term used in linguistics to refer to a lingustic form for
which there is evidence of present or past use. In historical linguistics, for
example, attested forms are those which appear in written texts, as opposed to
the ‘reconstructed forms’ arrived at by a process of deduction. In studies of
contemporary speech, attestation refers to something that is found in actual
recorded usage, compared with the hypothetical predictions of grammar or the
intuitive (but otherwise unsupported) observations of the linguist.
attitudes to language
see language attitudes
attitudinal (adj.) A term sometimes used in semantics as part of a classification
of types of meaning: it refers to the emotional element in meaning, as in
the different attitudes expressed by varying the intonation or loudness of a
sentence, e.g. anger, sarcasm. In the context of prosody, ‘attitudinal meaning’ is
usually distinguished from grammatical. Alternative terms include affective
and emotive; opposed terms include cognitive and referential.
attract (v.) In the minimalist programme, a term which identifies the driving
force behind move. A head is said to attract a constituent when it triggers
movement to some position on the edge of a head phrase.
attract closest
see shortest move
attribute (n.) A term derived from auditory perception and used in auditory
phonetics to refer to an isolatable characteristic of sound sensation, e.g. the
attributes of pitch, loudness and timbre.
attribution (n.)
see attributive
attributive (adj.) In grammatical description, a term normally used to refer to
the role of adjectives and nouns when they occur as modifiers of the head
of a noun phrase. For example, red has attributive function in the red chair, as
has Jane’s in Jane’s hat. The term contrasts with the predicative function of
these words, as in the chair is red, the hat is Jane’s. Some models of grammatical
description have extended the use of this term to include such complement
structures as he is my uncle, I called him a fool, and this usage can include the
adjectival use above (i.e. in she is happy the adjective’s semantic role in relation
to she is one of attribution). Ambiguity in this context is thus a real possibility.
attrition (n.)
see language death
audible friction
see friction
audio-visual integration A term used in auditory phonetics, referring to the
way in which a percept may result from a combination of auditory and visual
inputs. The phenomenon was reported by British psychologists Harry McGurk