Glossary - C
Categorical phrases - a phrase built around a word from one of the major word categories. Noun Phrase, Verb Phrase, Adjective Phrase, Determiner Phrase and Prepositional Phrase
*Clause - largest grammatical unit smaller than a sentence. A clause consists of a subject and a predicate.
Clitics - one syllable, unstressed pronouns Dutch: Ik heb ‘m. Ik zie ‘t. Enlgish: I’ve got ‘m.
Complementizer phrase (CP) - a functional phrase in sentences. Named so because it often contains a complementizer (that).
Complex sentence - a sentence that consist of two or more clauses of which one outranks the others ‘You have seen that this is a complex sentence.’ ‘Je hebt gezien dat dit een complexe zin is.’
Compound - two words combined to form a new word. computer + room = computer room water + bottle = water bottle computer + kamer = computerkamer water + fles = waterfles
Compound sentence - a sentence that consists of two equal clauses. ‘He had an old computer and she had a new computer’ ‘Hij had een oude computer en zij had een nieuwe computer’
Configurational - a configurational language is a language in which word order is important
Consonant - a speech sound produced by significantly obstructing the flow of air through the vocal tract (Trask, 51)
*Constituent - a constituent is an element of a sentence, such as a word, a phrase or a clause
Constituent structure - the grammatical structure of the constituents in a sentence
Cooperative Principle - proposal by Grice that people who communicate try to be cooperative and that this can be used as a guide to understanding each other
CP - see Complementizer Phrase