D
dangling participle
This is the traditional name for a participial clause at the start of a sentence which is unattached to the subject NP of the following finite clause. It may involve a present or past participle, as underlined in the examples:
Wondering irresolutely what to do, his alarm went off.
Now injured in the stern, the captain steered the ship straight back to the port.
Despite its position in the sentence, the See also dangling participle does not relate semantically to the juxtaposed subject. In the first example, it connects with a notional he, which is only obliquely there in the determiner his. In the second, it relates to the object of the clause. In neither case is it directly related to the subject, as might be expected in ordinary English syntax, which earned it the label of dangling participle from prescriptive grammarians, or unattached participle from more descriptive ones. Such syntactically independent constructions (known as the ablative absolute) were nevertheless endorsed in classical Latin grammar as a way of adding extra information into the sentence. See further under ablative absolute.
When presented in isolation, See also dangling participles like those exemplified above make for unintended comedy. However they are less conspicuous when embedded in continuous narrative:
He lay awake all night going over her revelations. Wondering irresolutely what to do, his alarm went off.
As in that example, the dangling participle is often semantically attached to the subject or See also theme of the previous sentence (see further under See also theme, section 2). This is also true of stereotypical examples which serve as continuity markers, such as:
Having said that, the plan is unlikely to be approved.
Excepting that, we mean to consider all possible steps.
Given that, there can be no further objections.
Formulaic dangling participles are rarely objected to, as they play their part in effective See also topical progression. See further under See also topic, topicalization, and topical progression, section 4.
dash
1 Terminology relating to dashes
The See also dash is a sentence punctuator, not a word punctuator like the See also hyphen. Traditionally the See also en dash was twice as long as the hyphen, and the See also em dash three times as long, though the ratios vary somewhat with individual fonts. The terms See also en dash and See also em dash are used in North America, while in Britain and Australia the corresponding ones are See also en rule and See also em rule. The term See also long hyphen, used by Huddleston and Pullum (Reference Huddleston and Pullum2002), refers to the en dash/en rule.
2 Single dash to show break in syntax
The See also dash is often used to indicate a break in the syntax of a sentence, as in:
Let’s now move on to the next problem – not to linger on ones we have solved.
Let’s now move on to the next problem—not to linger on ones we have solved.
In both sentences the dash separates the finite clause from the add-on elliptical one which lacks a finite operator. The first sentence shows the spaced en dash used by Canadian and some British editors. In the second it is an unspaced em dash, used also by British editors, as well as those in the US and Australia (Peters Reference Peters2004). This use of a single dash is deprecated in formal writing, whether or not it reflects erratic syntax. Abrupt breaks in syntax are however a common feature of conversational dialogue: see further under anacoluthon.
3 En dash/rule or long hyphen to span separate words
A single en dash (unspaced) is used to link words which between them express span in time or space, as in:
the July–September quarter
the Sydney–Hobart yacht race
4 Paired dashes
Either spaced en dashes or unspaced em dashes may be used to mark off an interpolated item or parenthesis in mid-sentence, as in:
When you come next – may it be soon! – we’ll do that bicycle ride over the bridge.
In that sentence, the total independence of the mid-sentence exclamation means it could only be punctuated with paired dashes. Less independent parentheses can also be punctuated with parentheses (parenthetical brackets), or paired commas. For example:
When they come again (in May or June), we’ll do that bicycle ride.
dative
In Latin and Old English, nouns and pronouns carried distinctive inflections to mark their grammatical case, and their roles within the clause. The dative case marked a noun or pronoun which was the indirect object of a verb, as opposed to its direct object. In modern English, there is no such marking of nouns; and pronouns no longer distinguish the two types of object. They are the same in She sent me her love (where “me” is the indirect object) and She loves me (where “me” is the direct object). Some traditional grammarians nevertheless apply the term dative to the first “me,” although its role as indirect object is only indicated by the syntax/word order.
The lack of dative inflections in modern English, plus the fact that the indirect object of English pronouns has the same form as the direct object, leads some modern grammarians (e.g. Quirk et al. Reference Quirk, Greenbaum, Leech and Svartvik1985) to use the term See also objective case for both dative and accusative case. Others (Huddleston and Pullum Reference Huddleston and Pullum2002) use the term See also accusative for both. This also covers the use of the accusative pronoun as an oblique subject, as in:
For me to get there would be easy.
In traditional grammar, the term See also dative was also applied to paraphrases of the dative case, as when She sent me her itinerary is rephrased with a TO-phrase:
She sent her itinerary to me.
In modern English grammars, the TO-phrase is usually analyzed as a prepositional phrase serving as adverbial complement to the verb “sent” (see further under complement, section 3).
dative shift
This term, and its alternative dative movement, refers to the fact that English grammar allows the indirect object to be shifted ahead of the direct object following a ditransitive verb. Thus I gave an apple to my love is formulated as I gave my love an apple, in the words of the Irish folksong. This dative shift is in fact very common in English, moving the indirect object in from its more peripheral location as a prepositional phrase (“to my love”) and positioning it without the preposition next to the verb. The term dative shift draws attention to the underlying grammatical case of the indirect object and its different status from the direct object (in the accusative case). See further under dative and object.
daughter node
In immediate constituent analysis, this refers to the formal relationship between two nodes in a tree diagram, i.e. that of the subordinate (See also daughter node) to the immediately dominating superordinate (See also mother node). See further under See also immediate constituent analysis.
de-adjectival
This term is used by morphologists to identify the fact that a given word is derived from an adjective, as are the verb brighten and the noun brightness from the adjective bright. See further under derivation, sections 1 and 2; and conversion, section 3.
declarative
This term refers to the type of clause used in making statements, as opposed to questions or commands. In declarative clauses the order of constituents is almost always subject (S) followed by verb (V) followed by the complementary O (object), A (adjunct) or C (subject complement). See further under clause, section 1; and sentence, section 3.
declension
The classical term See also declension was applied to the set of case inflections for a given class of noun/pronoun, as in Latin and Old English. Declension is also used to refer to the particular inflection associated with a given case, for example the ’s attached to modern English nouns in the genitive case. See further under case, section 1.
deep case
In case grammar, this is the underlying semantic or thematic role of any of the arguments of the verb. They include Agent, Patient, Goal, Recipient, Source, Path, Instrument, Place, Time, Event. However the inventory of See also deep cases and their application in analyzing a sentence is often debatable. In a sentence like:
The waiter refilled our glasses.
the underlined item is variously analyzed as Patient, Place, or Goal. See further under See also case grammar.
deep structure
In transformational–generative grammar, See also deep structure is the notional structure underlying the See also surface structure of a sentence, embodying its base constituents and their essential grammatical and logical relations in neutral form, i.e. active rather than passive, positive rather than negative. For The snake had bitten the dog, the deep structure would include snake [noun subject], bite [past perfect verb], dog [noun object]. The negative transformation rule would add NOT as well as DO-support for the verb: see further under transformational–generative grammar.
The equivalent concept in government–binding theory is the D-structure, from which the surface structure is derived. See under government–binding theory.
defining relative clause
This is an alternative name for the See also restrictive relative clause. See further under See also relative clause, section 3.
definite article
This is the term in traditional grammar for THE, now usually treated as a type of determiner. See further under THE and determiner, section 1.
degrees of comparison
These are the comparative and superlative grades which are marked by inflection or MORE/MOST paraphrases in many adjectives and some adverbs. They form part of the system of gradability. See further under adjective, section 3; and adverb, section 4.
deixis and deictic
In the grammar of Greek, this term was used to refer to the “pointing” function of certain kinds of words, i.e. their ability to locate the speaker in terms of time, place, and in relation to other communicators (as speaker or listener). These three types of See also deixis can be seen with demonstrative adverbs such as here/there, now/then, and personal pronouns such as I/YOU (Huddleston and Pullum Reference Huddleston and Pullum2002). Demonstrative determiners and pronouns (THIS/THAT) are also deictic in indicating closeness or greater distance from the speaker/listener’s reference point. Deictic words are “indexical” in that they take their meaning from the context, and have little inherent meaning themselves.
Note that in systemic–functional grammar, See also deictic is the general term for the See also determiner in the noun phrase. See further under See also determiner, section 2.
deletion rule
In transformational–generative grammar, See also deletion rules are used to explain how regular constituents of the clause may disappear from its formulation in the surface structure. Thus in clauses coordinated with the same subject pronoun, the second is normally deleted. Thus:
John went and he returned without delay.
becomes
John went and returned without delay.
demonstrative adverb
Several English adverbs have a See also demonstrative role, including:
- adverbs of place: here and there, hence, and thence
- adverbs of time: now and then
- adverbs of manner: thus
Like See also demonstrative pronouns, the contrasting adverbs of place and time represent relative closeness to or distance from the speaker/writer or his/her reference point. While here and now are anchored in the immediate context of an utterance, they point the listener/reader out to more remote there and then. This is their deictic role. See further under deixis and deictic.
demonstrative pronoun
This is the traditional name for the pronouns THIS, THAT and their plurals THESE, THOSE, which identify something or someone by their relative closeness. THIS/THESE indicate closeness either in physical space or in the discourse, while THAT/THOSE indicate greater distance.
The See also demonstratives have two grammatical functions in English:
- (i) as determiners:
This/That house is just about right for them.
- (ii) as pronouns (i.e. as substitutes for a full noun phrase):
This/That is their house on the right.
Demonstrative determiners both singular and plural can be used to delimit references to material objects, ideas, and people. Demonstrative pronouns (in sense (ii)) are also used of both inanimate and animate references in the plural. In the singular they normally refer only to objects and ideas – not people, except when used with the verb BE. Compare:
This is your new lecturer.
*This will teach your class in second semester. (not idiomatic English)
Both demonstrative determiners and demonstrative pronouns work as deictic markers, i.e. they point out something relative to the speaker/writer’s situation, and are thus exponents of deixis. See further under deixis and deictic.
denominal
This term is used by morphologists to identify the fact that a given word is derived from a noun, as the verb crystallize is from the noun crystal. See further under derivation, sections 1 and 2; and conversion, section 3.
denotation
This is the meaning of a word in terms of the class of items it refers to, i.e. its referential meaning. See further under connotation and denotation.
deontic
This adjective is used to refer to several types of See also extrinsic modality, varying somewhat with the analyst but always including obligation and permission. The two are illustrated in the See also modal verbs underlined in the following sentences:
I must leave before sunset.
You may leave now.
In both cases the modal expresses a See also deontic meaning, implying that some external force effectively requires or mandates the action. Deontic modality is sometimes referred to as root modality. Both terms are used in contrast with epistemic modality, which expresses the speaker’s commitment to the truth of the proposition stated:
We must have overlooked the offer.
The house may be worth revisiting.
As the examples show, modal verbs like MUST and MAY can be used to express either deontic or epistemic modality. See further under modality and modal verb, section 2.
dependent
This is a cover term for any subsidiary structure which is licensed by the head of a phrase. So an NP may license a preceding determiner and one or more adjectives, as well as postpositional adjectives or adjectival phrases. It thus includes both See also complements and See also modifiers: see further under See also complement, section 1; and See also modifier.
dependent clause
This term is used by some grammarians, e.g. Biber et al. (Reference Biber, Johansson, Leech, Conrad and Finegan1999) for what others call the See also subordinate clause. See further under See also clause, section 4.
derivation
1 Derivation by changing the form of an existing word
Derivation refers to the process whereby new words are formed out of other pre-existing elements in the language (see See also word formation). Derivation often involves the addition of affixes (prefix, suffix) to an existing word stem, as when the word prenatal is derived from natal, or teacher is derived from teach. Occasionally English words are derived by subtracting part of the stem, in clippings like exam (from examination); and others called backformations, where the abbreviated stem takes on a new grammatical role, for example the verb liaise derived from the noun liaison. See further under affixation, clipping, and backformation.
2 Additions to the word’s meaning or grammatical scope
Words formed by affixation, abbreviation/clipping, or backformation all show the process of See also derivation by the changes made to the stem. Yet new meanings are continually added to the existing stems of words, as semantic extensions. Late C20 examples are the use of menu to refer to the set of choices for action provided by your computer; and the fresh application of wireless (originally the word for a radio receiver) to the way in which cable-free internet connections can be made via computer. In such cases there is no change in the form of the word to reflect its new meaning, and the derivational process is invisible. This is also true to some extent with zero derivation or conversion, when a word takes on an additional grammatical role (e.g. the use of run as a noun as well as verb) without any visible change to the stem. It does however show the new grammatical role by taking on the inflectional suffixes of its adoptive word class, as well as its normal place in phrase or clause structure. Compare:
They had run the marathon the year before.
The team had plenty of runs on the board.
In its verb role, run appears following the auxiliary had in the verb phrase of the first sentence. In the second sentence, it appears as the noun complement of plenty of, and takes the usual plural inflection (-s). See further under conversion.
3 Derivation by compounding and blends
New words can be formed by compounding, i.e. structured combinations of two or more pre-existing elements (morphemes) of the language, as in:
car parkcold-shoulderdatabaseivy-coveredworldwide
In these, the process of See also derivation is shown by the juxtaposition of the two words, and their greater or lesser degree of integration, according to whether they are spaced, linked by a hyphen, or set solid, i.e. without intervening space. There is however considerable variation in the use/non-use of the hyphens, especially with compound nouns (see further under See also compound word, section 3). Whatever the spelling and setting, the compound noun or verb operates as a single grammatical unit, and takes on the regular inflections for that word class. So the compound verb cold-shoulder is inflected as cold-shouldered and cold-shouldering.
See also Blends are a special subclass of compound, in which the two words involved are both shortened, with some reduction of the back end of the first and the front end of the second. Examples are the verb guestimate (from “guess” + “estimate”), and the noun brunch (from “breakfast” + “lunch”). See further under blending and blends.
4 Acronyms and initialisms
Both acronyms and initialisms are derived from the first letters of a string of words, such as scuba (self-contained underwater breathing apparatus) and PVC (polyvinylchloride). They differ in that the letters of an acronym combine to form a pronounceable word, whereas those of the initialism have to be sounded out individually. See further under acronym.
Note that of all the ways of deriving new words, compounding and affixation are the most common in modern English (Ayto Reference Ayto and Jan Svartvik1996).
derivational affix
Affixes which combine with pre-existing stems used to create new words are See also derivational – as are all those underlined in the following examples:
demistenslavefarmerhumblenessmotivational
As the examples show, derivational affixes may be prefixes (de-, en-) or suffixes (-er, -ness, -al). They may be associated with the formation of verbs, as in the first two examples, or with nouns as in the third and fourth, or with adjectives as in the fifth example. In all cases they change the grammatical class of the word.
Derivational affixes can also create new words by radically changing the meaning of the stem to which they are attached. So negative prefixes such as dis-, im-/in-, un- apply the opposite polarity to the pre-existing stems of verbs, adjectives, and nouns:
Derivational affixes contrast with See also inflectional ones, which mark changes in the grammatical subcategories of the word according to the class it belongs to. For example the suffix -ed marks the past forms of the verb demist(ed) and enslave(d). The -s on farmers marks it as a plural noun. Note that inflectional suffixes appear after all the derivational have been added, as in: brutalized, confectioners. See further under inflection.
Note that the border between derivational and inflectional affixes is fuzzy and debatable in some cases, for example the -ing of the gerund-participle, and the -ly suffix which marks certain kinds of adverbs (see further under those headings). The border between derivational affixes and combining forms in modern English is also debatable: see further under combining form, section 2.
derivational morphology
See under See also morphology, sections 1 and 3.
descendant
Another term for the See also daughter node in See also immediate constituent analysis. See further under that heading.
determinative
The terms See also determinative and See also determiner are used in contrasting ways by modern English grammars. In the Comprehensive Grammar (Reference Quirk, Greenbaum, Leech and Svartvik1985), determinative is used for members of any word class whose function is to introduce the noun phrase, including the definite and indefinite articles; numbers, both ordinal and cardinal; quantifiers such as all, many; various types of “pronoun”; indefinites such as any, every; demonstratives such as this, that; interrogatives/relatives such as which, what; possessives such as my, your; and possessive forms of proper and common nouns such as John’s/the team’s (best hope). Thus many types of words can serve as determinatives, whereas only a relatively small number can be classed as determiners, because their distinctive function is to mark the start of a noun phrase. In the Cambridge Grammar of the English Language (Reference Huddleston and Pullum2002), the applications of the two terms are reversed so that the syntactic function of introducing the noun phrase is referred to as determiner, and members of the closed class of words which perform this function are called determinatives. See further under determiner, section 1.
determinative phrase
This term is used by Huddleston and Pullum (Reference Huddleston and Pullum2002) to refer to combinations such as very few, far more, where the determiner head is modified by its own adverb. The determinative phrase, along with any adjectival phrase, serves to modify the head of the noun phrase. See further under determiner, section 3; and noun phrase, section 2.
determiner
1 Determiners as a word class
The term See also determiner is a relative newcomer in English grammar, first used by Bloomfield (Reference Bloomfield1933), and taken up after WWII to refer to members of the word class which preface a noun phrase and put semantic bounds on it – as the name suggests. The determiner class includes a mix of words which were differently classified in traditional grammar, for example:
- definite article (the) and indefinite article (a and an)
- possessive pronouns/adjectives (my, your, his, our, etc.)
- demonstrative adjectives (this, that, etc.)
- interrogative and relative pronouns (what, which)
- quantifying adjectives (all, both, either, each, many, some, etc.)
- numerals: cardinal (one, two, three, etc.) and ordinal (first, second, third, etc.)
In fact other types of words such as possessive nouns can also act as determiners or fulfill the See also determinative function. See further under See also determinative.
2 Syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic functions
See also Determiners typically appear as the first item in an NP, as underlined in the following:
My old aunt sold both those valuable pictures for a mere $100.
As the example shows, the determiner comes before any adjective that precedes the noun. There may indeed be more than one determiner, as above with “both” “those”. The role of the determiner(s) is to signal what bounds are to be put on the following noun.
- “my” limits the range of aunts who are in question (only those related to the speaker/writer)
- “both those” makes it just the two pictures which we (you and I) are thinking about in this physical or mental context
- “a” (indefinite article) leaves the noun $100 very open: the sum could come from anywhere
Some determiners show number agreement with the noun that heads the phrase, as can be seen above in the plural agreement of “both those” with “pictures”. The same applies to other demonstratives, quantifiers, and ordinal numbers which normally agree in number with the head noun.
In general terms, See also determiners indicate how specific or otherwise the noun head is intended to be. The definite article, demonstrative, and possessive determiners make it specific, whereas the indefinite article and indefinite determiners make it nonspecific, whether they are unrestricted in their application (any, every), partial (many, some), or total (no). As shown in the example, the determiners reflect something of the pragmatics of the discourse, and are often deictic (see further under deixis and deictic). In any extended text, the determiners play an important part in its cohesion. See further under cohesion.
3 Sequences of determiners
When there is more than one See also determiner in an NP, they occur in a more or less fixed order before the noun and its premodifiers, as in:
all those recent developments
a few early birds
our first English dictionary
the first two dates
Those noun phrases show the three notional “slots” occupied by different types of determiner: as See also predeterminer, See also central determiner, See also postdeterminer, illustrated in the table below:
There may be up to three different determiners in a determiner phrase, as illustrated above in “the first two dates”. The second and third are both selected from the postdeterminer group, normally ordered with the cardinal coming second, although the opposite order is sometimes used in referring to particular rankings, e.g. two first prizes.
The various types of central determiner are mutually exclusive, so that combinations of specific and nonspecific determiners, or of demonstratives and possessives, never occur. Note however the formulaic what a (day) and many a (time), where central and postdeterminers take up the predeterminer role. For combinations such as such a (climax), the next (night), see section 5 below on semideterminers.
Several of the postdeterminers offer degrees of comparison (absolute, comparative, superlative), like adjectives:
- fewfewerfewest
They received few applications/fewer applications/the fewest applications ever.
- littlelessleast
They had little time/less time than before/the least time ever to prepare.
- manymoremost
Many applicants were caught.
More applicants might write in.
Most applicants could not comply with the deadline.
As shown in those examples, the gradable determiners can combine with a central determiner, such as the. For more on gradability see further under LITTLE, and MANY, MUCH, and MORE. For the degrees of comparison, see adjective, section 3.
4 Determiners and countability
Some See also determiners are selected in accordance with properties of the noun following, i.e. whether it is countable or not, and so whether it can be pluralized. The indefinite article in a seat, an armchair indicates that the noun is countable, and that the phrase refers to one of a number of possible items (seats, armchairs). Countable nouns can also be prefaced by the in the singular or plural. Whereas nouns that are not countable can only be prefaced by the definite article, as in the furniture (not a furniture), and they do not have plurals. See further under count nouns, mass nouns, and countability.
Like the definite and indefinite articles, other See also determiners form complementary pairs to be used according to the countability of the noun. For example:
Note that every, and other distributive determiners such as each and both, can only be used with countable nouns, while all and no can be used with countable as well as noncountable nouns.
➤ For the relatively recent distinction between fewer and less, see under LESS, section 2.
5 Semideterminers
This term is used by Biber et al. (Reference Biber, Johansson, Leech, Conrad and Finegan1999) to refer to certain quasi-adjectival phrases, which function like See also determiners to specify an aspect of the head noun, in combination with the indefinite or definite article. They include a certain (smile), and others often construed with the, which can be used in pairs:
the same eye/the other eye
(specifies that the referent is the same/is the alternative)
the former policy/the latter policy
(indicates that the first of a pair/second of the pair is being referred to)
the next issue/the last issue
(specifies a following item or person in a series/the final item or person)
Note that those with the definite article can also be used as NPs, whereas those with a cannot, unless they are coupled with a number: a dozen (eggs), a million (miles). The classifications and specifications provided by these semideterminers are unlike those of ordinary adjectives, and comparable to those of demonstratives or postdeterminers.
6 Complex determiners and open-class quantifiers
The determinative function is performed by a variety of more or less fixed complex determiners, the most frequent of which are a lot of/lots of and plenty of. Both can take singular or plural complements (mass or plural count nouns), and the verb will agree in either case. Compare:
A lot/lots of money is being spent
A lot/lots of tourists are in town.
Plenty of cargo/visitors is/are being held up at the airport.
The fully grammaticalized complex determiner is thus number transparent. It does not set the pattern of agreement itself, but yields to the number of the complementary noun, making it the syntactic head of the phrase. See further under head and headedness, section 4.
Less fully grammaticalized are the open-class quantifiers, i.e. more or less fixed idioms using quantificational terms drawn from the general lexicon:
a (large) amount of
a good/great deal of
These two have in common the fact that their complements are always mass nouns, where others regularly take count nouns (like those discussed in section 4 above). Examples of the latter are:
a (large) group of
a (large) number of
However, like complex determiners, the open-class quantifiers show somewhat variable patterns of number agreement, especially when not premodified with large etc. Without premodification they are usually number transparent, and sometimes even with it: see further under number transparency.
Apart from these open-class quantifiers, there are numerous informal quantificational phrases (Smith Reference Smith and Peters2009b). These are headed by nouns which have specific meanings in the general lexicon, but are semantically bleached when used in informal discourse to refer to quantities of items or people:
a bucket of/buckets of (money)
a heap of/heaps of (visitors)
a load of/loads of (work)
Like a lot/lots of, these show number transparency for both singular and plural forms of the determinative phrase. Some other examples present one form only (e.g. singular), as with a spate of (thefts); yet they too can combine with a singular or plural verb. See further under agreement, section 7.
deverbal
This term is used by morphologists to identify the fact that a given word is derived from a verb, as the noun activation is from the verb activate. See further under derivation, sections 1 and 2; and conversion, section 3.
diminutive
English grammar provides a few affixes which serve as See also diminutives to indicate that the referent is relatively small in size compared with the archetype. They include prefixes such as:
And suffixes such as:
Note that the connotations of these affixes are stylistically neutral, and neither condescending nor familiar. Compare See also hypocoristic.
direct and indirect speech
See also Direct speech and See also indirect speech are contrasting ways of projecting the spoken word. The most direct and dramatic way is to quote the speaker’s exact words:
Captain Oates said as he went out into the blizzard: “I may be away for some time.”
In direct speech, the speaker uses the first person (“I”), and the (present) tense of the verb is set by the speech situation. Although the words put between quotation marks purport to be those of the speaker, in fact they may not be – as often in newspaper reporting. Yet quoting a remark in direct speech gives it verisimilitude, projecting it in the form of a live utterance.
See also Indirect speech differs in its syntax, and reports the utterance more obliquely as in:
Oates said as he went out into the blizzard that he might be away for some time.
In indirect speech the quotation is put in the third person (“he”), and the tense is backshifted into the past (“might”), in line with the canonical sequence of tenses (see further under sequence of tenses).
In fact there are several intermediate forms of quoting between See also direct speech and See also indirect speech (Leech and Short Reference Leech and Short1981). They include:
- narrative reporting of speech
Oates indicated that that he might be away some time.
- free indirect speech
Oates said he would be away for some time.
- narrative interpretation of act
Oates voiced his expectation that he would be away a long while.
These alternative ways of representing what was said make use of different paradigmatic choices for quoting and interpreting what was said. The substitution of modal “would” for “might” loses the understatement but brings the meaning of the quotation to the surface. See further under See also modality and modal verb.
discourse marker
Modern grammarians recognize that there are recurrent lexicogrammatical items which play a part in the structuring of discourse in addition to their ordinary syntactic role. In written discourse they include formal and informal enumerators such as firstly, secondly; next, then, further, as well as contrastive, alternative, affirmative, and concessive indicators such as however, in other words, in fact, anyway, which relate segments of text to each other (see further under cohesion). Focusing words like also, even, too put extra emphasis on a neighboring constituent in a sentence, to connect it with larger ongoing themes.
In spoken discourse, words like well serve to indicate that the speaker intends to take up the conversational turn, while like has a number of different discourse marker roles, among them to signal that examples or explanations are about to come (Miller Reference Miller and Peters2009). Of course may be used by either speaker or listener to signal affirmation of or agreement with whatever statement has just been made. They also serve the pragmatic purpose of expressing the listener’s attitude and orientation (solidarity with the speaker), and thus serve as pragmatic markers as well. The pragmatic function is clearly distinct in the case of sentence/stance adverbs such as hopefully, regrettably, which express attitude and opinion without contributing to inter-sentence cohesion, and are therefore pragmatic markers. But where the pragmatic and cohesive functions are merged, especially in interactive discourse, the term discourse marker can cover both.
➤ For more on sentence/stance adverbs, see under adverb, sections 2 and 3. See also under metafunction of language.
disjunct
This term is used by Quirk et al. (Reference Quirk, Greenbaum, Leech and Svartvik1985) for the type of adverb which stands outside the core elements of the clause, and comments on whole predication. See also Disjuncts indicate such things as the likelihood of something happening (maybe, perhaps), or the speaker/writer’s attitude to the event (fortunately, regrettably). See further under adverb, section 3.
disjunction
A syntactic disjunction is a coordinated structure which presents a choice between alternatives, as in:
Was she born in 1908 or 1910?
More strictly this is an exclusive disjunction, i.e. one between mutually exclusive alternatives. Though this is the typical pattern, a coordinated structure can also express inclusive disjunction, as in:
Either Tim or Jane could tell you.
In this case it is logically possible for both persons to satisfy the need for information: either could do so, despite the coordinator or being between them.
See further under See also coordination, section 4.
dislocation
This term refers to the displacement of a syntactic constituent (especially the subject or object) from its normal place within the clause to a position at either end, and its replacement within the clause by a personal pronoun (underlined). For example;
That neighbor of yours, I met him at the supermarket.
I met him at the supermarket, that neighbor of yours.
In the first example, the extraposed object is said to be left-dislocated; in the second it is right-dislocated. While the typical function of right dislocation is to clarify, that of left dislocation is to topicalize an item. See further under topic, topicalization, and topical progression.
distributive
This term is used to refer to certain kinds of determiners and pronouns whose role is to indicate each member of a set individually and exhaustively, for example EACH, EVERY, BOTH, NO/NONE. See further under determiner, section 4; and indefinite pronoun.
➤ For the impact of See also distributive words on the agreement between subject noun phrases and the verb and subsequent pronouns, see See also agreement, section 4.
➤ For their use in segregative coordination, see coordination, section 3.
ditransitive
DO
The verb DO can be traced back to Old English, with some of its current meanings e.g. “make,” “perform” operative back then. Its uses as a primary auxiliary verb are much more recent, evolving in early modern English, and contributing to its high frequency in spoken discourse today. Its best known functions are in formulating negative and interrogative VPs, for example:
These two functions are referred to as DO-support or DO-insertion.
Two additional functions of DO are to:
- make a finite verb emphatic, as in I do like the taste of coffee.
- substitute for a verb and its complement which would otherwise have to be duplicated: You like coffee as much as they do.
These are the four See also NICE properties characteristic of all English auxiliaries: see further under See also NICE.
Apart from its role as an auxiliary, DO functions as an ordinary lexical verb with a range of meanings, depending on its complement. It participates in a number of transitive phrasal verbs, including e.g. do away with, do down, do in, do over, do up, do without: see further under phrasal verb and prepositional verb.
See also DO also forms idiomatic constructions directly with its object NP. For example, one can do the dishes (“wash up”), do the books (“reconcile the accounts”), do time (“spend a term in jail”), do South America, etc. (“travel in South America”). In constructions like these, its meaning is diffused in the whole construction, and DO is effectively delexicalized. See further under light verbs.
dominance
This term is used in immediate constituent analysis to refer to the relationship of a higher node to any beneath it in the tree structure. Thus the S node (= sentence) dominates all other nodes below. See further under immediate constituent analysis.
double comparative
These are adjectival phrases which embody both synthetic and analytical forms of comparison for the same adjective, as in more brighter, more easier, more lovelier. Expressions like these can occasionally be found in literature from previous centuries, where they serve rhetorical or literary purposes. Strictly speaking they are redundant, and not regarded as part of standard English grammar, though occasionally heard in impromptu speaking. See further under adjective, section 3; and redundancy.
double genitive
This term refers to the doubling up of genitive markers in NPs with OF-phrases, as in:
a friend of Ruth’s
that nephew of ours
Though See also double genitive implies some kind of redundancy in its expression, the presence of both the OF-phrase and the possessive form of the proper noun/pronoun is idiomatic and purposeful. It adds a measure of distance and indefiniteness to the phrase; compare the definiteness of the standard genitive equivalents: Ruth’s friend, our nephew. See further under redundancy.
double superlative
These are adjectival phrases which embody both synthetic and analytical forms of the superlative for the same adjective (see adjective, section 3). Literary examples can be found in Shakespeare with the most unkindest cut of all, and in millennial advertising: the most trendiest shoes in town. Though the “most” is in each case redundant, and not regarded as standard English grammar, its rhetorical purpose is clear. See further under redundancy.
dual
Some languages including Old English have alternative forms of the first person plural pronoun, so that they can distinguish between
we (just you and me) = dual
and
we (more than two people including me) = plural
dual gender
See under See also gender, section 3.
dummy subject
See under See also IT and ITS, section 2.
dyadic predicate
This is an alternative name for the See also two-place predicate. See under See also valency, section 3.
dynamic modality
This is a type of modality which some grammarians distinguish from both See also deontic and See also epistemic modality, though the name needs explaining. See also Dynamic modality takes its ground from the “properties and dispositions” of the subject of the clause (Huddleston and Pullum Reference Huddleston and Pullum2002), rather than the speaker’s orientation to the proposition (epistemic), or an external deontic force. See for example:
She can run rings around them.
He could play games on the computer for hours.
As the second example shows, dynamic modality can refer to the past, and is not necessarily timeless, like other forms of modality. The “predicative” aspect of this kind of modality (making it a kind of factual statement), prompts some grammarians to include it among the various subtypes of epistemic modality. Others align it with deontic modality. See further under See also modality and modal verb, section 2.
dynamic verb
This term is used of verbs which express an action, movement or change, for example:
See also Dynamic verbs contrast with See also stative verbs, which refer to a condition of mind rather than an event, for example:
It used to be said that while dynamic verbs could be freely used with the -ing participle, this was impossible for stative ones – at least in standard English. This did not hold in postcolonial varieties such as Indian English, where I am remembering when . . . has long been idiomatic. Casual observation shows that in everyday standard English -ing is also occasionally found with stative verbs, as in the McDonald’s advertisement for the world’s best known fast food: “I’m loving it.” Arguably, this gives the stative verb a more dynamic meaning. See further under progressive aspect.
