monophthong [Grk monóphthongos ‘with one sound, single vowel’]

In contrast with a diphthong, a vowel during whose articulation the articulators remain in place and maintain an audibly constant sound quality.

References

phonetics

Process of sound change motivated by articulation through which diphthongs are simplified to long vowels. It usually involves a reciprocally structured assimilation of both vocalic segments, which can also be influenced by corresponding following consonantal sounds and stress, cf. the change of Germanic ai and au respectively to the monophthongs a, ī from Old through Middle English times (OE stān vs Goth. stains; Mod. Eng. eye<ME eighe<OE ēage<Gmc *augōn-). ( also Great Vowel Shift)

References

sound change

1 Typical property of morphemes in agglutinating languages (e.g. Turkish) which expresses exactly one meaning component ( agglutination). In contrast, inflection. ( also language typology)

in which an expression may have more than one meaning. As a rule, monosemy is characteristic only of scientific terminology or artificial languages, but not of the vernacular. ( also meaning, semantics)

Concept of grammar named after its founder, the American logician and language theoretician Richard Montague (1932-71), which follows in the logical tradition of Frege, Tarski, Carnap, and others. Montague’s premise is that between artificial (formal) and natural (human) languages there is no theoretically relevant difference. This leads to his attempt at demonstrating the logical structures of natural languages and at describing them by means of universal algebra and mathematical (formal) logic. In his precise, but very condensed sketches (of particular influence were his works Montague 1970 and Montague 1973, abbrev. PTQ), Montague proceeds from a syntax oriented along the surface structure of sentences, which he represents in the form of a modified categorial grammar. Parallel to this syntactic system of putting together simple into complex structures, complex meanings are also constructed from simple meanings, corresponding to the Fregean principle of meaning ( principle of compositionality), according to which the whole meaning of a sentence can be determined recursively as a function of the meaning of its well-formed parts. For this purpose, in Montague (1973) the expressions of natural language are translated into the semantically interpreted language of intensional logic through a system of translation rules. These rules are a kind of formalization of an intersubjective language competence. The interpretation of this logical language (which is simple type logic expanded by intensional, modal and temporal operators) is conducted on a model-theoretic basis ( model-theoretic semantics), i.e. each meaningful expression is attributed exactly one intension, which, depending on different situations (possible worlds or reference points) provides an extension (an object of reference) for the expression. From this concept follows the consequential methodological principle of semantic compositionality: the meanings of expressions form context-independent semantic blocks that alone contribute to the construction of the complete meaning of a sentence. This principle has proved to be extremely fruitful in the analysis of noun phrases (uniform treatment of terms for individual entities and quantifier phrases, quantification). However, for a number of grammatical phenomena it runs into difficulties; the most important examples are the socalled donkey-sentences: The expression a donkey, to be understood in PTQ in the sense of the existential operator ( operator) obtains a generalizing function in the sentence Any man who owns a donkey beats it (Geach 1962). Today, Montague grammar, next to transformational grammar, is one of the prevalent paradigms of theoretical linguistics, especially in its further developments. ( also discourse representation theory, situation semantics)

Cann, R. 1992. Formal semantics. Cambridge. Frosch, H. 1993. Montague-Grammatik. In J.Jacobs et al. (eds), Syntax: an international handbook

of contemporary research. Berlin and New York. 413-29. Geach, P. 1962. Reference and generality: an examination of some medieval and modern theories.