syntagmatic (adj.)

A fundamental term in LINGUISTICS, originally introduced by Ferdinand de Saussure to refer to the SEQUENTIAL characteristics of speech, seen as a STRING of CONSTITUENTS (sometimes, but not always) in LINEAR order. The relationships between constituents (syntagms or syntagmas) in a CONSTRUCTION are generally called syntagmatic relations. Sets of syntagmatically related constituents are often referred to as STRUCTURES. Syntagmatic relations, together with PARADIGMATIC relations, constitute the statement of a linguistic UNIT’s identity within the LANGUAGE SYSTEM. For example, the function of /p/ in English PHONOLOGY can be summarized by identifying its syntagmatic relationships (e.g. p-it, ni-p, a-p-t . . . ) and the paradigmatic relationships it contracts with other elements (e.g. p-it, b-it, n-it . . . ). Syntagmatic relationships can be established at all LEVELS of analysis. In TAGMEMIC GRAMMAR, however, the term syntagmeme is used in a restricted sense, referring to a unit in a grammatical HIERARCHY seen from the viewpoint of the ELEMENTS (or tagmemes) it includes; e.g. the SENTENCE is a syntagmeme for the CLAUSES that constitute it.

In PSYCHOLINGUISTICS, the term is sometimes used to refer to a class of ASSOCIATIVE responses which people make when hearing a stimulus word, viz. those which fall into a different WORD-CLASS from the stimulus, in that the response word could precede or follow the stimulus word in a sentence. A syntagmatic response or association would be drive following car, sheep following black, etc. The syntagmatic/paradigmatic shift refers to a change in the patterns of response noted in children at around age seven, when the earlier pattern (of primarily syntagmatic associations) develops into the more adult-like pattern primarily involving PARADIGMATIC associations.

مواضيع ذات صلة

Language Mixture—Grammar

Change in grammar and pronunciation

Word order

Grammaticalization.

Convergence in the Balkans

Did we lose the perfect tense already?

It’s grammaticalization, innit?

Haugen’s model

Diglossia

Language shift and language death

Stratification and hypercorrection

Exploring variation in language