primitive (adj./n.)

An application in LINGUISTICS and PHONETICS of the general use of this term in scientific investigation, where a construct is taken as ‘given’ by a theory, the purpose of the theoretical exposition being to explicate it; sometimes called a prime. The PROPOSITIONS which contain such undefined terms are referred to as POSTULATES or AXIOMS. Examples of terms often taken as primitive include ‘utterance’, ‘acceptable’, ‘sound’, ‘meaningful’, ‘mouth’, ‘vocalization’, ‘distinctiveness’, etc. – though any of these might become the focus of controversy in an investigation, and could not thereby be assumed to have primitive status. The distinction between primitive and non-primitive terms is of particular importance in attempts to FORMALIZE linguistic theory, and has been much discussed in GENERATIVE GRAMMAR. In early versions of this MODEL, the terms which appear in the STRUCTURAL DESCRIPTIONS of a SENTENCE are primitive, e.g. ‘sentence’, ‘NOUN PHRASE’, ‘VERB phrase’, ‘+’, ‘⇒’ (‘REWRITE’); terms such as SUBJECT, OBJECT, SUBORDINATE, CO-ORDINATE, etc., are DERIVED or non-primitive. In X-BAR theory, noun phrases and verb phrases are not primitives: NP is a phrase headed by a noun, VP is a phrase headed by a verb, a noun is defined as [+N, −V], a verb is defined as [−N, +V], and the features N and V are primitives. In GOVERNMENT-BINDING THEORY, S is not a primitive, but an IP. Subject, etc. are derived notions in TRANSFORMATIONAL and PHRASE-STRUCTURE GRAMMARS, but primitives in RELATIONAL and LEXICAL FUNCTIONAL GRAMMARS.