This document defines key linguistic terms used in brand naming analysis. It provides definitions for terms related to the scriptability, syllabic balance, aural comprehensibility, viability, visual aesthetics, evocative semantics, ease of pronunciation, durability, phonemic simplicity, gender properties, morphological complexity, syntactic construction, inflectional category, phonemes, morphemes, graphemes, and other linguistic concepts. Additional terms are defined in a glossary related to phonology, dialects, codas, idiolects, orthography, consonant clusters, lexicons, lexical stress, tense, number, person, mood, gender, case, voice and other grammatical concepts.

1. Brand Naming:
Linguistic Analysis Terms Defined

2. Terms Defined
Scriptability
Syllabic
Balance
Aural
Comp.
Phonetic
Viability
Visual
Aesthetics
Refers to how the
name appears when
it is written and any
difficulties encountered
in the scripting process.
Refers to overall lexical
balance, with regard to
syllable structure (Perfect
balance is CVC-CVC.)
Aural Comprehensibility:
Refers to how easy it
is to understand the
word when you hear it
pronounced.
How intuitive is
pronunciation based on
orthography?
Refers to quality of
thematic undertones.
How does the word
look? Is it visually
appealing? Does it offer
potential for interesting
logo design?
Evocative
Semantics
Ease
of Pronunci-
ation
Durability
& Longevity
Rating of relative
articulatory comfort.
Does the word possess
distinctive qualities that
will ensure strength in
the future?
Phonemic
Simplicity
How fluid are the
phonemic transitions?
(i.e. no adjacent harsh
sounds at phonemic.
joints)
Gender
Properties
This category measures
the feminine or masculine
qualities of the word,
relative to a neutral
baseline.
Appendix
Linguistic Analysis:
@
2

3. Terms Defined
Morphological
Complexity
A measure of the number of distinct morpheme types in a given word or
utterance. Within Linguistics, this is a highly contested measure: How do
we process morphologically complex words? Two proposed processes
are as follows:
» Using parsing routines to identify constituents and calculate meaning.
» Using memories for words to access stored records of lexical meaning.
Regarding metrics for measuring the complexity of morphological, numerical, and alphabetical strings:
Information theory offers a notion of this complexity in asking the following:
Intuitively, which of (1) and (2) is more complex?
(1) 10101010101010101010
(2) 11011111000101011010
In comparing these strings, much can be extrapolated to morphological and linguistic structure as
well. For instance, if two words contain the same characters/letters, but in differing orders and at
levels of differing morphological complexity, parsing may be constrained, dependent on pattern
recognition and other related properties.
Appendix
Linguistic Analysis:
@
3

4. Syntax refers to the structure of a sentence or utterance. It follows
that a syntactic construction that has no bound forms among its
immediate constituents; any phrase or sentence.
Syntactic
Construc-
tion
Inflectional
Category
An Inflectional Phrase (IP) is a functional phrase which has inflectional
properties (such as tense and agreement). An Inflectional phrase is
essentially the same as a sentence, but reflects an analysis whereby a
sentence can be treated as having a head, complement and specifier,
like other kinds of phrases.
Linguistic Analysis: Terms Defined
Appendix @
4

5. Glossary of Linguistic Nomenclature
Phoneme
Morpheme
Grapheme
The
smallest
distinc-
tive unit of sound in the
structure of a given lan-
guage.
The smallest
grammat- ical unit (of
meaning) in the
structure of a given
language.
The smallest semantically distinguishing
unit in a written language, analogous to
the pho- nemes of spoken languages.
Appendix @
5

6. Glossary of Linguistic Nomenclature
Glyph
Affix
Ascender
Prefix
Descender
Infix
Ligature
Suffix
A specific shape that
represents a grapheme,
in a specific typeface.
An additional element
placed at the beginning
or end of a root, stem,
or word, or in the body
of a word, to modify its
meaning.
In typography, the up-
ward vertical stem on
some lowercase letters,
such as h and b, that
extends above the
base- line height.
An affix which is placed
before the stem of a
word (also called a
preformative).
In typography, the por-
tion of some lowercase
letters, such as g and
y, that extends or de-
scends below the
baseline.
An affix inserted inside a
word stem
(an existing word).
Occurs where two or
more graphemes or
letters are joined as a
single glyph.
An affix which is placed
after the stem of a word
(also sometimes called
a postfix).
Appendix @
6

7. Glossary of Linguistic Nomenclature
Phonology
Dialect
A particular form of a
language that is
peculiar to a specific
region or social group.
Coda
The consonant(s) occur-
ring after the vowel in a
syllable.
The description of the
systems and patterns
of speech sounds that
occur in a language, and
how they govern pro-
nunciation.
Idiolect
A variety of language that is unique
to a person, as manifested by the
patterns of vocabulary, grammar,
and pronunciation that he/she
uses.
Orthography
A standardized system
for using a particular
writing system (script) to
write a particular lan-
guage.
Consonant
Cluster
A group of consonants
which have no interven-
ing vowel.
Lexicon
Essentially a catalogue
of a given language’s
words (its wordstock).
Appendix @
7

8. Glossary of Linguistic Nomenclature
Alliteration
Rhyme
Lexical
Stress
The repetition of a particular
sound in the prominent lifts (or
stressed syllables) of a series of
words or phrases (used here to
refer to in- tra-lexical, or within-
word, application).
Element of a word or
syllable that has or ends
with a sound that corre-
sponds to another (used
here to refer to intra-
lexi- cal application).
The stress placed on a
given syllable in a word
(also known as word
stress).
Appendix @
8

9. Glossary of Linguistic Nomenclature
T ense
Number
A category that locates a
situation in time, to indicate
when the situation takes
place.
Tense is the
grammaticalization of time
reference.
Agreement based on
grammatical number can occur
between verb and subject, as in
the case of grammatical
person.
Person
The grammatical distinction between
context-dependent references to
participant(s) in an event; typically the
distinction is between the speaker,
the addressee, and others.
Appendix @
9

10. Glossary of Linguistic Nomenclature
Mood
Gender
A grammatical (and
specifically,
morphological) feature of
verbs, used
to signal modality. That
is, it is the use of verbal
inflections that allow
speakers to express their
attitude toward what they
are saying.
In languages in which
grammatical gender
plays a significant
role, there is often
agreement in gender
between a noun and its
modifiers.
In languages that have a
system of cases, there is
often agreement by case
between a noun and its
modifiers. Case agreement is
not a significant feature of
English?
Example languages which
employ case agreement
widely: German, Greek,
Russian.
Voice
Case
In grammar, the voice
(also called diathesis)
of a verb describes the
relationship between the
action (or state) that the
verb expresses and the
participants identified
by its arguments
(subject, object, etc.).
Appendix @
1
0

11. Glossary of Linguistic Nomenclature
Phoneme
Morpheme
Grapheme
The smallest distinc-
tive unit of sound in the
structure of a given lan-
guage.
The smallest grammat-
ical unit (of meaning)
in the structure of a
given language.
(Note: A morpheme may or
may not stand alone, whereas
a word must.)
The smallest semantically distinguishing
unit in a written language, analogous to
the pho- nemes of spoken languages.
(Note: A grapheme may or may not carry meaning by
itself, and may or may not correspond to a single pho-
neme. Graphemes include alphabetic letters,
typo- graphic ligatures, numerical digits, punctuation
marks, and other individual symbols of any of the
world’s writ- ing systems.)
Appendix @
1
1

12. Brand Acumen
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