reversal (n.)

A term used by some PSYCHOLINGUISTS to refer to a type of TONGUE-SLIP where two LINGUISTIC UNITS are interchanged, as when rabbits and chickens might become chabbits and rickens. Traditionally, such errors are referred to as METATHESES or spoonerisms.

A term used in METRICAL PHONOLOGY for the switching of weak and strong NODES encountered in such phrases as thirteen men, so that  becomes  ; also known as iambic reversal, the rhythm rule, or (after one of the original examples used to discuss the phenomenon) the thirteen men rule. The METRICAL GRID, as a consequence, has a structure which is alternating rather than clashing.

revised extended standard theory (REST) The name given to the revised version of the EXTENDED STANDARD THEORY, proposed by Noam Chomsky in the mid-1970s, following the adoption of the TRACE convention on the application of MOVEMENT RULES. There are several aspects to the ‘revision’: the base component of the GRAMMAR now incorporates the LEXICAL hypothesis and the X-BAR convention; the notion of SURFACE STRUCTURE is supplemented by the notion of SHALLOW structure, which provides the input to the SEMANTIC rules (as opposed to the DEEP STRUCTURES of standard theory); there are two semantic components and two LEVELS of semantic REPRESENTATION (LOGICAL FORM and full semantic representation); and the DESCRIPTIVE POWER and number of TRANSFORMATIONS is much reduced.

rewrite rule A type of RULE in GENERATIVE GRAMMAR, which takes the form X → Y; also called a rewriting rule. The symbol to the left of the arrow represents a single STRUCTURAL ELEMENT; the symbol to the right of the arrow represents a STRING of one or more elements: and the arrow is an instruction to replace (or ‘expand’) X by Y. Such rules are conventionally read as ‘Rewrite X as Y’; see further, PHRASE-STRUCTURE GRAMMAR, ENVIRONMENT.