expansion (n.)

A GRAMMATICAL process in which new ELEMENTS are added to a CONSTRUCTION without its basic STRUCTURE being affected, e.g. the addition of ADJECTIVES before a NOUN, or AUXILIARIES before a VERB. In GENERATIVE grammar, REWRITE RULES are sometimes called ‘expansion rules’, by virtue of the fact that a single symbol is expanded into a STRING of symbols which represent its CONSTITUENT structure (e.g. VP ⇒ V+NP). The term is also found in broader senses, referring to any process whereby an initial LINGUISTIC STATE is enlarged, e.g. in historical SEMANTICS a WORD’S earlier meaning may come to be ‘expanded’ to cover a wider range of REFERENTS (e.g. Modern English mouse, as used now in computing); in SOCIOLINGUISTICS, a LANGUAGE or VARIETY may come to be used in new situations, thus ‘expanding’ its influence (e.g. through LOAN words).