9 Chapter 1 Terminological Foundations of the Model 1.1. The many meanings of terminology In some fields of scholarly inquiry it is a commonplace that a learned publication – be it a monograph, a chapter in a monograph, a journal paper or a conference paper, etc. – devotes at least a little space to explaining what is meant by the terms that are used. Such explanations are necessary whenever the author introduces a new term or redefines an already existing one but they also occur when an existing term is liable to several interpretations and the author wants to clarify which interpretation they intend to follow. Even a cursory look at linguistic literature is most likely to reveal that linguistics is a good case in point here. It is also not uncommon that the discussion of the meaning of some terms used in a book is accompanied by the author’s decrying the use of certain terminology in their discipline. Again the field of linguistic works amply illustrates this. For instance, H. Borer states that “Within the area of aktionsart and aspect, terminological proliferation as well as terminological confusion is rampant” (Borer 2005: 34). Similar claims could be made, and indeed they have been made, in numerous areas of linguistics (Couper-Kuhlen 1986: 1, Declerck and Reed 2001: 6, Norde 2009: 109–120, to cite but a few examples). It seems fitting that the present book should also begin with a discussion of some of the terms it uses, in particular term and terminology. Apart from the usual aims of discussing the terminology used, such as setting the scene for the subsequent parts of the book and clarifying the terms that could otherwise be prone to unintended and undesirable interpretations, a more specific one will be pursued. Metaterminological in nature, it involves establishing whether terminology as a discipline has succeeded in living up to the ideals of linguistic