common core hypothesis: The theory that all varieties of English have central fundamental properties in common with each other, which differ quantitatively rather than qualitatively.
dialect: The term "dialect" is more difficult to define, in comparison to "national variety", since dialects cannot be readily distinguished from languages on solely empirical grounds. However, "dialect" is most commonly used to mean sub-national linguistic variation which is geographically motivated. Therefore, Australian English might not be considered to be a dialect of English, while Scottish English can be regarded this way, as Scotland is a part of the United Kingdom. A smaller subset of Scottish English - such as that which is spoken in Glasgow, would almost certainly be termed a dialect.
elicited: Elicited data is data which is gained under non-naturalistic conditions. For example, a laboratory experiment, or when subjects are asked to "role-play" a situation.
KWIC: Key Word In Context.
prosody: Prosody refers to all aspects of the sound system above the level of segmental sounds e.g. stress, intonation and rhythm. The annotations in prosodically annotated corpora typically follow widely accepted descriptive frameworks for prosody such as that of O'Connor and Arnold (1961). Usually, only the most promintent intonations are annotated, rather than the intonation of every syllable.
transitive and intransitive: Transitive verbs can take an object, while intransitive verbs can never take a direct object.