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A-not-A Question
In linguistics, an A-not-A question, also known as an A-neg-A question, is a polar question that offers two opposite possibilities for the answer. Predominantly researched in Sinitic languages, the A-not-A question offers a choice between an affirmative predicate and its negative counterpart. They are functionally regarded as a type of "yes/no" question, though A-not-A questions have a unique interrogative type pattern which does not permit simple yes/no answers and instead requires a response that echoes the original question. Therefore, to properly answer the query, the recipient must select the positive (affirmative form "A") or negative (negative predicate form "not-A") version and use it in the formation of their response. A-not-A questions are often interpreted as having a "neutral" presupposition or are used in neutral contexts,Law, Ann (2001) A-not-A questions in Cantonese. UCLWPL 13, 295-318. meaning that the interrogator does not presume the truth value of the propositio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Linguistics
Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Linguistics is concerned with both the cognitive and social aspects of language. It is considered a scientific field as well as an academic discipline; it has been classified as a social science, natural science, cognitive science,Thagard, PaulCognitive Science, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2008 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.). or part of the humanities. Traditional areas of linguistic analysis correspond to phenomena found in human linguistic systems, such as syntax (rules governing the structure of sentences); semantics (meaning); morphology (structure of words); phonetics (speech sounds and equivalent gestures in sign languages); phonology (the abstract sound system of a particular language); and pragmatics (how social con ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Perfective Aspect
The perfective aspect (abbreviated ), sometimes called the aoristic aspect, is a grammatical aspect that describes an action viewed as a simple whole; i.e., a unit without interior composition. The perfective aspect is distinguished from the imperfective aspect, which presents an event as having internal structure (such as ongoing, continuous, or habitual actions). The term ''perfective'' should be distinguished from ''perfect'' (see below). The distinction between perfective and imperfective is more important in some languages than others. In Slavic languages, it is central to the verb system. In other languages such as German, the same form such as ''ich ging'' ("I went", "I was going") can be used perfectively or imperfectively without grammatical distinction. In other languages such as Latin, the distinction between perfective and imperfective is made only in the past tense (e.g., Latin ''veni'' "I came" vs. ''veniebam'' "I was coming", "I used to come"). However, perfective ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Morphosyntactic
In linguistics, morphology () is the study of words, how they are formed, and their relationship to other words in the same language. It analyzes the structure of words and parts of words such as stems, root words, prefixes, and suffixes. Morphology also looks at parts of speech, intonation and stress, and the ways context can change a word's pronunciation and meaning. Morphology differs from morphological typology, which is the classification of languages based on their use of words, and lexicology, which is the study of words and how they make up a language's vocabulary. While words, along with clitics, are generally accepted as being the smallest units of syntax, in most languages, if not all, many words can be related to other words by rules that collectively describe the grammar for that language. For example, English language, English speakers recognize that the words ''dog'' and ''dogs'' are closely related, differentiated only by the plurality morpheme "-s", only found ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bound Form
In linguistics, a bound morpheme is a morpheme (the elementary unit of morphosyntax) that can appear only as part of a larger expression; a free morpheme (or unbound morpheme) is one that can stand alone. A bound morpheme is a type of bound form, and a free morpheme is a type of free form. Occurrence in isolation A form is a free form if it can occur in isolation as a complete utterance, e.g. ''Johnny is running'', or ''Johnny'', or ''running'' (this can occur as the answer to a question such as ''What is he doing?''). A form that cannot occur in isolation is a bound form, e.g. ''-y'', ''is'', and ''-ing'' (in ''Johnny is running''). Non-occurrence in isolation is given as the primary criterion for boundness in most linguistics textbooks. Roots and affixes Affixes are bound by definition. English language affixes are almost exclusively prefixes or suffixes: ''pre-'' in "precaution" and ''-ment'' in "shipment". Affixes may be inflectional, indicating how a certain word relates ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Complementizer
In linguistics (especially generative grammar), complementizer or complementiser (glossing abbreviation: ) is a functional category (part of speech) that includes those words that can be used to turn a clause into the subject or object of a sentence. For example, the word ''that'' may be called a complementizer in English sentences like ''Mary believes that it is raining''. The concept of complementizers is specific to certain modern grammatical theories; in traditional grammar, such words are normally considered conjunctions. The standard abbreviation for ''complementizer'' is C. Category of C C as head of CP The complementizer is often held to be the syntactic head of a full clause, which is therefore often represented by the abbreviation CP (for ''complementizer phrase''). Evidence that the complementizer functions as the head of its clause includes that it is commonly the last element in a clause in head-final languages like Korean or Japanese, in which other heads follo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Modal Auxiliary Verb
A modal verb is a type of verb that contextually indicates a modality such as a ''likelihood'', ''ability'', ''permission'', ''request'', ''capacity'', ''suggestion'', ''order'', ''obligation'', or ''advice''. Modal verbs generally accompany the base (infinitive) form of another verb having semantic content. In English, the modal verbs commonly used are ''can'', ''could'', ''may'', ''might'', ''shall'', ''should'', ''will'', ''would'', ''ought to'', ''used to'', ''dare'' and ''must.'' Function A modal auxiliary verb gives information about the function of the main verb that it governs. Modals have a wide variety of communicative functions, but these functions can generally be related to a scale ranging from possibility ("may") to necessity ("must"), in terms of one of the following types of modality: *epistemic modality, concerned with the theoretical ''possibility of propositions being true or not true'' (including likelihood and certainty) *deontic modality, concerned with '' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Korean Language
Korean ( South Korean: , ''hangugeo''; North Korean: , ''chosŏnmal'') is the native language for about 80 million people, mostly of Korean descent. It is the official and national language of both North Korea and South Korea (geographically Korea), but over the past years of political division, the two Koreas have developed some noticeable vocabulary differences. Beyond Korea, the language is recognised as a minority language in parts of China, namely Jilin Province, and specifically Yanbian Prefecture and Changbai County. It is also spoken by Sakhalin Koreans in parts of Sakhalin, the Russian island just north of Japan, and by the in parts of Central Asia. The language has a few extinct relatives which—along with the Jeju language (Jejuan) of Jeju Island and Korean itself—form the compact Koreanic language family. Even so, Jejuan and Korean are not mutually intelligible with each other. The linguistic homeland of Korean is suggested to be somewhere in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Amoy Dialect
The Amoy dialect or Xiamen dialect (), also known as Amoynese, Amoy Hokkien, Xiamenese or Xiamen Hokkien, is a dialect of Hokkien spoken in the city of Xiamen (historically known as "Amoy") and its surrounding metropolitan area, in the southern part of Fujian province. Currently, it is one of the most widely researched and studied varieties of Southern Min. It has historically come to be one of the more standardized varieties. Amoynese and Taiwanese are both historically mixtures of Quanzhou and Zhangzhou dialects. As such, they are very closely aligned phonologically. There are some differences between the two, especially lexical, as a result of physical separation and the differing histories of mainland China and Taiwan during the 20th century. Amoynese and Taiwanese are mutually intelligible. Intelligibility with other Hokkien, especially inland, is more difficult. By that standard, Amoynese and Taiwanese may be considered dialects of a single language. Ethnolinguisticall ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ungrammatical
In linguistics, grammaticality is determined by the conformity to language usage as derived by the grammar of a particular speech variety. The notion of grammaticality rose alongside the theory of generative grammar, the goal of which is to formulate rules that define well-formed, grammatical, sentences. These rules of grammaticality also provide explanations of ill-formed, ungrammatical sentences. In theoretical linguistics, a speaker's judgement on the well-formedness of a linguistic 'string'—called a grammaticality judgement—is based on whether the sentence is interpreted in accordance with the rules and constraints of the relevant grammar. If the rules and constraints of the particular lect are followed, then the sentence is judged to be grammatical. In contrast, an ungrammatical sentence is one that violates the rules of the given language variety. Linguists use grammaticality judgements to investigate the syntactic structure of sentences. Generative linguists are la ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dialect
The term dialect (from Latin , , from the Ancient Greek word , 'discourse', from , 'through' and , 'I speak') can refer to either of two distinctly different types of Linguistics, linguistic phenomena: One usage refers to a variety (linguistics), variety of a language that is a characteristic of a particular group of the language's speakers. Under this definition, the dialects or varieties of a particular language are closely related and, despite their differences, are most often largely Mutual intelligibility, mutually intelligible, especially if close to one another on the dialect continuum. The term is applied most often to regional speech patterns, but a dialect may also be defined by other factors, such as social class or ethnicity. A dialect that is associated with a particular social class can be termed a sociolect, a dialect that is associated with a particular ethnic group can be termed an ethnolect, and a geographical/regional dialect may be termed a regiolectWolfram, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cantonese
Cantonese ( zh, t=廣東話, s=广东话, first=t, cy=Gwóngdūng wá) is a language within the Chinese (Sinitic) branch of the Sino-Tibetan languages originating from the city of Guangzhou (historically known as Canton) and its surrounding area in Southeastern China. It is the traditional prestige variety of the Yue Chinese dialect group, which has over 80 million native speakers. While the term ''Cantonese'' specifically refers to the prestige variety, it is often used to refer to the entire Yue subgroup of Chinese, including related but largely mutually unintelligible languages and dialects such as Taishanese. Cantonese is viewed as a vital and inseparable part of the cultural identity for its native speakers across large swaths of Southeastern China, Hong Kong and Macau, as well as in overseas communities. In mainland China, it is the ''lingua franca'' of the province of Guangdong (being the majority language of the Pearl River Delta) and neighbouring areas such as Guang ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fixed Expression
A phraseme, also called a set phrase, idiomatic phrase, multi-word expression (in computational linguistics), or idiom, is a multi-word or multi-morphemic utterance whose components include at least one that is selectionally constrained or restricted by linguistic convention such that it is not freely chosen. In the most extreme cases, there are expressions such as ''X kicks the bucket'' ≈ ‘person X dies of natural causes, the speaker being flippant about X’s demise’ where the unit is selected as a whole to express a meaning that bears little or no relation to the meanings of its parts. All of the words in this expression are chosen restrictedly, as part of a chunk. At the other extreme, there are collocations such as ''stark naked'', ''hearty laugh'', or ''infinite patience'' where one of the words is chosen freely (''naked'', ''laugh'', and ''patience'', respectively) based on the meaning the speaker wishes to express while the choice of the other (intensifying) word (''st ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
