|
Construct State
In Afro-Asiatic languages, the first noun in a genitive phrase of a possessed noun followed by a possessor noun often takes on a special morphological form, which is termed the construct state (Latin ''status constructus''). For example, in Arabic and Hebrew, the word for "queen" standing alone is ''malika'' and ''malka'' respectively, but when the word is possessed, as in the phrase "Queen of Sheba" (literally "Sheba's Queen"), it becomes ''malikat sabaʾ'' and ''malkat šəva'' respectively, in which ''malikat'' and ''malkat'' are the construct state (possessed) form and ''malika'' and ''malka'' are the absolute (unpossessed) form. In Geʽez, the word for "queen" is ንግሥት nəgə''ś''t, but in the construct state it is ንግሥተ, as in the phrase " heQueen of Sheba" ንግሥተ ሣባ nəgə''śta śābā.'' . The phenomenon is particularly common in Semitic languages (such as Arabic, Hebrew, and Syriac), in Berber languages, and in the extinct Egyptian language. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Afro-Asiatic Languages
The Afroasiatic languages (or Afro-Asiatic), also known as Hamito-Semitic, or Semito-Hamitic, and sometimes also as Afrasian, Erythraean or Lisramic, are a language family of about 300 languages that are spoken predominantly in the geographic subregions of Western Asia, North Africa, the Horn of Africa, and parts of the Sahara/Sahel. With the exception of its Semitic branch, all branches of the Afroasiatic family are exclusively native to the African continent. Afroasiatic languages have over 500 million native speakers, which is the fourth-largest number of native speakers of any language family (after Indo-European, Sino-Tibetan, and Niger–Congo). The phylum has six branches: Berber languages, Berber, Chadic languages, Chadic, Cushitic languages, Cushitic, Egyptian language, Egyptian, Semitic languages, Semitic, and Omotic languages, Omotic. The most widely spoken modern Afroasiatic language or dialect continuum by far is Arabic, a ''de facto'' group of Varieties of Arabi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Grammatical Case
A grammatical case is a category of nouns and noun modifiers (determiners, adjectives, participles, and Numeral (linguistics), numerals), which corresponds to one or more potential grammatical functions for a nominal group in a wording. In various languages, nominal groups consisting of a noun and its modifiers belong to one of a few such categories. For instance, in English language, English, one says ''I see them'' and ''they see me'': the nominative case, nominative pronouns ''I/they'' represent the perceiver and the accusative case, accusative pronouns ''me/them'' represent the phenomenon perceived. Here, nominative case, nominative and accusative case, accusative are cases, that is, categories of pronouns corresponding to the functions they have in representation. English language, English has largely lost its inflected case system but personal pronouns still have three cases, which are simplified forms of the Nominative case, nominative, Accusative case, accusative and gen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Egyptian Arabic
Egyptian Arabic, locally known as Colloquial Egyptian ( ar, العامية المصرية, ), or simply Masri (also Masry) (), is the most widely spoken vernacular Arabic dialect in Egypt. It is part of the Afro-Asiatic language family, and originated in the Nile Delta in Lower Egypt. The ca. 100 million Egyptians speak a continuum of dialects, among which Cairene is the most prominent. It is also understood across most of the Arabic-speaking countries due to broad Egyptian influence in the region, including through Egyptian cinema and Egyptian music. These factors help to make it the most widely spoken and by far the most widely studied variety of Arabic. While it is primarily a spoken language, the written form is used in novels, plays and poems (vernacular literature), as well as in comics, advertising, some newspapers and transcriptions of popular songs. In most other written media and in radio and television news reporting, literary Arabic is used. Literary Arabic is a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Definiteness
In linguistics, definiteness is a semantic feature of noun phrases, distinguishing between referents or senses that are identifiable in a given context (definite noun phrases) and those which are not (indefinite noun phrases). The prototypical definite noun phrase picks out a unique, familiar, specific referent such as ''the sun'' or ''Australia'', as opposed to indefinite examples like ''an idea'' or ''some fish''. There is considerable variation in the expression of definiteness across languages, and some languages such as Japanese do not generally mark it so that the same expression could be definite in some contexts and indefinite in others. In other languages, such as English, it is usually marked by the selection of determiner (e.g., ''the'' vs ''a''). In still other languages, such as Danish, definiteness is marked morphologically. Definiteness as a grammatical category There are times when a grammatically marked definite NP is not in fact identifiable. For example, ' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Arabic Verbs
Arabic verbs ( '; '), like the verbs in other Semitic languages, and the entire vocabulary in those languages, are based on a set of two to five (but usually three) consonants called a root (''triliteral'' or ''quadriliteral'' according to the number of consonants). The root communicates the basic meaning of the verb, e.g. ' 'write', ' 'read', ' 'eat'. Changes to the vowels in between the consonants, along with prefixes or suffixes, specify grammatical functions such as person, gender, number, tense, mood, and voice. Various categories are marked on verbs: * Three tenses (present, past; future tense is indicated by the prefix ' or the particle ' and the present tense). * Two voices (active, passive) * Two genders (masculine, feminine) * Three persons (first, second, third) * Three numbers (singular, dual, plural) * Six moods in the non-past only (indicative, subjunctive, jussive, imperative, and short and long energetics) * Nineteen forms, the derivational systems indi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
