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Double Plural
A double plural is a plural form to which an extra suffix has been added, mainly because the original plural suffix (or other variation) had become unproductive and therefore irregular. So the form as a whole was no longer seen as a plural, an instance of morphological leveling. Examples of this can be seen in the history of English and Dutch. Historically, the general English plural markers were not only ''-s'' or ''-en'' but also (in certain specific declensions) ''-ra''/''-ru'' (which is still rather general today in German under the form ''-er''). The ancient plural of ''child'' was "cildra/cildru", to which an ''-en'' suffix was later added when the ''-ra''/''-ru'' became unproductive; the Dutch plural form ''kind-er-en'' and the corresponding Zeelandic form ''kind-er-s'' are also double plurals which were formed in the same way as the English double plurals, while for example German and Limburgian Limburgish ( li, Limburgs or ; nl, Limburgs ; german: Limburgisch ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Plural Form
The plural (sometimes list of glossing abbreviations, abbreviated pl., pl, or ), in many languages, is one of the values of the grammatical number, grammatical category of number. The plural of a noun typically denotes a quantity greater than the default quantity represented by that noun. This default quantity is most commonly one (a form that represents this default quantity of one is said to be of ''Grammatical number, singular'' number). Therefore, plurals most typically denote two or more of something, although they may also denote fractional, zero or negative amounts. An example of a plural is the English word ''cats'', which corresponds to the singular ''cat''. Words of other types, such as verbs, adjectives and pronouns, also frequently have distinct plural forms, which are used in agreement (linguistics), agreement with the number of their associated nouns. Some languages also have a dual (grammatical number), dual (denoting exactly two of something) or other systems of n ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Suffix
In linguistics, a suffix is an affix which is placed after the stem of a word. Common examples are case endings, which indicate the grammatical case of nouns, adjectives, and verb endings, which form the conjugation of verbs. Suffixes can carry grammatical information (inflectional suffixes) or lexical information ( derivational/lexical suffixes'').'' An inflectional suffix or a grammatical suffix. Such inflection changes the grammatical properties of a word within its syntactic category. For derivational suffixes, they can be divided into two categories: class-changing derivation and class-maintaining derivation. Particularly in the study of Semitic languages, suffixes are called affirmatives, as they can alter the form of the words. In Indo-European studies, a distinction is made between suffixes and endings (see Proto-Indo-European root). Suffixes can carry grammatical information or lexical information. A word-final segment that is somewhere between a free morpheme and a b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Productivity (linguistics)
In linguistics, productivity is the degree to which speakers of a language use a particular grammatical process, especially in word formation. It compares grammatical processes that are in frequent use to less frequently used ones that tend towards lexicalization. Generally the test of productivity concerns identifying which grammatical forms would be used in the coining of new words: these will tend to only be converted to other forms using productive processes. Examples in English In standard English, the formation of preterite and past participle forms of verbs by means of Indo-European ablaut, ablaut (as Germanic strong verb, Germanic strong verbs, for example, ''sing''–''sang''–''sung'') is no longer considered productive. Newly coined verbs in English overwhelmingly use the 'weak' (regular) ending ''-ed'' for the past tense and past participle (for example, ''spam (electronic), spammed'', ''electronic mail, e-mailed''). Similarly, the only clearly productive Engli ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Morphological Leveling
In linguistics, morphological leveling or paradigm leveling is the generalization of an inflection across a linguistic paradigm, a group of forms with the same stem in which each form corresponds in usage to different syntactic environments, or between words. The result of such leveling is a paradigm that is less varied, having fewer forms. When a language becomes less synthetic, it is often a matter of morphological leveling. An example is the conjugation of English verbs, which has become almost unchanging today (see also null morpheme), thus contrasting sharply, for example, with Latin, in which one verb has dozens of forms, each one expressing a different tense, aspect, mood, voice, person, and number. For instance, English ''sing'' has only two forms in the present tense (I/you/we/they ''sing'' and he/she ''sings''), but its Latin equivalent has six: one for each combination of person and number. Types There are two types of paradigm leveling. Paradigm internal leveli ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
English Language
English is a West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family, with its earliest forms spoken by the inhabitants of early medieval England. It is named after the Angles, one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to the island of Great Britain. Existing on a dialect continuum with Scots, and then closest related to the Low Saxon and Frisian languages, English is genealogically West Germanic. However, its vocabulary is also distinctively influenced by dialects of France (about 29% of Modern English words) and Latin (also about 29%), plus some grammar and a small amount of core vocabulary influenced by Old Norse (a North Germanic language). Speakers of English are called Anglophones. The earliest forms of English, collectively known as Old English, evolved from a group of West Germanic (Ingvaeonic) dialects brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the 5th century and further mutated by Norse-speaking Viking settlers starting in the 8th and 9th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dutch Language
Dutch ( ) is a West Germanic language spoken by about 25 million people as a first language and 5 million as a second language. It is the third most widely spoken Germanic language, after its close relatives German and English. ''Afrikaans'' is a separate but somewhat mutually intelligible daughter languageAfrikaans is a daughter language of Dutch; see , , , , , . Afrikaans was historically called Cape Dutch; see , , , , , . Afrikaans is rooted in 17th-century dialects of Dutch; see , , , . Afrikaans is variously described as a creole, a partially creolised language, or a deviant variety of Dutch; see . spoken, to some degree, by at least 16 million people, mainly in South Africa and Namibia, evolving from the Cape Dutch dialects of Southern Africa. The dialects used in Belgium (including Flemish) and in Suriname, meanwhile, are all guided by the Dutch Language Union. In Europe, most of the population of the Netherlands (where it is the only official language spoken country ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
German Language
German ( ) is a West Germanic languages, West Germanic language mainly spoken in Central Europe. It is the most widely spoken and Official language, official or co-official language in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, and the Italy, Italian province of South Tyrol. It is also a co-official language of Luxembourg and German-speaking Community of Belgium, Belgium, as well as a national language in Namibia. Outside Germany, it is also spoken by German communities in France (Bas-Rhin), Czech Republic (North Bohemia), Poland (Upper Silesia), Slovakia (Bratislava Region), and Hungary (Sopron). German is most similar to other languages within the West Germanic language branch, including Afrikaans, Dutch language, Dutch, English language, English, the Frisian languages, Low German, Luxembourgish, Scots language, Scots, and Yiddish. It also contains close similarities in vocabulary to some languages in the North Germanic languages, North Germanic group, such as Danish lan ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Zeelandic
Zeelandic ( zea, Zeêuws; nl, Zeeuws; vls, Zêeuws) is a group of Friso-Franconian language varieties spoken in the southwestern parts of the Netherlands. It is currently considered a Low Franconian dialect of Dutch, but there have been movements to promote the status of Zeelandic from a dialect of Dutch to a separate regional language, which have been denied by the Dutch Ministry of Internal Affairs. More specifically, it is spoken in the southernmost part of South Holland (Goeree-Overflakkee) and large parts of the province of Zeeland, with the notable exception of eastern Zeelandic Flanders. Dutch versionsZeeuwsor apdf/ref> It has notable differences from Standard Dutch mainly in pronunciation but also in grammar and vocabulary, which separates it clearly from Standard Dutch. This makes mutual intelligibility with speakers of Standard Dutch difficult. Origin In the Middle Ages and the early modern period, Zeeland was claimed by the Count of Holland as well as the Count o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Limburgian
Limburgish ( li, Limburgs or ; nl, Limburgs ; german: Limburgisch ; french: Limbourgeois ), also called Limburgan, Limburgian, or Limburgic, is a West Germanic language spoken in the Dutch and Belgian provinces of Limburg and in the neighbouring regions of Germany. It shares characteristics with both German and Dutch but has unique features such as tonality. Within the modern communities of the Belgian and Dutch provinces of Limburg, intermediate idiolects are also very common, which combine standard Dutch with the accent and some grammatical and pronunciation tendencies derived from Limburgish. This "Limburgish Dutch" is confusingly also often referred to simply as "Limburgish", although in Belgium such intermediate languages tend to be called ("in-between language"), no matter the exact dialect/language with which standard Dutch is combined. Although frequently misunderstood as such, Limburgish does not refer to the regional variation of Dutch spoken in Dutch Limburg ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Grammatical Number
In linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, adjectives and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions (such as "one", "two" or "three or more"). English and other languages present number categories of singular or plural, both of which are cited by using the hash sign (#) or by the numero signs "No." and "Nos." respectively. Some languages also have a dual, trial and paucal number or other arrangements. The count distinctions typically, but not always, correspond to the actual count of the referents of the marked noun or pronoun. The word "number" is also used in linguistics to describe the distinction between certain grammatical aspects that indicate the number of times an event occurs, such as the semelfactive aspect, the iterative aspect, etc. For that use of the term, see "Grammatical aspect". Overview Most languages of the world have formal means to express differences of number. One widespread distinction, found in English and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Historical Linguistics
Historical linguistics, also termed diachronic linguistics, is the scientific study of language change over time. Principal concerns of historical linguistics include: # to describe and account for observed changes in particular languages # to reconstruct the pre-history of languages and to determine their relatedness, grouping them into language families ( comparative linguistics) # to develop general theories about how and why language changes # to describe the history of speech communities # to study the history of words, i.e. etymology Historical linguistics is founded on the Uniformitarian Principle, which is defined by linguist Donald Ringe as: History and development Western modern historical linguistics dates from the late-18th century. It grew out of the earlier discipline of philology, the study of ancient texts and documents dating back to antiquity. At first, historical linguistics served as the cornerstone of comparative linguistics, primarily as a t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
