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English Passive Voice
In English, the passive voice is marked by a subject that is followed by a stative verb complemented by a past participle. For example: The recipient of a sentence's action is referred to as the patient. In sentences using the active voice, the subject is the of the action—referred to as the agent. Above, the agent is omitted entirely, but it may also be included adjunctively while maintaining the passive voice: The initial examples rewritten in the active voice yield: The English passive voice typically involves forms of the verbs ''to be'' or ''to get'' followed by a passive participle as the subject complement—sometimes referred to as a ''passive verb''. English allows a number of additional passive constructions that are not possible in many other languages with analogous passive formations to the above. A sentence's indirect object may be promoted to the subject position—e.g. ''Tom was given a bag''. Similarly, the complement of a preposition may be promoted, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Masks Are To Be Worn
A mask is an object normally worn on the face, typically for protection, disguise, performance, or entertainment, and often employed for rituals and rites. Masks have been used since antiquity for both ceremony, ceremonial and pragmatism, practical purposes, as well as in the performing arts and for entertainment. They are usually worn on the face, although they may also be positioned for effect elsewhere on the wearer's body. In art history, especially sculpture, "mask" is the term for a face without a body that is not modelled in the round (which would make it a "head"), but for example appears in low relief. Etymology The word "mask" appeared in English in the 1530s, from Middle French ''masque'' "covering to hide or guard the face", derived in turn from Italian language, Italian ''maschera'', from Medieval Latin ''masca'' "mask, specter, nightmare". This word is of uncertain origin, perhaps from Arabic language, Arabic ''maskharah'' مَسْخَرَۃٌ "buffoon", fro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Prepositional Phrase
An adpositional phrase is a syntactic category that includes ''prepositional phrases'', ''postpositional phrases'', and ''circumpositional phrases''. Adpositional phrases contain an adposition (preposition, postposition, or circumposition) as head (linguistics), head and usually a Complement (linguistics), complement such as a noun phrase. Language syntax treats adpositional phrases as units that act as Argument (linguistics), arguments or Adjunct (grammar), adjuncts. Prepositional and postpositional phrases differ by the order of the words used. Languages that are primarily Head-directionality parameter, head-initial such as English predominantly use prepositional phrases whereas head-final languages predominantly employ postpositional phrases. Many languages have both types, as well as circumpositional phrases. Types There are three types of adpositional phrases: prepositional phrases, postpositional phrases, and circumpositional phrases. Prepositional phrases The underlined ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Idiom
An idiom is a phrase or expression that largely or exclusively carries a Literal and figurative language, figurative or non-literal meaning (linguistic), meaning, rather than making any literal sense. Categorized as formulaic speech, formulaic language, an idiomatic expression's meaning is different from the Literal and figurative language, literal meanings of each word inside it. Idioms occur frequently in all languages. In English language, English alone there are an estimated twenty-five thousand idiomatic expressions. Some well known idioms in English are "spill the beans" (meaning "reveal secret information"), "it's raining cats and dogs" (meaning "it's raining intensely"), and "break a leg" (meaning "good luck"). Derivations Many idiomatic expressions were meant literally in their original use, but occasionally the attribution of the literal meaning changed and the phrase itself grew away from its original roots—typically leading to a folk etymology. For instance, the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Henry Watson Fowler
Henry Watson Fowler (10 March 1858 – 26 December 1933) was an English schoolmaster, Lexicography, lexicographer and commentator on the usage of the English language. He is notable for both ''A Dictionary of Modern English Usage'' and his work on the ''Concise Oxford Dictionary'', and was described by ''The Times'' as "a lexicographical genius". After an Oxford University, Oxford education, Fowler was a schoolmaster until his middle age and then worked in London as a freelance writer and journalist, but was not very successful. In partnership with his brother Francis George Fowler, Francis, beginning in 1906, he began publishing seminal grammar, style and lexicography books. After his brother's death in 1918, he completed the works on which they had collaborated and edited additional works. Biography Youth and studies Fowler was born on 10 March 1858 in Tonbridge, Kent. His parents, the Rev. Robert Fowler and his wife Caroline, ''née'' Watson, were originally from Devon. Ro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
A Dictionary Of Modern English Usage
''A Dictionary of Modern English Usage'' (1926), by H. W. Fowler (1858–1933), is a style guide to British English usage and writing. It covers a wide range of topics that relate to usage, including: plurals, nouns, verbs, punctuation, cases, parentheses, quotation marks, the use of foreign terms, and so on. The dictionary became the standard for other style guides to writing in English. The 1926 first edition remains in print, along with the 1965 second edition, which is edited by Ernest Gowers, and was reprinted in 1983 and 1987. The 1996 third edition was re-titled as ''The New Fowler's Modern English Usage'', and revised in 2004, was mostly rewritten by Robert W. Burchfield, as a usage dictionary that incorporated corpus linguistics data; and the 2015 fourth edition, revised and re-titled ''Fowler's Dictionary of Modern English Usage'', was edited by Jeremy Butterfield, as a usage dictionary. Informally, readers refer to the style guide and dictionary as ''Fowler's Mod ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Strunk, Jr
William is a masculine given name of Germanic origin. It became popular in England after the Norman conquest in 1066,All Things William"Meaning & Origin of the Name"/ref> and remained so throughout the Middle Ages and into the modern era. It is sometimes abbreviated "Wm." Shortened familiar versions in English include Will or Wil, Wills, Willy, Willie, Bill, Billie, and Billy. A common Irish form is Liam. Scottish diminutives include Wull, Willie or Wullie (as in Oor Wullie). Female forms include Willa, Willemina, Wilma and Wilhelmina. Etymology William is related to the German given name ''Wilhelm''. Both ultimately descend from Proto-Germanic ''*Wiljahelmaz'', with a direct cognate also in the Old Norse name ''Vilhjalmr'' and a West Germanic borrowing into Medieval Latin ''Willelmus''. The Proto-Germanic name is a compound of *''wiljô'' "will, wish, desire" and *''helmaz'' "helm, helmet".Hanks, Hardcastle and Hodges, ''Oxford Dictionary of First Names'', Oxford Unive ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Elements Of Style
''The Elements of Style'' (also called ''Strunk & White)'' is a style guide for formal grammar used in American English writing. The first publishing was written by William Strunk Jr. in 1918, and published by Harcourt in 1920, comprising eight "elementary rules of usage," ten "elementary principles of composition," "a few matters of form," a list of 49 "words and expressions commonly misused," and a list of 57 "words often misspelled." Writer and editor E. B. White greatly enlarged and revised the book for publication by Macmillan in 1959. That was the first edition of the book, which ''Time'' recognized in 2011 as one of the 100 best and most influential non-fiction books written in English since 1923. American wit Dorothy Parker said, regarding the book: History Cornell University English professor William Strunk Jr. wrote ''The Elements of Style'' in 1918 and privately published it in 1919, for use at the university. Harcourt republished it in 52-page format in 1920. S ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Transitive Verb
A transitive verb is a verb that entails one or more transitive objects, for example, 'enjoys' in ''Amadeus enjoys music''. This contrasts with intransitive verbs, which do not entail transitive objects, for example, 'arose' in ''Beatrice arose''. Transitivity is traditionally thought of as a global property of a clause, by which activity is transferred from an agent to a patient. Transitive verbs can be classified by the number of objects they require. Verbs that entail only two arguments, a subject and a single direct object, are monotransitive. Verbs that entail two objects, a direct object and an indirect object, are '' ditransitive'', or less commonly ''bitransitive''. An example of a ditransitive verb in English is the verb ''to give'', which may feature a subject, an indirect object, and a direct object: ''John gave Mary the book''. Verbs that take three objects are ''tritransitive''. In English a tritransitive verb features an indirect object, a direct object, and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Arthur Quiller-Couch
Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (; 21 November 186312 May 1944) was a Cornish people, British writer who published using the pen name, pseudonym Q. Although a prolific novelist, he is remembered mainly for the monumental publication ''The Oxford Book of English Verse, The Oxford Book of English Verse 1250–1900'' (later extended to 1918) and for his literary criticism. He influenced many who never met him, including American writer Helene Hanff, author of ''84, Charing Cross Road'' and its sequel, ''Q's Legacy''. His ''The Oxford Book of English Verse'' was a favourite of John Mortimer fictional character Horace Rumpole. Life Arthur Quiller-Couch was born in the town of Bodmin, Cornwall. He was the son of DrThomas Quiller Couch (d.1884), who was a noted physician, folklorist and historian who married Mary Ford and lived at 63, Fore Street, Bodmin, until his death in 1884. Thomas was the product of the union of two ancient local families, the Quiller family and the Couch famil ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Modifier (grammar)
In linguistics, a modifier is an optional element in phrase structure or clause structure which ''modifies'' the meaning of another element in the structure. For instance, the adjective "red" acts as a modifier in the noun phrase "red ball", providing extra details about which particular ball is being referred to. Similarly, the adverb "quickly" acts as a modifier in the verb phrase "run quickly". Modification can be considered a high-level domain of the functions of language, on par with predication and reference. Premodifiers and postmodifiers Modifiers may come before or after the modified element (the ''head''), depending on the type of modifier and the rules of syntax for the language in question. A modifier placed before the head is called a premodifier; one placed after the head is called a postmodifier. For example, in ''land mines'', the word ''land'' is a premodifier of ''mines'', whereas in the phrase ''mines in wartime'', the phrase ''in wartime'' is a postmodifier of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Topic–comment
In linguistics, the topic, or theme, of a sentence is what is being talked about, and the comment (rheme or focus) is what is being said about the topic. This division into old vs. new content is called information structure. It is generally agreed that clauses are divided into topic vs. comment, but in certain cases the boundary between them depends on which specific grammatical theory is being used to analyze the sentence. The topic of a sentence is distinct from the grammatical subject. The topic is defined by pragmatic considerations, that is, the context that provides meaning. The grammatical subject is defined by syntax. In any given sentence the topic and grammatical subject may be the same, but they need not be. For example, in the sentence "As for the little girl, the dog bit her", the subject is "the dog" but the topic is "the little girl". Topic being what is being talked about and the subject being what is doing the action can, also, be distinct concepts fr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Focus (linguistics)
In linguistics Linguistics is the scientific study of language. The areas of linguistic analysis are syntax (rules governing the structure of sentences), semantics (meaning), Morphology (linguistics), morphology (structure of words), phonetics (speech sounds ..., focus ( abbreviated ) is a grammatical category that conveys which part of the sentence contributes new, non-derivable, or contrastive information. In the English language, English sentence "Mary only insulted BILL", focus is expressed Prosody (linguistics), prosodically by a pitch accent (intonation), pitch accent on "Bill" which identifies him as the only person whom Mary insulted. By contrast, in the sentence "Mary only INSULTED Bill", the verb "insult" is focused and thus expresses that Mary performed no other actions towards Bill. Focus is a cross-linguistic phenomenon and a major topic in linguistics. Research on focus spans numerous subfields including phonetics, syntax, semantics (linguistics), semantics, pr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
