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Inchoative Verb
An inchoative verb, sometimes called an "inceptive" verb, shows a process of beginning or becoming. Productive inchoative affixes exist in several languages, including the suffixes present in Latin and Ancient Greek, and consequently some Romance languages. Not all verbs with inchoative suffixes have retained their inceptive meaning. In Italian, for example, present indicative ''finisco'' 'I finish' contains the form of the suffix, while present indicative ''finiamo'' 'we finish' does not, yet the only difference in meaning is that of person subject; the suffix is now semantically inert. Latin and Romance Languages Latin uses the suffix -sc- to show inchoative force. The suffix is normally seen in the present tense stem, and is not present in the third and fourth principal parts. *''apiscor, apiscī, aptus sum'' reach *''crescō, crescere, crēvī, crētus'' come into being, grow up *''convalescō, convalescere, convaluī'' recover, grow strong *''discō, discere, didicī'' learn ... [...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] |