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Nahuatl Grammar
The grammar of Classical Nahuatl is agglutinative, head-marking, and makes extensive use of compounding, noun incorporation and derivation. That is, it can add many different prefixes and suffixes to a root until very long words are formed. Very long verbal forms or nouns created by incorporation, and accumulation of prefixes are common in literary works. New words can thus be easily created. Orthography used in this article Vowel length was phonologically distinctive in Classical Nahuatl, but vowel length was rarely transcribed in manuscripts, leading to occasional difficulties in discerning whether a given vowel was long or short. In this article, long vowels are indicated with a macron above the vowel letter: . Another feature which is rarely marked in manuscripts is the saltillo or glottal stop ( ”. In this article, the ''saltillo'' is indicated with an ''h'' following a vowel. The grammarian Horacio Carochi (1645) represented ''saltillo'' by marking diacritics on the precedin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Grammar
In linguistics, the grammar of a natural language is its set of structure, structural constraints on speakers' or writers' composition of clause (linguistics), clauses, phrases, and words. The term can also refer to the study of such constraints, a field that includes domains such as phonology, morphology (linguistics), morphology, and syntax, often complemented by phonetics, semantics, and pragmatics. There are currently two different approaches to the study of grammar: traditional grammar and Grammar#Theoretical frameworks, theoretical grammar. Fluency, Fluent speakers of a variety (linguistics), language variety or ''lect'' have effectively internalized these constraints, the vast majority of which – at least in the case of one's First language, native language(s) – are language acquisition, acquired not by conscious study or language teaching, instruction but by hearing other speakers. Much of this internalization occurs during early childhood; learning a language later ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Applicative Voice
The applicative voice (; abbreviated or ) is a grammatical voice that promotes an oblique argument of a verb to the core object argument. It is generally considered a valency-increasing morpheme. The Applicative is often found in agglutinative languages, such as the Bantu languages and Austronesian languages. Other examples include Nuxalk, Ubykh, and Ainu. Behavior Prototypically, applicatives apply to intransitive verbs. Dixon, R.M.W. & Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald (eds) (1999). ''The Amazonian Languages''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. They can also be called "advancements" or "object promotion" because they bring a peripheral object to the centre as a direct object. This object is sometimes called the applied object. For transitive verbs, the resulting verb can be ditransitive, or the original object is no longer expressed. If the original object is no longer expressed, it is not a valency-increasing operationPayne, Thomas E. (1997). Describing morphosyntax: A guide ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tezcatlipoca
Tezcatlipoca (; nci, TÄ“zcatl ihpĹŤca ) was a central deity in Aztec religion, and his main festival was the Toxcatl ceremony celebrated in the month of May. One of the four sons of ĹŚmeteĹŤtl, Ometecuhtli and Omecihuatl, the God of providence, he is associated with a wide range of concepts, including the night sky, the night winds, hurricanes, the north, the earth, obsidian, hostility, discord, rulership, divination, temptation, Jaguars in Mesoamerican cultures, jaguars, sorcery, beauty, war, and conflict. His name in the Nahuatl language is often translated as "Smoking Mirror" and alludes to his connection to Obsidian use in Mesoamerica, obsidian, the material from which Mirrors in Mesoamerican culture, mirrors were made in Mesoamerica and which were used for shamanism, shamanic rituals and prophecy. Another talisman related to Tezcatlipoca was a disc worn as a chest pectoral. This talisman was carved out of abalone shell and depicted on the chest of both Huitzilopochtli and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Predicate (grammar)
The term predicate is used in one of two ways in linguistics and its subfields. The first defines a predicate as everything in a standard declarative sentence except the subject, and the other views it as just the main content verb or associated predicative expression of a clause. Thus, by the first definition the predicate of the sentence ''Frank likes cake'' is ''likes cake''. By the second definition, the predicate of the same sentence is just the content verb ''likes'', whereby ''Frank'' and ''cake'' are the arguments of this predicate. Differences between these two definitions can lead to confusion. Syntax Traditional grammar The notion of a predicate in traditional grammar traces back to Aristotelian logic. A predicate is seen as a property that a subject has or is characterized by. A predicate is therefore an expression that can be ''true of'' something. Thus, the expression "is moving" is true of anything that is moving. This classical understanding of predicates ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Definite Article
An article is any member of a class of dedicated words that are used with noun phrases to mark the identifiability of the referents of the noun phrases. The category of articles constitutes a part of speech. In English, both "the" and "a(n)" are articles, which combine with nouns to form noun phrases. Articles typically specify the grammatical definiteness of the noun phrase, but in many languages, they carry additional grammatical information such as gender, number, and case. Articles are part of a broader category called determiners, which also include demonstratives, possessive determiners, and quantifiers. In linguistic interlinear glossing, articles are abbreviated as . Types Definite article A definite article is an article that marks a definite noun phrase. Definite articles such as English ''the'' are used to refer to a particular member of a group. It may be something that the speaker has already mentioned or it may be otherwise something uniquely specified. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Incorporation (linguistics)
In linguistics, incorporation is a phenomenon by which a grammatical category, such as a verb, forms a compound with its direct object (object incorporation) or adverbial modifier, while retaining its original syntactic function. The inclusion of a noun qualifies the verb, narrowing its scope rather than making reference to a specific entity. Incorporation is central to many polysynthetic languages such as those found in North America, Siberia and northern Australia. However, polysynthesis does not necessarily imply incorporation (Mithun 2009), and the presence of incorporation does not imply that the language is polysynthetic. Examples of incorporation English Although incorporation does not occur regularly, English uses it sometimes: ''breastfeed'', and direct object incorporation, as in ''babysit''. Etymologically, such verbs in English are usually back-formations: the verbs ''breastfeed'' and ''babysit'' are formed from the adjective ''breast-fed'' and the noun ''babysitter' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Relational Noun
Relational nouns or relator nouns are a class of words used in many languages. They are characterized as functioning syntactically as nouns, although they convey the meaning for which other languages use adpositions (i.e. prepositions and postpositions). In Central America, the use of relational nouns constitutes an areal feature of the Mesoamerican Linguistic Area, including the Mayan languages, Mixe–Zoquean languages, and Oto-Manguean languages. Relational nouns are also widespread in South-East Asia (e.g. Vietnamese, Thai), East Asia (e.g. Mandarin Chinese, Japanese, Tibetan), Central Asia (e.g. the Turkic languages), the Munda languages of South Asia (e.g. Sora), and in Micronesian languages. A relational noun is grammatically speaking a simple noun, but because its meaning describes a spatial or temporal relation rather than a "thing", it describes location, movement, and other relations just as prepositions do in the languages that have them. When used the noun is ''owned' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tlatoani
''Tlatoani'' ( , "one who speaks, ruler"; plural ' or tlatoque) is the Classical Nahuatl term for the ruler of an , a pre-Hispanic state. It is the noun form of the verb "tlahtoa" meaning "speak, command, rule". As a result, it has been variously translated in English as "king", "ruler", or "speaker" in the political sense. Above a tlahtoani is the ''Weyi Tlahtoani,'' sometimes translated as "Great Speaker", though more usually as "Emperor" (the term is often seen as the equivalent to the European "great king"). A ' () is a female ruler, or queen regnant. The term refers to "vice-leader". The leaders of the Mexica prior to their settlement are sometimes referred to as , as well as colonial rulers who were not descended from the ruling dynasty. The ruler's lands were called , and the ruler's house was called ''Nahuatl dictionary'' (1997). Wired humanities project. Retrieved January 1, 2012, frolink/ref> The city-states of the Aztec Empire each had their own tlatoani, or l ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Romance Languages
The Romance languages, sometimes referred to as Latin languages or Neo-Latin languages, are the various modern languages that evolved from Vulgar Latin. They are the only extant subgroup of the Italic languages in the Indo-European language family. The five most widely spoken Romance languages by number of native speakers are Spanish (489 million), Portuguese (283 million), French (77 million), Italian (67 million) and Romanian (24 million), which are all national languages of their respective countries of origin. By most measures, Sardinian and Italian are the least divergent from Latin, while French has changed the most. However, all Romance languages are closer to each other than to classical Latin. There are more than 900 million native speakers of Romance languages found worldwide, mainly in the Americas, Europe, and parts of Africa. The major Romance languages also have many non-native speakers and are in widespread use as linguae francae.M. Paul Lewis,Summary by l ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
