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Optative Mood
The optative mood ( or ; abbreviated ) is a grammatical mood that indicates a wish or hope regarding a given action. It is a superset of the cohortative mood and is closely related to the subjunctive mood but is distinct from the desiderative mood. English has no morphological optative, but various constructions impute an optative meaning. Examples of languages with a morphological optative mood are Ancient Greek, Albanian, Armenian, Georgian, Friulian, Kazakh, Kurdish, Navajo, Old Prussian, Old Persian, Sanskrit, Turkish, and Yup'ik. English Although English has no morphological optative, analogous constructions impute an optative meaning, including the use of certain modal verbs: *''May you have a long life!'' *''Would that I were younger.'' Periphrastic constructions include ''if only'' together with a subjunctive complement: *''If only I were rich!'' *''I would sing if only I weren't tone deaf.'' The optative mood can also be expressed elliptically: *''(May) God ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
List Of Glossing Abbreviations
This article lists common abbreviations for grammatical terms that are used in linguistic interlinear glossing of oral languages in English. The list provides conventional glosses as established by standard inventories of glossing abbreviations such as the Leipzig Glossing rules, the most widely known standard. These will generally be the glosses used on Wikipedia. Synonymous glosses are listed as alternatives for reference purposes. In a few cases, long and short standard forms are listed, intended for texts where that gloss is rare or common. Conventions * Grammatical abbreviations are generally written in full or small caps to visually distinguish them from the translations of lexical words. For instance, capital or small-cap (frequently abbreviated to ) glosses a grammatical past-tense morpheme, while lower-case 'past' would be a literal translation of a word with that meaning. Similarly, (small) cap might be a locative suffix used in nominal inflections, prototypically ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sanskrit
Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late Bronze Age. Sanskrit is the sacred language of Hinduism, the language of classical Hindu philosophy, and of historical texts of Buddhism and Jainism. It was a link language in ancient and medieval South Asia, and upon transmission of Hindu and Buddhist culture to Southeast Asia, East Asia and Central Asia in the early medieval era, it became a language of religion and high culture, and of the political elites in some of these regions. As a result, Sanskrit had a lasting impact on the languages of South Asia, Southeast Asia and East Asia, especially in their formal and learned vocabularies. Sanskrit generally connotes several Old Indo-Aryan language varieties. The most archaic of these is the Vedic Sanskrit found in the Rig Veda, a colle ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Indirect Speech
In linguistics, indirect speech (also reported speech or indirect discourse) is a grammatical mechanism for reporting the content of another utterance without directly quoting it. For example, the English sentence ''Jill said she was coming'' is indirect discourse while ''Jill said "I'm coming"'' would be direct discourse. In fiction, the "utterance" might amount to an unvoiced thought that passes through a stream of consciousness, as reported by an omniscient narrator. In many languages, indirect discourse is expressed using a content clause or infinitival. When an instance of indirect discourse reports an earlier question, the embedded clause takes the form of an indirect question. In indirect speech, grammatical categories in the embedded clause often differ from those in the utterance it reports. For instance, the example above uses the third person pronoun "she" even though Jill's original utterance used the first person pronoun "I". In some languages, including E ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Conditional Sentence
Conditional sentences are natural language sentences that express that one thing is contingent on something else, e.g. "If it rains, the picnic will be cancelled." They are so called because the impact of the main clause of the sentence is ''conditional'' on the dependent clause. A full conditional thus contains two clauses: a dependent clause called the ''antecedent'' (or ''protasis'' or ''if-clause''), which expresses the condition, and a main clause called the ''consequent'' (or ''apodosis'' or ''then-clause'') expressing the result. Languages use a variety of grammatical forms and constructions in conditional sentences. The forms of verbs used in the antecedent and consequent are often subject to particular rules as regards their tense, aspect, and mood. Many languages have a specialized type of verb form called the conditional mood – broadly equivalent in meaning to the English "would (do something)" – for use in some types of conditional sentences. Types of conditio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Final Clause
A final clause in linguistics is a dependent adverbial clause expressing purpose. For this reason it is also referred to as a ''purposive clause'' or a ''clause of purpose''. In English, final clauses are relatively rare. A final clause is a reply to a question containing the question word ''wherefore'' or ''what for'' (sometimes also ''why''). The prescription for their construction is rather complicated: A final clause is introduced by the following linking words ( conjunctions): * that (sometimes preceded by ''in order'' or ''so'', or, in literary language, ''to the end'') * lest (equivalent to ''that not'', sometimes with the meaning ''for fear that'', both of these naturally belonging to the ''that'' category) Depending on the conjunction used, two forms of final clause exist: * if ''that'' is used, the final clause takes may in the present and future, and might in the past, sometimes also shall because of the Latin subjunctive ** Wherefore do you play the violin? &n ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dependent Clause
A subordinate clause, dependent clause, subclause, or embedded clause is a clause that is embedded within a complex sentence. For instance, in the English sentence "I know that Bette is a dolphin", the clause "that Bette is a dolphin" occurs as the complement of the verb "know" rather than as a freestanding sentence. Subtypes of dependent clauses include content clauses, relative clauses, and adverbial clauses. Content clause A content clause, also known as a "noun clause", provides content implied or commented upon by its main clause. It can be a subject, predicate nominative, direct object, appositive, indirect object, or object of the preposition. Some of the English words that introduce content clauses are ''that, who'' (and formal ''whom''), ''whoever'' (and formal ''whomever''), ''whether, why, what, how, when'', and ''where''. Notice that some of these words also introduce relative and adverbial clauses. A clause is a content clause if a pronoun (''he, she, it,'' or '' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Independent Clause
An independent clause (or main clause) is a clause that can stand by itself as a ''simple sentence''. An independent clause contains a subject and a predicate and makes sense by itself. Independent clauses can be joined by using a semicolon or by using a comma followed by a coordinating conjunction (''and'', ''but'', ''for'', ''or'', ''nor'', ''so'', ''yet'', etc.). Examples In the following example sentences, independent clauses are underlined, and conjunctions are in bold. Single independent clauses: *I have enough money to buy an ice cream cone. *My favourite flavour is chocolate. *Let's go to the shop. Multiple independent clauses: *I have enough money to buy an ice cream cone; my favourite flavour is chocolate. *I have enough money to buy an ice cream cone, so let's go to the shop. See also *Comma splice * Conditional sentence *Dependent clause *Relative clause *Run-on sentence *Sentence clause structure In grammar, sentence and clause structure, commonly known as sent ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Irrealis Mood
In linguistics, irrealis moods (abbreviated ) are the main set of grammatical moods that indicate that a certain situation or action is not known to have happened at the moment the speaker is talking. This contrasts with the realis moods. Every language has grammatical ways of expressing unreality. Linguists tend to reserve the term "irrealis" for particular morphological markers or clause types. Many languages with irrealis mood make further subdivisions between kinds of irrealis moods. This is especially so among Algonquian languages such as Blackfoot. List of irrealis moods Moods Subjunctive The subjunctive mood, sometimes called conjunctive mood, has several uses in dependent clauses. Examples include discussing hypothetical or unlikely events, expressing opinions or emotions, or making polite requests (the exact scope is language-specific). A subjunctive mood exists in English, but it often is not obligatory. Example: "I suggested that Paul eat an apple", Paul ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Imperative Mood
The imperative mood is a grammatical mood that forms a command or request. The imperative mood is used to demand or require that an action be performed. It is usually found only in the present tense, second person. To form the imperative mood, use the base form of the verb. They are sometimes called ''directives'', as they include a feature that encodes directive force, and another feature that encodes modality of unrealized interpretation. An example of a verb used in the imperative mood is the English phrase "Go." Such imperatives imply a second-person subject (''you''), but some other languages also have first- and third-person imperatives, with the meaning of "let's (do something)" or "let them (do something)" (the forms may alternatively be called cohortative and jussive). Imperative mood can be denoted by the glossing abbreviation . It is one of the irrealis moods. Formation Imperative mood is often expressed using special conjugated verb forms. Like other finite ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Realis Mood
A realis mood (abbreviated ) is a grammatical mood which is used principally to indicate that something is a statement of fact; in other words, to express what the speaker considers to be a known state of affairs, as in declarative sentences. Most languages have a single realis mood called the indicative mood, although some languages have additional realis moods, for example to express different levels of certainty. By contrast, an irrealis mood is used to express something that is not known to be the case in reality. An example of the contrast between realis and irrealis moods is seen in the English sentences "He works" and "It is necessary that he work". In the first sentence, ''works'' is a present indicative (realis) form of the verb, and is used to make a direct assertion about the real world. In the second sentence, ''work'' is in the subjunctive mood, which is an irrealis mood – here ''that he work'' does not necessarily express a fact about the real world (he could b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Proto-Indo-European Language
Proto-Indo-European (PIE) is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European language family. Its proposed features have been derived by linguistic reconstruction from documented Indo-European languages. No direct record of Proto-Indo-European exists. Far more work has gone into reconstructing PIE than any other proto-language, and it is the best understood of all proto-languages of its age. The majority of linguistic work during the 19th century was devoted to the reconstruction of PIE or its daughter languages, and many of the modern techniques of linguistic reconstruction (such as the comparative method) were developed as a result. PIE is hypothesized to have been spoken as a single language from 4500 BC to 2500 BC during the Late Neolithic to Early Bronze Age, though estimates vary by more than a thousand years. According to the prevailing Kurgan hypothesis, the original homeland of the Proto-Indo-Europeans may have been in the Pontic–Caspian steppe of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ellipsis (linguistics)
In linguistics, ellipsis (from el, ἔλλειψις, ''élleipsis'' 'omission') or an elliptical construction is the omission from a clause of one or more words that are nevertheless understood in the context of the remaining elements. There are numerous distinct types of ellipsis acknowledged in theoretical syntax. Theoretical accounts of ellipsis seek to explain its syntactic and semantic factors, the means by which the elided elements are recovered, and the status of the elided elements. Theoretical accounts of ellipsis can vary greatly depending in part upon whether a constituency-based or a dependency-based theory of syntactic structure is pursued. Background Varieties of ellipsis have long formed a basis of linguistic theory that addresses basic questions of form–meaning correspondence: in particular, how the usual mechanisms of grasping a meaning from a form may be bypassed or supplanted via elliptical structures. In generative linguistics, the term ''ellipsis'' h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
