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Swahili Grammar
Swahili is a Bantu language which is native to or mainly spoken in East African region. It has a grammatical structure that is typical for Bantu languages, bearing all the hallmarks of this language family. These include agglutinativity, a rich array of noun classes, extensive inflection for person (both subject and object), tense, aspect and mood, and generally a subject–verb–object word order. Typology Swahili may be described in several ways depending on the aspect being considered. * It is an agglutinative language. It constructs whole words by joining together discrete roots and morphemes with specific meanings, and may also modify words by similar processes. * Its basic word order is SVO. However, because the verb is inflected to indicate the subject and sometimes also the object, this order may be changed to emphasise certain parts of the sentence. * It has no grammatical case marking on the noun. Nominal roles are indicated by a combination of word order and agre ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Swahili Language
Swahili, also known by its local name , is the native language of the Swahili people, who are found primarily in Tanzania, Kenya and Mozambique (along the East African coast and adjacent litoral islands). It is a Bantu language, though Swahili has borrowed a number of words from foreign languages, particularly Arabic, but also words from Portuguese, English and German. Around forty percent of Swahili vocabulary consists of Arabic loanwords, including the name of the language ( , a plural adjectival form of an Arabic word meaning 'of the coast'). The loanwords date from the era of contact between Arab slave traders and the Bantu inhabitants of the east coast of Africa, which was also the time period when Swahili emerged as a lingua franca in the region. The number of Swahili speakers, be they native or second-language speakers, is estimated to be approximately 200 million. Due to concerted efforts by the government of Tanzania, Swahili is one of three official languages (th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Swahili Grammar
Swahili is a Bantu language which is native to or mainly spoken in East African region. It has a grammatical structure that is typical for Bantu languages, bearing all the hallmarks of this language family. These include agglutinativity, a rich array of noun classes, extensive inflection for person (both subject and object), tense, aspect and mood, and generally a subject–verb–object word order. Typology Swahili may be described in several ways depending on the aspect being considered. * It is an agglutinative language. It constructs whole words by joining together discrete roots and morphemes with specific meanings, and may also modify words by similar processes. * Its basic word order is SVO. However, because the verb is inflected to indicate the subject and sometimes also the object, this order may be changed to emphasise certain parts of the sentence. * It has no grammatical case marking on the noun. Nominal roles are indicated by a combination of word order and agre ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Reference And Relative Pronouns
Reference is a relationship between objects in which one object designates, or acts as a means by which to connect to or link to, another object. The first object in this relation is said to ''refer to'' the second object. It is called a ''name'' for the second object. The second object, the one to which the first object refers, is called the ''referent'' of the first object. A name is usually a phrase or expression, or some other symbolic representation. Its referent may be anything – a material object, a person, an event, an activity, or an abstract concept. References can take on many forms, including: a thought, a sensory perception that is audible (onomatopoeia), visual (text), olfactory, or tactile, emotional state, relationship with other, spacetime coordinate, symbolic or alpha-numeric, a physical object or an energy projection. In some cases, methods are used that intentionally hide the reference from some observers, as in cryptography. References feature in many sph ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Determiner
A determiner, also called determinative (abbreviated ), is a word, phrase, or affix that occurs together with a noun or noun phrase and generally serves to express the reference of that noun or noun phrase in the context. That is, a determiner may indicate whether the noun is referring to a definite or indefinite element of a class, to a closer or more distant element, to an element belonging to a specified person or thing, to a particular number or quantity, etc. Common kinds of determiners include definite and indefinite articles (''the'', ''a''), demonstratives (''this'', ''that''), possessive determiners (''my,'' ''their''), cardinal numerals (''one'', ''two''), quantifiers (''many'', ''both''), distributive determiners (''each'', ''every''), and interrogative determiners (''which'', ''what''). Description Most determiners have been traditionally classed either as adjectives or pronouns, and this still occurs in traditional grammars: for example, demonstrative and possessi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pro-drop
A pro-drop language (from "pronoun-dropping") is a language where certain classes of pronouns may be omitted when they can be pragmatically or grammatically inferable. The precise conditions vary from language to language, and can be quite intricate. The phenomenon of "pronoun-dropping" is part of the larger topic of zero or null anaphora. The connection between pro-drop languages, and null anaphora relates to the fact that a dropped pronoun has referential properties, and so is crucially not a null dummy pronoun. Pro-drop is licensed only in languages that have a positive setting of the pro-drop parameter, which allows the null element to be identified by its governor. Pro-drop is a problem when translating to a non-pro-drop language such as English, which requires the pronoun to be added, especially noticeable in machine translation. Amongst other reasons, it can also pose a problem with respect to transfer errors and second language acquisition. Non-pro-drop is an areal f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Genitive -a
In grammar, the genitive case (abbreviated ) is the grammatical case that marks a word, usually a noun, as modifying another word, also usually a noun—thus indicating an attributive relationship of one noun to the other noun. A genitive can also serve purposes indicating other relationships. For example, some verbs may feature arguments in the genitive case; and the genitive case may also have adverbial uses (see adverbial genitive). Genitive construction includes the genitive case, but is a broader category. Placing a modifying noun in the genitive case is one way of indicating that it is related to a head noun, in a genitive construction. However, there are other ways to indicate a genitive construction. For example, many Afroasiatic languages place the head noun (rather than the modifying noun) in the construct state. Possessive grammatical constructions, including the possessive case, may be regarded as a subset of genitive construction. For example, the genitive construc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Emphatic Copula
Emphasis or emphatic may refer to: Communication * Emphasis (telecommunications), intentional alteration of the amplitude-vs.-frequency characteristics of the signal meant to reduce adverse effects of noise * Cultural emphasis, alleged tendency of a language's vocabulary to detail elements of the speakers' culture Writing * Emphasis (typography), visual enhancement a part of a text to make it noticeable * Emphasis point, a typographic marking used in some east Asian languages to indicate emphasis Linguistics * Emphatic consonant, member of a phonological category of consonants in Semitic languages * Prosodic stress, speaking an important word more loudly or slowly so that it stands out * ''Do''-support, a way to using additional words to call attention to important words * Intensifier, a way to using additional words to call attention to important words Music * ''Emphasis! (On Parenthesis)'', 2008 album by the Stanton Moore Trio * "Emphasis/Who Wants to Live Forever", 2002 sin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Comitative Na
In grammar, the comitative case (; abbreviated ) is a grammatical case that denotes accompaniment. In English, the preposition "with", in the sense of "in company with" or "together with", plays a substantially similar role (other uses of "with", like in the meaning of "using" or "by means of" (I cut bread with a knife), correspond to the instrumental case or related cases). Core meaning The comitative case encodes a relationship of "accompaniment" between two participants in an event, called the "accompanier" and the "companion". In addition, there is a "relator" (which can be of multiple lexical categories, but is most commonly an affix or adposition). Use of the comitative case gives prominence to the accompanier. This Italian sentence is an example: : ''il_professore''.html" ;"title="/nowiki>''il professore''">/nowiki>''il professore''/nowiki>accompanier ''entra nell'aula'' ''con''.html" ;"title="/nowiki>''con''">/nowiki>''con''/nowiki>relator ''i_suoi_studenti''.html" ;"titl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Genitive -a
In grammar, the genitive case (abbreviated ) is the grammatical case that marks a word, usually a noun, as modifying another word, also usually a noun—thus indicating an attributive relationship of one noun to the other noun. A genitive can also serve purposes indicating other relationships. For example, some verbs may feature arguments in the genitive case; and the genitive case may also have adverbial uses (see adverbial genitive). Genitive construction includes the genitive case, but is a broader category. Placing a modifying noun in the genitive case is one way of indicating that it is related to a head noun, in a genitive construction. However, there are other ways to indicate a genitive construction. For example, many Afroasiatic languages place the head noun (rather than the modifying noun) in the construct state. Possessive grammatical constructions, including the possessive case, may be regarded as a subset of genitive construction. For example, the genitive construc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Locative Case
In grammar, the locative case (abbreviated ) is a grammatical case which indicates a location. It corresponds vaguely to the English prepositions "in", "on", "at", and "by". The locative case belongs to the general local cases, together with the lative and separative case. The locative case exists in many language groups. Indo-European languages The Proto-Indo-European language had a locative case expressing "place where", an adverbial function. The endings are reconstructed as follows: In most later Indo-European languages, the locative case merged into other cases (often genitive or dative) in form and/or function, but some daughter languages retained it as a distinct case. It is found in: * modern Balto-Slavic languages, except Bulgarian and Macedonian, although it is mostly used with prepositions in the other Slavic languages * some classical Indo-European languages, particularly Sanskrit and Old Latin * (Mostly uncommon, archaic or literary) use in certain modern Indic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Animacy
Animacy (antonym: inanimacy) is a grammatical and semantic feature, existing in some languages, expressing how sentient or alive the referent of a noun is. Widely expressed, animacy is one of the most elementary principles in languages around the globe and is a distinction acquired as early as six months of age. Concepts of animacy constantly vary beyond a simple animate and inanimate binary; many languages function off of a hierarchical general animacy scale that ranks animacy as a "matter of gradience". Typically (with some variation of order and of where the cutoff for animacy occurs), the scale ranks humans above animals, then plants, natural forces, concrete objects, and abstract objects, in that order. In referring to humans, this scale contains a hierarchy of persons, ranking the first- and second-person pronouns above the third person, partly a product of empathy, involving the speaker and interlocutor. Examples The distinction between ''he'', ''she'', and other person ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Agreement (linguistics)
In linguistics, agreement or concord ( abbreviated ) occurs when a word changes form depending on the other words to which it relates. It is an instance of inflection, and usually involves making the value of some grammatical category (such as gender or person) "agree" between varied words or parts of the sentence. For example, in Standard English, one may say ''I am'' or ''he is'', but not "I is" or "he am". This is because English grammar requires that the verb and its subject agree in ''person''. The pronouns ''I'' and ''he'' are first and third person respectively, as are the verb forms ''am'' and ''is''. The verb form must be selected so that it has the same person as the subject in contrast to notional agreement, which is based on meaning. By category Agreement generally involves matching the value of some grammatical category between different constituents of a sentence (or sometimes between sentences, as in some cases where a pronoun is required to agree with its ante ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
