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Folk Etymology
Folk etymology (also known as popular etymology, analogical reformation, reanalysis, morphological reanalysis or etymological reinterpretation) is a change in a word or phrase resulting from the replacement of an unfamiliar form by a more familiar one. The form or the meaning of an archaic, foreign, or otherwise unfamiliar word is reinterpreted as resembling more familiar words or morphemes. The term ''folk etymology'' is a loan translation from German ''Volksetymologie'', coined by Ernst Förstemann in 1852. Folk etymology is a productive process in historical linguistics, language change, and social interaction. Reanalysis of a word's history or original form can affect its spelling, pronunciation, or meaning. This is frequently seen in relation to loanwords or words that have become archaic or obsolete. Examples of words created or changed through folk etymology include the English dialectal form ''sparrowgrass'', originally from Greek (" asparagus") remade by analogy ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Morpheme
A morpheme is the smallest meaningful constituent of a linguistic expression. The field of linguistic study dedicated to morphemes is called morphology. In English, morphemes are often but not necessarily words. Morphemes that stand alone are considered roots (such as the morpheme ''cat''); other morphemes, called affixes, are found only in combination with other morphemes. For example, the ''-s'' in ''cats'' indicates the concept of plurality but is always bound to another concept to indicate a specific kind of plurality. This distinction is not universal and does not apply to, for example, Latin, in which many roots cannot stand alone. For instance, the Latin root ''reg-'' (‘king’) must always be suffixed with a case marker: ''rex'' (''reg-s''), ''reg-is'', ''reg-i'', etc. For a language like Latin, a root can be defined as the main lexical morpheme of a word. These sample English words have the following morphological analyses: * "Unbreakable" is composed of three ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Crayfish
Crayfish are freshwater crustaceans belonging to the clade Astacidea, which also contains lobsters. In some locations, they are also known as crawfish, craydids, crawdaddies, crawdads, freshwater lobsters, mountain lobsters, rock lobsters, mudbugs, baybugs or yabbies. Taxonomically, they are members of the superfamilies Astacoidea and Parastacoidea. They breathe through feather-like gills. Some species are found in brooks and streams, where fresh water is running, while others thrive in swamps, ditches, and paddy fields. Most crayfish cannot tolerate polluted water, although some species, such as '' Procambarus clarkii'', are hardier. Crayfish feed on animals and plants, either living or decomposing, and detritus. The term "crayfish" is applied to saltwater species in some countries. Terminology The name "crayfish" comes from the Old French word ' ( Modern French '). The word has been modified to "crayfish" by association with "fish" (folk etymology). The largely ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Late Latin
Late Latin ( la, Latinitas serior) is the scholarly name for the form of Literary Latin of late antiquity.Roberts (1996), p. 537. English dictionary definitions of Late Latin date this period from the , and continuing into the 7th century in the Iberian Peninsula. This somewhat ambiguously defined version of Latin was used between the eras of Classical Latin and Medieval Latin. Scholars do not agree exactly when Classical Latin should end or Medieval Latin should begin. Being a written language, Late Latin is not the same as Vulgar Latin. The latter served as ancestor of the Romance languages. Although Late Latin reflects an upsurge of the use of Vulgar Latin vocabulary and constructs, it remains largely classical in its overall features, depending on the author who uses it. Some Late Latin writings are more literary and classical, but others are more inclined to the vernacular. Also, Late Latin is not identical to Christian patristics, patristic Latin, used in the theology, theo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Liquorice
Liquorice (British English) or licorice (American English) ( ; also ) is the common name of ''Glycyrrhiza glabra'', a flowering plant of the bean family Fabaceae, from the root of which a sweet, aromatic flavouring can be extracted. The liquorice plant is an herbaceous perennial legume native to Western Asia, North Africa, and Southern Europe. Botanically, it is not closely related to anise or fennel, which are sources of similar flavouring compounds. (Another such source, star anise, is even more distantly related from anise and fennel than liquorice, despite its similar common name.) Liquorice is used as a flavouring in candies and tobacco, particularly in some European and West Asian countries. Liquorice extracts have been used in herbalism and traditional medicine. Excessive consumption of liquorice (more than per day of pure glycyrrhizinic acid, a liquorice component) may result in adverse effects, and overconsumption should be suspected clinically in patients prese ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Belfry (architecture)
The belfry is a structure enclosing bells for ringing as part of a building, usually as part of a bell tower or steeple. It can also refer to the entire tower or building, particularly in continental Europe for such a tower attached to a city hall or other civic building. A belfry encloses the bell chamber, the room in which the bells are housed; its walls are pierced by openings which allow the sound to escape. The openings may be left uncovered but are commonly filled with louvers to prevent rain and snow from entering and damaging the bells. There may be a separate room below the bell chamber to house the ringers. Etymology The word ''belfry'' comes from the Old North French or , meaning 'movable wooden siege tower'. The Old French word itself is derived from Middle High German , 'protecting shelter' (cf. the cognate '' bergfried''), combining the Proto-Germanic , 'to protect', or , 'mountain, high place', with , 'peace; personal security', to create , lit. 'high pl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Andiron
An andiron or firedog, fire-dog or fire dog is a bracket support, normally found in pairs, on which logs are laid for burning in an open fireplace, so that air may circulate under the firewood, allowing better burning and less smoke. They generally consist of a tall vertical element at the front, with at least two legs. This stops the logs from rolling out into the room, and may be highly decorative. The other element is one or more low horizontal pieces stretching back and serving to hold the logs off the bottom of the fireplace. An andiron is sometimes called a ''dog'' or ''dog-iron''. Before the Renaissance, European andirons were almost invariably made entirely of iron and were of comparatively plain design. Indeed, andirons and firebacks were one of the first types of object to be commonly made in cast iron, a trend which in England began in the 1540s: until the nineteenth century cast iron was too brittle for many uses, but andirons carried light loads and this was no ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Italian Language
Italian (''italiano'' or ) is a Romance language of the Indo-European language family that evolved from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire. Together with Sardinian, Italian is the least divergent language from Latin. Spoken by about 85 million people (2022), Italian is an official language in Italy, Switzerland ( Ticino and the Grisons), San Marino, and Vatican City. It has an official minority status in western Istria (Croatia and Slovenia). Italian is also spoken by large immigrant and expatriate communities in the Americas and Australia.Ethnologue report for language code:ita (Italy) – Gordon, Raymond G., Jr. (ed.), 2005. Ethnologue: Languages of the World, Fifteenth edition. Dallas, Tex.: SIL International. Online version ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Affix
In linguistics, an affix is a morpheme that is attached to a word stem to form a new word or word form. Affixes may be derivational, like English ''-ness'' and ''pre-'', or inflectional, like English plural ''-s'' and past tense ''-ed''. They are bound morphemes by definition; prefixes and suffixes may be separable affixes. Affixation is the linguistic process that speakers use to form different words by adding morphemes at the beginning (prefixation), the middle (infixation) or the end (suffixation) of words. Positional categories of affixes ''Prefix'' and ''suffix'' may be subsumed under the term ''adfix'', in contrast to ''infix.'' When marking text for interlinear glossing, as in the third column in the chart above, simple affixes such as prefixes and suffixes are separated from the stem with hyphens. Affixes which disrupt the stem, or which themselves are discontinuous, are often marked off with angle brackets. Reduplication is often shown with a tilde. Affixes whic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Article (grammar)
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 grammatical gender, gender, grammatical number, number, and grammatical case, case. Articles are part of a broader category called determiners, which also include demonstratives, possessive determiners, and Quantifier (linguistics), quantifiers. In linguistic interlinear glossing, articles are list of glossing abbreviations, abbreviated as . Types Definite article A definite article is an article that marks a definiteness, definite noun phrase. Definite articles such as English ''the'' are used to refer to a particular me ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Arabic
Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG, Berlin/Boston, 2011. Having emerged in the 1st century, it is named after the Arab people; the term "Arab" was initially used to describe those living in the Arabian Peninsula, as perceived by geographers from ancient Greece. Since the 7th century, Arabic has been characterized by diglossia, with an opposition between a standard prestige language—i.e., Literary Arabic: Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) or Classical Arabic—and diverse vernacular varieties, which serve as mother tongues. Colloquial dialects vary significantly from MSA, impeding mutual intelligibility. MSA is only acquired through formal education and is not spoken natively. It is the language of literature, official documents, and formal writ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Old French
Old French (, , ; Modern French: ) was the language spoken in most of the northern half of France from approximately the 8th to the 14th centuries. Rather than a unified language, Old French was a linkage of Romance dialects, mutually intelligible yet diverse, spoken in the northern half of France. These dialects came to be collectively known as the , contrasting with the in the south of France. The mid-14th century witnessed the emergence of Middle French, the language of the French Renaissance in the Île de France region; this dialect was a predecessor to Modern French. Other dialects of Old French evolved themselves into modern forms ( Poitevin-Saintongeais, Gallo, Norman, Picard, Walloon, etc.), each with its own linguistic features and history. The region where Old French was spoken natively roughly extended to the northern half of the Kingdom of France and its vassals (including parts of the Angevin Empire, which during the 12th century remained under Anglo-No ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Back-formation
In etymology, back-formation is the process or result of creating a new word via inflection, typically by removing or substituting actual or supposed affixes from a lexical item, in a way that expands the number of lexemes associated with the corresponding root word.Crystal, David. ''A Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics, Sixth Edition'', Blackwell Publishers, 2008. The resulting is called a ''back-formation'', a term coined by James Murray in 1889. ('' Oxford English Dictionary Online'' preserves its first use of 'back-formation' from 1889 in the definition of ''to burgle''; from ''burglar''.) For example, the noun ''resurrection'' was borrowed from Latin, and the verb ''resurrect'' was then back-formed hundreds of years later from it by removing the ''-ion'' suffix. This segmentation of ''resurrection'' into ''resurrect'' + ''ion'' was possible because English had examples of Latin words in the form of verb and verb+''-ion'' pairs, such as ''opine/opinion''. These bec ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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