|
Grammatical Gender
In linguistics, a grammatical gender system is a specific form of a noun class system, where nouns are assigned to gender categories that are often not related to the real-world qualities of the entities denoted by those nouns. In languages with grammatical gender, most or all nouns inherently carry one value of the grammatical category called ''gender''. The values present in a given language, of which there are usually two or three, are called the ''genders'' of that language. Some authors use the term "grammatical gender" as a synonym of "noun class", whereas others use different definitions for each. Many authors prefer "noun classes" when none of the inflections in a language relate to Sex–gender distinction, sex or gender. According to one estimate, gender is used in approximately half of the world's languages. According to one definition: "Genders are classes of nouns reflected in the behavior of associated words." Overview Languages with grammatical gender usually h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Linguistics
Linguistics is the scientific study of language. The areas of linguistic analysis are syntax (rules governing the structure of sentences), semantics (meaning), Morphology (linguistics), morphology (structure of words), phonetics (speech sounds and equivalent gestures in sign languages), phonology (the abstract sound system of a particular language, and analogous systems of sign languages), and pragmatics (how the context of use contributes to meaning). Subdisciplines such as biolinguistics (the study of the biological variables and evolution of language) and psycholinguistics (the study of psychological factors in human language) bridge many of these divisions. Linguistics encompasses Outline of linguistics, many branches and subfields that span both theoretical and practical applications. Theoretical linguistics is concerned with understanding the universal grammar, universal and Philosophy of language#Nature of language, fundamental nature of language and developing a general ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Determiner
Determiner, also called determinative ( abbreviated ), is a term used in some models of grammatical description to describe a word or affix belonging to a class of noun modifiers. A determiner combines with a noun to express its reference. Examples in English include articles (''the'' and ''a''/''an''), demonstratives (''this'', ''that''), possessive determiners (''my,'' ''their''), and quantifiers (''many'', ''both''). Not all languages have determiners, and not all systems of grammatical description recognize them as a distinct category. Description The linguistics term "determiner" was coined by Leonard Bloomfield in 1933. Bloomfield observed that in English, nouns often require a qualifying word such as an article or adjective. He proposed that such words belong to a distinct class which he called "determiners". If a language is said to have determiners, any articles are normally included in the class. Other types of words often regarded as belonging to the determiner ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Phoneme
A phoneme () is any set of similar Phone (phonetics), speech sounds that are perceptually regarded by the speakers of a language as a single basic sound—a smallest possible Phonetics, phonetic unit—that helps distinguish one word from another. All languages contain phonemes (or the spatial-gestural equivalent in sign languages), and all spoken languages include both consonant and vowel phonemes; phonemes are primarily studied under the branch of linguistics known as phonology. Examples and notation The English words ''cell'' and ''set'' have the exact same sequence of sounds, except for being different in their final consonant sounds: thus, versus in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), a writing system that can be used to represent phonemes. Since and alone distinguish certain words from others, they are each examples of phonemes of the English language. Specifically they are consonant phonemes, along with , while is a vowel phoneme. The spelling of Engli ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Homophone
A homophone () is a word that is pronounced the same as another word but differs in meaning or in spelling. The two words may be spelled the same, for example ''rose'' (flower) and ''rose'' (past tense of "rise"), or spelled differently, as in ''rain'', ''reign'', and ''rein''. The term ''homophone'' sometimes applies to units longer or shorter than words, for example a phrase, letter, or groups of letters which are pronounced the same as a counterpart. Any unit with this property is said to be ''homophonous'' (). Homophones that are spelled the same are both homographs and homonyms. For example, the word ''read'', in "He is well ''read''" and in "Yesterday, I ''read'' that book". Homophones that are spelled differently are also called heterographs, e.g. ''to'', ''too'', and ''two''. Wordplay and games Homophones are often used to create puns and to deceive the reader (as in crossword puzzles) or to suggest multiple meanings. The last usage is common in poetry and creat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Adposition
Adpositions are a class of words used to express spatial or temporal relations (''in, under, towards, behind, ago'', etc.) or mark various semantic roles (''of, for''). The most common adpositions are prepositions (which precede their complement) and postpositions (which follow their complement). An adposition typically combines with a noun phrase, this being called its complement, or sometimes object. English generally has prepositions rather than postpositions – words such as ''in, under'' and ''of'' precede their objects, such as "in England", "under the table", "of Jane" – although there are a few exceptions including ''ago'' and ''notwithstanding'', as in "three days ago" and "financial limitations notwithstanding". Some languages that use a different word order have postpositions instead (like Turkic languages) or have both types (like Finnish). The phrase formed by an adposition together with its complement is called an adpositional phrase (or prepositional phras ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Complementizer
In linguistics (especially generative grammar), a complementizer or complementiser (list of glossing abbreviations, glossing abbreviation: ) is a functional category (part of speech) that includes those words that can be used to turn a clause into the subject (grammar), subject or object (grammar), object of a sentence (linguistics), sentence. For example, the word ''that'' may be called a complementizer in English language, English sentences like ''Mary believes that it is raining''. The concept of complementizers is specific to certain modern grammatical theories. In traditional grammar, such words are normally considered conjunction (grammar), conjunctions. The standard abbreviation for ''complementizer'' is C. Category of C C as head of CP The complementizer is often held to be the syntactic head (linguistics), head of a full clause, which is therefore often represented by the abbreviation CP (for ''complementizer phrase''). Evidence of the complementizer functioning as the h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Adverbs
An adverb is a word or an expression that generally modifies a verb, an adjective, another adverb, a determiner, a clause, a preposition, or a sentence. Adverbs typically express manner, place, time, frequency, degree, or level of certainty by answering questions such as ''how'', ''in what way'', ''when'', ''where'', ''to what extent''. This is called the adverbial function and may be performed by an individual adverb, by an adverbial phrase, or by an adverbial clause. Adverbs are traditionally regarded as one of the parts of speech. Modern linguists note that the term ''adverb'' has come to be used as a kind of "catch-all" category, used to classify words with various types of syntactic behavior, not necessarily having much in common except that they do not fit into any of the other available categories (noun, adjective, preposition, etc.). Functions The English word ''adverb'' derives (through French) from Latin ''adverbium'', from ''ad-'' ('to'), ''verbum'' ('word', 'verb'), ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Verb
A verb is a word that generally conveys an action (''bring'', ''read'', ''walk'', ''run'', ''learn''), an occurrence (''happen'', ''become''), or a state of being (''be'', ''exist'', ''stand''). In the usual description of English, the basic form, with or without the particle ''to'', is the infinitive. In many languages, verbs are inflected (modified in form) to encode tense, aspect, mood, and voice. A verb may also agree with the person, gender or number of some of its arguments, such as its subject, or object. In English, three tenses exist: present, to indicate that an action is being carried out; past, to indicate that an action has been done; and future, to indicate that an action will be done, expressed with the auxiliary verb ''will'' or ''shall''. For example: * Lucy ''will go'' to school. ''(action, future)'' * Barack Obama ''became'' the President of the United States in 2009. ''(occurrence, past)'' * Mike Trout ''is'' a center fielder. ''(state of bein ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Article (grammar)
In 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 language, 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 of article Definite article A definite article is an article that marks a definiteness, definite noun phrase. Definite articles, such as the English ''t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Participle
In linguistics, a participle (; abbr. ) is a nonfinite verb form that has some of the characteristics and functions of both verbs and adjectives. More narrowly, ''participle'' has been defined as "a word derived from a verb and used as an adjective, as in a ''laughing face''". "Participle" is a traditional grammatical term from Greek and Latin that is widely used for corresponding verb forms in European languages and analogous forms in Sanskrit and Arabic grammar. In particular, Greek and Latin participles are inflected for gender, number and case, but also conjugated for tense and voice and can take prepositional and adverbial modifiers. Cross-linguistically, participles may have a range of functions apart from adjectival modification. In European and Indian languages, the past participle is used to form the passive voice. In English, participles are also associated with periphrastic verb forms ( continuous and perfect) and are widely used in adverbial clauses. In non- ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Adjective
An adjective (abbreviations, abbreviated ) is a word that describes or defines a noun or noun phrase. Its semantic role is to change information given by the noun. Traditionally, adjectives are considered one of the main part of speech, parts of speech of the English language, although historically they were classed together with Noun, nouns. Nowadays, certain words that usually had been classified as adjectives, including ''the'', ''this'', ''my'', etc., typically are classed separately, as Determiner (class), determiners. Examples: * That's a ''funny'' idea. (Prepositive attributive) * That idea is ''funny''. (Predicate (grammar), Predicative) * * The ''good'', the ''bad'', and the ''funny''. (Substantive adjective, Substantive) * Clara Oswald, completely ''fictional'', died three times. (Apposition, Appositive) Etymology ''Adjective'' comes from Latin ', a calque of (whence also English ''epithet''). In the grammatical tradition of Latin and Greek, because adjectives were I ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Possessive
A possessive or ktetic form (Glossing abbreviation, abbreviated or ; from ; ) is a word or grammatical construction indicating a relationship of possession (linguistics), possession in a broad sense. This can include strict ownership, or a number of other types of relation to a greater or lesser degree analogous to it. Most European languages feature possessive forms associated with personal pronouns, like the English grammar, English ''my'', ''mine'', ''your'', ''yours'', ''his'' and so on. There are two main ways in which these can be used (and a #Terminology, variety of terminologies for each): * Together with a noun, as in ''my car'', ''your sisters'', ''his boss''. Here the possessive form serves as a ''possessive determiner''. * Without an accompanying noun, as in ''mine is red'', ''I prefer yours'', ''this book is his''. A possessive used in this way is called a ''substantive possessive pronoun'', a possessive pronoun or an ''absolute pronoun''. Some languages, including ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
