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Serial Verb
The serial verb construction, also known as (verb) serialization or verb stacking, is a syntactic phenomenon in which two or more verbs or verb phrases are strung together in a single clause. It is a common feature of many African, Asian and New Guinean languages. Serial verb constructions are often described as coding a single event;Aikhenvald, A. and Dixon, R.M.W. (2005). ''Serial Verb Constructions: A cross-linguistic typology''. Oxford: Oxford University PressLord, C. (1991). ''Historical Change in Serial Verb Constructions''. Amsterdam: John Benjamins they can also be used to indicate concurrent or causally-related events. Uses The terms "serial verbs", "serialization", etc. are used by different authors to denote somewhat different sets of constructions. There are also differences in how the constructions are analyzed, in terms of both syntax and semantics. In general, a structure described as a serial verb construction will consist either of two (or possibly more) cons ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Syntax
In linguistics, syntax ( ) is the study of how words and morphemes combine to form larger units such as phrases and sentences. Central concerns of syntax include word order, grammatical relations, hierarchical sentence structure (constituency), agreement, the nature of crosslinguistic variation, and the relationship between form and meaning (semantics). Diverse approaches, such as generative grammar and functional grammar, offer unique perspectives on syntax, reflecting its complexity and centrality to understanding human language. Etymology The word ''syntax'' comes from the ancient Greek word , meaning an orderly or systematic arrangement, which consists of (''syn-'', "together" or "alike"), and (''táxis'', "arrangement"). In Hellenistic Greek, this also specifically developed a use referring to the grammatical order of words, with a slightly altered spelling: . The English term, which first appeared in 1548, is partly borrowed from Latin () and Greek, though the L ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nupe Language
Nupe (also known as Anufe, Nupenci, Nyinfe, and Tapa) is a Volta–Niger language of the Nupoid branch primarily spoken by the Nupe people of the North Central region of Nigeria. Its geographical distribution stretches and maintains preeminence in Niger State as well as Kwara, Kogi, Nasarawa and the Federal Capital Territory. Nupe is closely related to Kakanda in structure and vocabulary. There are at least two markedly different dialects of Nupe: Nupe central and Nupe Tako. Demographics Nupe is the language spoken by the Nupe people, who reside mainly in Niger State in Nigeria, occupying a lowland of about square kilometers in the Niger Basin, mostly north of the river between the Kontagora and Guara confluents from Kainji to below Baro, and also Kwara State, Kogi State Kogi State is a States of Nigeria, state in the North Central Nigeria, North Central region of Nigeria, bordered to the west by the states of Ekiti State, Ekiti and Kwara State, Kwara, to the nort ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Perfective
The perfective aspect (abbreviated ), sometimes called the aoristic aspect, is a grammatical aspect that describes an action viewed as a simple whole, i.e., a unit without interior composition. The perfective aspect is distinguished from the imperfective aspect, which presents an event as having internal structure (such as ongoing, continuous, or habitual actions). The term ''perfective'' should be distinguished from ''perfect'' (see below). The distinction between perfective and imperfective is more important in some languages than others. In Slavic languages, it is central to the verb system. In other languages such as German, the same form such as ("I went", "I was going") can be used perfectively or imperfectively without grammatical distinction. In other languages such as Latin, the distinction between perfective and imperfective is made only in the past tense (e.g., Latin "I came" vs. "I was coming", "I used to come"). However, perfective should not be confused with t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ewe Language
Ewe (''Eʋe'' or ''Eʋegbe'' ) is a language spoken by approximately 5 million people in West Africa, mainly in Ghana and Togo. Ewe is part of a group of related languages commonly called the Gbe languages. The other major Gbe language is Fon, which is mainly spoken in Benin. Like many African languages, Ewe is tonal as well as a possible member of the Niger-Congo family. The German Africanist Diedrich Hermann Westermann published many dictionaries and grammars of Ewe and several other Gbe languages. Other linguists who have worked on Ewe and closely related languages include Gilbert Ansre (tone, syntax), Herbert Stahlke (morphology, tone), Nick Clements (tone, syntax), Roberto Pazzi (anthropology, lexicography), Felix K. Ameka (semantics, cognitive linguistics), Alan Stewart Duthie (semantics, phonetics), Hounkpati B. Capo (phonology, phonetics), Enoch Aboh (syntax), and Chris Collins (syntax). Dialects Some of the commonly named Ewe ('Vhe') dialects are ''Aŋ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hindi Language
Modern Standard Hindi (, ), commonly referred to as Hindi, is the standardised variety of the Hindustani language written in the Devanagari script. It is an official language of the Government of India, alongside English, and is the ''lingua franca'' of North India. Hindi is considered a Sanskritised register of Hindustani. Hindustani itself developed from Old Hindi and was spoken in Delhi and neighbouring areas. It incorporated a significant number of Persian loanwords. Hindi is an official language in twelve states (Bihar, Gujarat , Mizoram , Maharashtra , Chhattisgarh, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand), and six union territories (Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Delhi, Chandigarh, Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu , Ladakh and Jammu and Kashmir) and an additional official language in the state of West Bengal. Hindi is also one of the 22 scheduled languages of the Republic of India. Hindi i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Grammatical Mood
In linguistics, grammatical mood is a grammatical feature of verbs, used for signaling modality. That is, it is the use of verbal inflections that allow speakers to express their attitude toward what they are saying (for example, a statement of fact, of desire, of command, etc.). The term is also used more broadly to describe the syntactic expression of modality – that is, the use of verb phrases that do not involve inflection of the verb itself. Mood is distinct from grammatical tense or grammatical aspect, although the same word patterns are used for expressing more than one of these meanings at the same time in many languages, including English and most other modern Indo-European languages. (See tense–aspect–mood for a discussion of this.) Some examples of moods are indicative, interrogative, imperative, subjunctive, injunctive, optative, and potential. These are all finite forms of the verb. Infinitives, gerunds, and participles, which are non-finite forms ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Grammatical Aspect
In linguistics, aspect is a grammatical category that expresses how a verbal action, event, or state, extends over time. For instance, perfective aspect is used in referring to an event conceived as bounded and unitary, without reference to any flow of time during the event ("I helped him"). Imperfective aspect is used for situations conceived as existing continuously or habitually as time flows ("I was helping him"; "I used to help people"). Further distinctions can be made, for example, to distinguish states and ongoing actions ( continuous and progressive aspects) from repetitive actions ( habitual aspect). Certain aspectual distinctions express a relation between the time of the event and the time of reference. This is the case with the perfect aspect, which indicates that an event occurred prior to but has continuing relevance at the time of reference: "I have eaten"; "I had eaten"; "I will have eaten". Different languages make different grammatical aspectual disti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Grammatical Tense
In grammar, tense is a grammatical category, category that expresses time reference. Tenses are usually manifested by the use of specific forms of verbs, particularly in their grammatical conjugation, conjugation patterns. The main tenses found in many languages include the past tense, past, present tense, present, and future tense, future. Some languages have only two distinct tenses, such as past and nonpast, or future and Nonfuture tense, nonfuture. There are also tenseless languages, like most of the Varieties of Chinese, Chinese languages, though they can possess a future and Nonfuture tense, nonfuture system typical of Sino-Tibetan languages. In recent work Maria Bittner and Judith Tonhauser have described the different ways in which tenseless languages nonetheless mark time. On the other hand, some languages make finer tense distinctions, such as remote vs recent past, or near vs remote future. Tenses generally express time relative to the TUTT (linguistics), moment of spe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Grammatical Category
In linguistics, a grammatical category or grammatical feature is a property of items within the grammar of a language. Within each category there are two or more possible values (sometimes called grammemes), which are normally mutually exclusive. Frequently encountered grammatical categories include: * Case, varying according to function. * Gender, with values like male, female, animate, inanimate, neuter, and more general classes. * Number, varying according to the number of things. * Tense, varying according to when an action takes place, whether in the present, past or future. * Aspect, varying according to how much time an action will take, whether finished, repeated or habitual. * Mood, varying according to modality, or the speaker's attitude towards the action. Although the use of terms varies from author to author, a distinction should be made between grammatical categories and lexical categories. Lexical categories (considered syntactic categories) largely correspon ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lebanese Arabic
Lebanese Arabic ( ; autonym: ), or simply Lebanese ( ; autonym: ), is a Varieties of Arabic, variety of Levantine Arabic, indigenous to and primarily Languages of Lebanon, spoken in Lebanon, with significant linguistic influences borrowed from other Middle Eastern and European languages. Due to multilingualism and pervasive diglossia among Lebanese people (a majority of the Lebanese people are bilingual or trilingual), it is not uncommon for Lebanese people to code-switch between or mix Lebanese Arabic, French language, French, and English language, English in their daily speech. It is also spoken among the Lebanese diaspora. Lebanese Arabic is a descendant of the Old Arabic, Arabic dialects introduced to the Levant and other Arabic dialects that were already spoken in other parts of the Levant in the 7th century AD, which gradually supplanted various indigenous Northwest Semitic languages to become the regional lingua franca. As a result of this prolonged process of language s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dialectal Arabic
Varieties of Arabic (or dialects or vernaculars) are the linguistic systems that Arabic speakers speak natively. Arabic is a Semitic language within the Afroasiatic family that originated in the Arabian Peninsula. There are considerable variations from region to region, with degrees of mutual intelligibility that are often related to geographical distance and some that are mutually unintelligible. Many aspects of the variability attested to in these modern variants can be found in the ancient Arabic dialects in the peninsula. Likewise, many of the features that characterize (or distinguish) the various modern variants can be attributed to the original settler dialects as well as local native languages and dialects. Some organizations, such as SIL International, consider these approximately 30 different varieties to be separate languages, while others, such as the Library of Congress, consider them all to be dialects of Arabic. In terms of sociolinguistics, a major distinction exis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Baré Language
Barawana (Baré) is an Arawakan language of Venezuela and Brazil Brazil, officially the Federative Republic of Brazil, is the largest country in South America. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by area, fifth-largest country by area and the List of countries and dependencies by population ..., where it is nearly extinct. It was spoken by the Baré people. Aikhenvald (1999) reports "just a few old speakers left" of Baré proper, and that the Guinau variety was extinct. Kaufman (1994) considers Baré proper, Guinau, and Marawá (currently extinct) to be distinct languages; Aikhenvald, dialects of a single language. (Marawá is not the same language as Marawán.) ''Baré'' is a generic name for a number of Arawakan languages in the area, including Mandahuaca, Guarequena, Baniwa, and Piapoco. Barawana is the language given this name in Kaufman, Aikhenvald, and ''Ethnologue''. It is also known as Ibini (a typo for Ihini ~ Arihini?) and Mitua. Phonolog ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
