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Tag Question
A tag question is a construction in which an interrogative element is added to a Sentence (linguistics)#Classification, declarative or an imperative mood, imperative clause. The resulting speech act comprises an assertion paired with a request for confirmation. For instance, the English language, English tag question "You're John, aren't you?" consists of the declarative clause "You're John" and the interrogative tag "aren't you?" Uses In most languages, tag questions are more common in spoken usage than in formal written usage. They can be an indicator of politeness, Hedge (linguistics), hedging, consensus seeking, Stress (linguistics), emphasis and irony. They may suggest confidence or lack of confidence; they may be confrontational, defensive or tentative. Although they have the grammatical form of a question, they may be rhetorical question, rhetorical (not expecting an answer). In other cases, when they do expect a response, they may differ from straightforward questions in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Interrogative
An interrogative clause is a clause whose form is typically associated with question-like meanings. For instance, the English sentence (linguistics), sentence "Is Hannah sick?" has interrogative syntax which distinguishes it from its Declarative sentence, declarative counterpart "Hannah is sick". Also, the additional question mark closing the statement assures that the reader is informed of the interrogative mood. Interrogative clauses may sometimes be embedded within a phrase, for example: "Paul knows who is sick", where the interrogative clause "who is sick" serves as complement (linguistics), complement of the embedding verb "know". Languages vary in how they form interrogatives. When a language has a dedicated interrogative inflectional form, it is often referred to as interrogative grammatical mood. Interrogative mood or other interrogative forms may be denoted by the list of glossing abbreviations, glossing abbreviation . Question types Interrogative sentences are generally ... [...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] |
South Africa
South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic Ocean, South Atlantic and Indian Ocean; to the north by the neighbouring countries of Namibia, Botswana, and Zimbabwe; to the east and northeast by Mozambique and Eswatini; and it encloses Lesotho. Covering an area of , the country has Demographics of South Africa, a population of over 64 million people. Pretoria is the administrative capital, while Cape Town, as the seat of Parliament of South Africa, Parliament, is the legislative capital, and Bloemfontein is regarded as the judicial capital. The largest, most populous city is Johannesburg, followed by Cape Town and Durban. Cradle of Humankind, Archaeological findings suggest that various hominid species existed in South Africa about 2.5 million years ago, and modern humans inhabited the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dutch Language
Dutch ( ) is a West Germanic languages, West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family, spoken by about 25 million people as a first language and 5 million as a second language and is the List of languages by total number of speakers, third most spoken Germanic language. In Europe, Dutch is the native language of most of the population of the Netherlands and Flanders (which includes 60% of the population of Belgium). "1% of the EU population claims to speak Dutch well enough in order to have a conversation." (page 153). Dutch was one of the official languages of South Africa until 1925, when it was replaced by Afrikaans, a separate but partially Mutual intelligibility, mutually intelligible daughter language of Dutch. Afrikaans, depending on the definition used, may be considered a sister language, spoken, to some degree, by at least 16 million people, mainly in South Africa and Namibia, and evolving from Cape Dutch dialects. In South America, Dutch is the native l ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Afrikaans
Afrikaans is a West Germanic languages, West Germanic language spoken in South Africa, Namibia and to a lesser extent Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe and also Argentina where there is a group in Sarmiento, Chubut, Sarmiento that speaks the Patagonian Afrikaans, Patagonian dialect. It evolved from the Dutch language, Dutch vernacular of South Holland (Hollandic dialect) spoken by the free Burghers, predominantly Dutch settlers and slavery in South Africa#Dutch rule, enslaved population of the Dutch Cape Colony, where it gradually began to develop distinguishing characteristics in the 17th and 18th centuries. Although Afrikaans has adopted words from other languages including German language, German, Malay language, Malay and Khoisan languages, an estimated 90 to 95% of the vocabulary of Afrikaans is of Dutch origin. Differences between Afrikaans and Dutch often lie in the more analytic language, analytic Morphology (linguistics), morphology and grammar of Afrikaans, and differ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Indian English
Indian English (IndE, IE) or English (India) is a group of English dialects spoken in the Republic of India and among the Indian diaspora and native to India. English is used by the Government of India for communication, and is enshrined in the Constitution of India. English is also an official language in seven states and seven union territories of India, and the additional official language in seven other states and one union territory. Furthermore, English is the sole official language of the Judiciary of India, unless the state governor or legislature mandates the use of a regional language, or if the President of India has given approval for the use of regional languages in courts. Before the dissolution of the British Empire on the Indian subcontinent, the term ''Indian English'' broadly referred to '' South Asian English'', also known as '' British Indian English''. Status After gaining independence from the British Raj in 1947, English remained an official lang ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
India
India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since 2023; and, since its independence in 1947, the world's most populous democracy. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the southwest, and the Bay of Bengal on the southeast, it shares land borders with Pakistan to the west; China, Nepal, and Bhutan to the north; and Bangladesh and Myanmar to the east. In the Indian Ocean, India is near Sri Lanka and the Maldives; its Andaman and Nicobar Islands share a maritime border with Thailand, Myanmar, and Indonesia. Modern humans arrived on the Indian subcontinent from Africa no later than 55,000 years ago., "Y-Chromosome and Mt-DNA data support the colonization of South Asia by modern humans originating in Africa. ... Coalescence dates for most non-European populations averag ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dialects Of English
Dialects are linguistic varieties that may differ in pronunciation, vocabulary, spelling, and other aspects of grammar. For the classification of varieties of English in pronunciation only, see regional accents of English. Overview Dialects can be defined as "sub-forms of languages which are, in general, mutually comprehensible." English speakers from different countries and regions use a variety of different accents (systems of pronunciation) as well as various localized words and grammatical constructions. Many different dialects can be identified based on these factors. Dialects can be classified at broader or narrower levels: within a broad national or regional dialect, various more localised sub-dialects can be identified, and so on. The combination of differences in pronunciation and use of local words may make some English dialects almost unintelligible to speakers from other regions without any prior exposure. The major native dialects of English are often divided ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Multicultural London English
Multicultural London English (abbreviated MLE) is a sociolect of English that emerged in the late 20th century. It is spoken mainly by young, working-class people in multicultural parts of London. Speakers of MLE come from a wide variety of ethnic and cultural backgrounds, and live in diverse neighbourhoods. As a result, it can be regarded as a multiethnolect. One study was unable "to isolate ''distinct (discrete)'' ethnic styles" in their data on phonetics and quotatives in Hackney and commented that the "differences between ethnicities, where they exist, are quantitative in nature". Linguists have suggested that diversity of friendship groups is a contributing factor to the development of MLE; the more ethnically diverse an adolescent's friendship networks are, the more likely it is that they will speak MLE. Variants of MLE have emerged in diverse neighbourhoods of other cities, such as Birmingham and Manchester, which fuse elements of MLE with local influences. This has l ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Intonation (linguistics)
In linguistics, intonation is the variation in Pitch (music), pitch used to indicate the speaker's attitudes and emotions, to highlight or focus (linguistics), focus an expression, to signal the illocutionary act performed by a sentence, or to regulate the flow of discourse. For example, the English language, English question "Does Maria speak Spanish or French?" is interpreted as a yes-or-no question when it is uttered with a single rising intonation contour, but is interpreted as an alternative question when uttered with a rising contour on "Spanish" and a falling contour on "French". Although intonation is primarily a matter of pitch variation, its effects almost always work hand-in-hand with other Prosody (linguistics), prosodic features. Intonation is distinct from Tone (linguistics), tone, the phenomenon where pitch is used to distinguish words (as in Mandarin Chinese, Mandarin) or to mark grammatical features (as in Kinyarwanda). Transcription Most transcription convention ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ain't
''Ain't'' is a negative inflection for ''am'', ''is'', ''are'', ''has'', and ''have'' in informal English. In some dialects, it is also used for ''do'', ''does'', ''did'', and ''will''. The development of ''ain't'' for the various forms of ''be'', ''have'', ''will'' and ''do'' occurred independently, at different times. The use of ''ain't'' for the forms of ''be'' was established by the mid-18th century and for the forms of ''have'' by the early 19th century. The use of ''ain't'' is a continuing subject of controversy in English. It is commonly spoken in informal settings, especially in certain regions and dialects. It is often highly stigmatized and is often understood as a marker of low socio-economic or regional status or education level. It is generally considered non-standard by dictionaries and style guides except when used for rhetorical effect. Etymology ''Ain't'' has several antecedents in English, corresponding to the various forms of ''be'' and ''have'' that ''ain't'' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Copula (linguistics)
In linguistics, a copula (; : copulas or copulae; abbreviated ) is a word or phrase that links the subject of a sentence to a subject complement, such as the word ''is'' in the sentence "The sky is blue" or the phrase ''was not being'' in the sentence "It was not being cooperative." The word ''copula'' derives from the Latin noun for a "link" or "tie" that connects two different things. A copula is often a verb or a verb-like word, though this is not universally the case. A verb that is a copula is sometimes called a copulative or copular verb. In English primary education grammar courses, a copula is often called a linking verb. In other languages, copulas show more resemblances to pronouns, as in Classical Chinese and Guarani, or may take the form of suffixes attached to a noun, as in Korean, Beja, and Inuit languages. Most languages have one main copula (in English, the verb "to be"), although some (such as Spanish, Portuguese and Thai) have more than one, while ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
