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Weak Noun
Weak nouns are nouns that follow a weak inflection paradigm, in contrast with strong nouns. They are present in several Germanic languages. English Modern English has only two vestiges of the weak noun inflection in common use: ''ox'', whose plural is ''oxen'', and ''child'', whose plural is ''children'', the latter being a double plural. Additionally, the words ''aurochs'' and ''brother'' have the optional plural forms ''aurochsen'' and ''brethren'', the latter also being a double plural. The word ''men'' is not an example of the weak inflection, since it was produced by i-mutation of ''man''. Old English had many more weak nouns, such as ''ēage'' "eye" (plural ''ēagan'') and ''draca'' "dragon" (plural '), but these have all either disappeared or become strong nouns. German In German, weak nouns are masculine nouns that all have the same inflection except in the nominative singular and sometimes the genitive singular. German has many more weak nouns than English; for ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Weak Inflection
In grammar, the term ''weak'' (originally coined in German: ''schwach'') is used in opposition to the term ''strong'' (''stark'') to designate a conjugation or declension when a language has two parallel systems. The only constant feature in all the grammatical usages of the word "weak" is that it forms a polarity with "strong"; there is not necessarily any objective "weakness" about the forms so designated. Germanic grammar Verbs This terminology seems to have been used first in relation to Germanic verbs. In this context, "strong" indicates those verbs that form their past tenses by ablaut (the vocalic conjugations), "weak" those that need the addition of a dental suffix (the consonantal conjugations). It is only in this context that the term would be applied to modern English. Nouns By extension, the terminology was also applied to Germanic nouns. Here too, the weak noun was the consonantal declension, such as the German nouns that form their genitive in ''-n''. Ex ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Strong Noun
A strong noun is a phenomenon of more conservative Germanic languages like Icelandic, and also of Irish, marked in each by case or number markings. Icelandic In the Icelandic language, a strong noun is one that falls into one of four categories, depending on the endings of the ''characteristic cases'', i.e. the nominative and genitive singular and the nominative plural. For masculines this gives the following four-way split to be counted as strong: :The latter two cases end in ''-s'' and ''-ar''. :The latter two cases end in ''-s or -ar'' and ''-ir''. :The latter two cases end in ''-ar'' and ''-ir''. :Irregular but not a weak noun. For feminines this looks like: :The latter two cases end in ''-ar'' or ''-r'' and ''-ar''. :The latter two cases end in ''-ar'' and ''-ir''. :The latter two cases end in ''-ar'' or ''-ur'' and ''-ur'' or ''-r''. :Irregular but not a weak noun. Most neuters are strong, and end in ''-s'' in the genitive singular with the exception of ''fé'', geniti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Germanic Languages
The Germanic languages are a branch of the Indo-European languages, Indo-European language family spoken natively by a population of about 515 million people mainly in Europe, North America, Oceania, and Southern Africa. The most widely spoken Germanic language, English language, English, is also the world's most List of languages by total number of speakers, widely spoken language with an estimated 2 billion speakers. All Germanic languages are derived from Proto-Germanic language, Proto-Germanic, spoken in Iron Age Scandinavia, History of Germany#Iron Age, Iron Age Northern Germany and along the North Sea and Baltic coasts. The West Germanic languages include the three most widely spoken Germanic languages: English language, English with around 360–400 million native speakers; German language, German, with over 100 million native speakers; and Dutch language, Dutch, with 24 million native speakers. Other West Germanic languages include Afrikaans, an offshoot of Dutch origi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Modern English
Modern English, sometimes called New English (NE) or present-day English (PDE) as opposed to Middle and Old English, is the form of the English language that has been spoken since the Great Vowel Shift in England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ..., which began in the late 14th century and was completed by the 17th century. With some differences in vocabulary, texts that date from the early 17th century, such as the works of William Shakespeare and the King James Bible, are considered Modern English, or more specifically, Early Modern English or Elizabethan era, Elizabethan English. Through colonization, English was adopted in many regions of the world by the British Empire, such as Anglo-America, the Indian subcontinent, Africa, Australia and New Zealand. Mod ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Double Plural
A double plural is a plural form to which an extra suffix has been added, mainly because the original plural suffix (or other variation) had become unproductive and therefore irregular. So the form as a whole was no longer seen as a plural, an instance of morphological leveling. For example, if "geese" (the plural) became the word for "goose" (the singular) in a future version of English, a word ''geeses'' might become the licit plural form. Likewise, "peoples" in English currently means "nations or ethnic groups" but is sometimes used informally as a plural of "person" (eg, "these peoples standing here"). Examples English and Dutch Examples of this can be seen in the history of English and Dutch. Historically, the general English plural markers were not only ''-s'' or ''-en'' but also (in certain specific declensions) ''-ra'' and ''-ru'' (which is still rather general today in German under the form ''-er''). The ancient plural of ''child'' was "cildra/cildru", to which an ' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
I-mutation
I-mutation (also known as umlaut, front mutation, i-umlaut, i/j-mutation or i/j-umlaut) is a type of sound change in which a back vowel is fronted or a front vowel is raised if the following syllable contains , or (a voiced palatal approximant, sometimes called ''yod'', the sound of English in ''yes''). It is a category of regressive metaphony, or vowel harmony. The term is usually used by scholars of the Germanic languages: it is particularly important in the history of the Germanic languages because inflectional suffixes with an or led to many vowel alternations that are still important in the morphology of the languages. Germanic languages ''I-mutation'' took place separately in the various Germanic languages from around 450 or 500 CE in the North Sea area and affected all the early languages, except for Gothic. It seems to have taken effect earliest and most completely in Old English and Old Norse. It took place later in Old High German; by 900, its effects a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Old English
Old English ( or , or ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. It developed from the languages brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the mid-5th century, and the first Old English literature dates from the mid-7th century. After the Norman Conquest of 1066, English was replaced for several centuries by Anglo-Norman language, Anglo-Norman (a langues d'oïl, type of French) as the language of the upper classes. This is regarded as marking the end of the Old English era, since during the subsequent period the English language was heavily influenced by Anglo-Norman, developing into what is now known as Middle English in England and Early Scots in Scotland. Old English developed from a set of Anglo-Frisian or Ingvaeonic dialects originally spoken by Germanic tribes traditionally known as the Angles (tribe), Angles, Saxons and Jutes. As the Germanic settlers ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
German Language
German (, ) is a West Germanic language in the Indo-European language family, mainly spoken in Western Europe, Western and Central Europe. It is the majority and Official language, official (or co-official) language in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and Liechtenstein. It is also an official language of Luxembourg, German-speaking Community of Belgium, Belgium and the Italian autonomous province of South Tyrol, as well as a recognized national language in Namibia. There are also notable German-speaking communities in other parts of Europe, including: Poland (Upper Silesia), the Czech Republic (North Bohemia), Denmark (South Jutland County, North Schleswig), Slovakia (Krahule), Germans of Romania, Romania, Hungary (Sopron), and France (European Collectivity of Alsace, Alsace). Overseas, sizeable communities of German-speakers are found in the Americas. German is one of the global language system, major languages of the world, with nearly 80 million native speakers and over 130 mi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Icelandic Language
Icelandic ( ; , ) is a North Germanic languages, North Germanic language from the Indo-European languages, Indo-European language family spoken by about 314,000 people, the vast majority of whom live in Iceland, where it is the national language. Since it is a West Scandinavian languages, West Scandinavian language, it is most closely related to Faroese language, Faroese, western Norwegian dialects, and the extinct language Norn language, Norn. It is not mutually intelligible with the continental Scandinavian languages (Danish language, Danish, Norwegian language, Norwegian, and Swedish language, Swedish) and is more distinct from the most widely spoken Germanic languages, English language, English and German language, German. The written forms of Icelandic and Faroese are very similar, but their spoken forms are not Mutual intelligibility, mutually intelligible. The language is more Linguistic conservatism, conservative than most other Germanic languages. While most of them hav ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Noun
In grammar, a noun is a word that represents a concrete or abstract thing, like living creatures, places, actions, qualities, states of existence, and ideas. A noun may serve as an Object (grammar), object or Subject (grammar), subject within a phrase, clause, or sentence.Example nouns for: * Living creatures (including people, alive, dead, or imaginary): ''mushrooms, dogs, Afro-Caribbeans, rosebushes, Mandela, bacteria, Klingons'', etc. * Physical objects: ''hammers, pencils, Earth, guitars, atoms, stones, boots, shadows'', etc. * Places: ''closets, temples, rivers, Antarctica, houses, Uluru, utopia'', etc. * Actions of individuals or groups: ''swimming, exercises, cough, explosions, flight, electrification, embezzlement'', etc. * Physical qualities: ''colors, lengths, porosity, weights, roundness, symmetry, solidity,'' etc. * Mental or bodily states: ''jealousy, sleep, joy, headache, confusion'', etc. In linguistics, nouns constitute a lexical category (part of speech) defined ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Umlaut (linguistics)
In linguistics, umlaut (from German language, German "sound alternation") is a sound change in which a vowel is pronounced more like a following vowel or semivowel. The term ''umlaut'' was originally coined by Jacob Grimm in connection with the study of Germanic languages, as umlaut had occurred prominently in many of their linguistic histories (see Germanic umlaut). While the common English plural is umlauts, the German plural is Umlaute. Umlaut is a form of Assimilation (linguistics), assimilation, the process of one speech sound becoming more similar to a nearby sound. Umlaut occurred in order to make words easier to pronounce. If a word has two vowels, one back in the mouth and the other forward, it takes more effort to pronounce than if those vowels were closer together. Thus, one way languages may change is that these two vowels get drawn closer together. The phenomenon is also known as vowel harmony, the complete or partial identity of vowels within a domain, typically a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Strong Noun
A strong noun is a phenomenon of more conservative Germanic languages like Icelandic, and also of Irish, marked in each by case or number markings. Icelandic In the Icelandic language, a strong noun is one that falls into one of four categories, depending on the endings of the ''characteristic cases'', i.e. the nominative and genitive singular and the nominative plural. For masculines this gives the following four-way split to be counted as strong: :The latter two cases end in ''-s'' and ''-ar''. :The latter two cases end in ''-s or -ar'' and ''-ir''. :The latter two cases end in ''-ar'' and ''-ir''. :Irregular but not a weak noun. For feminines this looks like: :The latter two cases end in ''-ar'' or ''-r'' and ''-ar''. :The latter two cases end in ''-ar'' and ''-ir''. :The latter two cases end in ''-ar'' or ''-ur'' and ''-ur'' or ''-r''. :Irregular but not a weak noun. Most neuters are strong, and end in ''-s'' in the genitive singular with the exception of ''fé'', geniti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
