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Ain't No Reason
''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] |
Inflection
In linguistic Morphology (linguistics), morphology, inflection (less commonly, inflexion) is a process of word formation in which a word is modified to express different grammatical category, grammatical categories such as grammatical tense, tense, grammatical case, case, grammatical voice, voice, grammatical aspect, aspect, grammatical person, person, grammatical number, number, grammatical gender, gender, grammatical mood, mood, animacy, and definiteness. The inflection of verbs is called ''grammatical conjugation, conjugation'', while the inflection of nouns, adjectives, adverbs, etc. can be called ''declension''. An inflection expresses grammatical categories with affixation (such as prefix, suffix, infix, circumfix, and transfix), apophony (as Indo-European ablaut), or other modifications. For example, the Latin verb ', meaning "I will lead", includes the suffix ', expressing person (first), number (singular), and tense-mood (future indicative or present subjunctive). Th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Wycherley
William Wycherley ( ; April 16411 January 1716) was an English Army officer and playwright best known for writing the plays '' The Country Wife'' and ''The Plain Dealer''. Early life Wycherley was born at Clive near Shrewsbury, Shropshire, at a house called Clive Hall, although his birthplace has also been said (by Lionel Cust) to be Trench Farm to the north near Wem , later the birthplace of another writer, John Ireland, who was said to have been adopted by Wycherley's widow following the death of Ireland's parents. Article on John Ireland the writer. He was baptised on 8 April 1641, at Whitchurch, Hampshire. He was the son of Daniel Wycherley (1617–1697) and his wife Bethia, daughter of William Shrimpton. His family was settled on a moderate estate of about £600 a year, and his father was in the business service of the Marquess of Winchester. Wycherley lived during much of his childhood at Trench Farm, one of his paternal family's Shropshire properties, and also pro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lord Byron
George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron (22 January 1788 – 19 April 1824) was an English poet. He is one of the major figures of the Romantic movement, and is regarded as being among the greatest poets of the United Kingdom. Among his best-known works are the lengthy narratives ''Don Juan (poem), Don Juan'' and ''Childe Harold's Pilgrimage''; many of his shorter lyrics in ''Hebrew Melodies'' also became popular. Byron was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, before he travelled extensively in Europe. He lived for seven years in Italy, in Venice, Ravenna, Pisa and Genoa after he was forced to flee England due to threats of lynching. During his stay in Italy, he would frequently visit his friend and fellow poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. Later in life, Byron joined the Greek War of Independence to fight the Ottoman Empire, for which Greeks revere him as a folk hero. He died leading a campaign in 1824, at the age of 36, from a fever contracted after the First Siege of Missolonghi, f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shibboleth
A shibboleth ( ; ) is any custom or tradition—usually a choice of phrasing or single word—that distinguishes one group of people from another. Historically, shibboleths have been used as passwords, ways of self-identification, signals of loyalty and affinity, ways of maintaining traditional segregation, or protection from threats. It has also come to mean a moral formula held tenaciously and unreflectingly, or a taboo. Origin The term originates from the Hebrew word (), which means the part of a plant containing grain, such as the ear of a stalk of wheat or rye; or less commonly (but arguably more appropriately) 'flood, torrent'. Biblical account The modern use derives from an account in the Hebrew Bible, in which pronunciation of this word was used to distinguish Ephraimites, whose dialect used a different first consonant. The difference concerns the Hebrew letter '' shin'', which is now pronounced as (as in ''shoe''). In the Book of Judges chapter 12, after the inhab ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sentence (linguistics)
In linguistics and grammar, a sentence is a Expression (linguistics), linguistic expression, such as the English example "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog." In traditional grammar, it is typically defined as a string of words that expresses a complete thought, or as a unit consisting of a Subject (grammar), subject and Predicate (grammar), predicate. In non-functional linguistics it is typically defined as a maximal unit of syntactic structure such as a Constituent_(linguistics), constituent. In functional linguistics, it is defined as a unit of written texts delimited by writing, graphological features such as upper-case letters and markers such as periods, question marks, and exclamation marks. This notion contrasts with a curve, which is delimited by phonologic features such as pitch and loudness and markers such as pauses; and with a clause, which is a sequence of words that represents some process going on throughout time. A sentence can include words grouped meaning ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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] |
The Cambridge Grammar Of The English Language
''The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language'' (''CamGEL''The abbreviation ''CamGEL'' is less commonly used for the work than is ''CGEL'' (and the authors themselves use ''CGEL'' in their other works), but ''CGEL'' is ambiguous because it has also often been used for the earlier work ''A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language''. This article uses the unambiguous form.) is a descriptive grammar of the English language. Its primary authors are Rodney Huddleston and Geoffrey K. Pullum. Huddleston was the only author to work on every chapter. It was published by Cambridge University Press in 2002 and has been cited more than 8,000 times. Background In 1988, Huddleston published a very critical review of the 1985 book ''A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language''. He wrote: [T]here are some respects in which it is seriously flawed and disappointing. A number of quite basic categories and concepts do not seem to have been thought through with sufficient care; this re ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anne Lobeck
Anne C. Lobeck is an American linguist who specializes in syntactic theory and applied linguistics, with focus on linguistics and education. She is currently Professor of Linguistics at Western Washington University. Career Lobeck obtained a B.A. in French from Whitman College in 1983 and an M.A. in linguistics from the University of Washington in 1979. She received her Ph.D. in linguistics from the same institution in 1986 with a dissertation entitled "Syntactic Constraints on VP Ellipsis". Her subsequent work on ellipsis in natural languages has contributed to the understanding of the phenomena in English, French, and German. In 2006, Lobeck and Kristin Denham were the recipients of an NSF grant for their project "The Western Washington University Teaching Partnership Project: Improving Teacher Education through Partner Teaching". This project led to the publication of "''Linguistics at School: Language Awareness in Primary and Secondary Education"'' (co-edited with Denham) ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kristin Denham
Kristin E. Denham is a linguist and professor in the Department of Linguistics at Western Washington University. Her research and teaching interests include syntactic theory, Native American languages, language teaching and revitalization projects, and linguistics in K-12 education. Denham has studied question formation in Babine-Witsuwit'en, an Athabaskan language, and has also done some work on Salish languages, spoken throughout the Salish Sea region. Biography Denham obtained her Ph.D. in linguistics from the University of Washington in 1997. Her dissertation was titled "A minimalist account of optional wh-movement". Her committee was chaired by Frederick Newmeyer. Denham first joined Western Washington University in 1996 as a Visiting assistant professor. Denham directs several projects related to linguistics in K-12 education. Among these arExploring Language: Daily Language Investigations for English Language ArtsanVoices of the Pacific Northwest In April 2020, Denh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
English Auxiliary Verbs
English auxiliary verbs are a small set of English verbs, which include the English modal auxiliary verbs and a few others. Although the Auxiliary verb, auxiliary verbs of English are widely believed to lack inherent semantic meaning and instead to modify the meaning of the verbs they accompany, they are nowadays classed by linguists as auxiliary on the basis not of semantic but of grammatical properties: among these, that they subject–auxiliary inversion, invert with their subjects in interrogative main clauses (''Has John arrived?'') and are negation (grammar), negated either by the simple addition of ''not'' (''He has not arrived'') or (with a very few exceptions) by negative inflection (''He hasn't arrived''). History of the concept When describing English, the adjective ''auxiliary'' was "formerly applied to any formative or subordinate elements of language, e.g. prefixes, English prepositions, prepositions." As applied to verbs, its conception was originally rather vag ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Caribbean English
Caribbean English (CE, CarE) is a set of dialects of the English language which are spoken in the Caribbean and most countries on the Caribbean coasts of Central America and South America. Caribbean English is influenced by, but is distinct to the English-based creole languages spoken in the region. Though dialects of Caribbean English vary structurally and phonetically across the region, all are primarily derived from British English, Indigenous languages and West African languages. In some countries with a plurality Indian population, such as Trinidad and Tobago and Guyana, Caribbean English has further been influenced by Hindustani and other South Asian languages. Overview * The daily-used English in the Caribbean has a different set of pronouns, typically ''me, meh'' or ''mi'', ''you, yuh, he, she, it, we, wi'' or ''alawe, wunna'' or ''unu'', and ''dem'' or ''day''. Central Americans use ''I, mi, my, he, she, ih, it, we, wi'' or ''alawe'', ''allayu'' or ''unu'', and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
African-American Vernacular English
African-American Vernacular English (AAVE) is the variety of English natively spoken, particularly in urban communities, by most working- and middle-class African Americans and some Black Canadians. Having its own unique grammatical, vocabulary, and accent features, AAVE is employed by middle-class Black Americans as the more informal and casual end of a sociolinguistic continuum. However, in formal speaking contexts, speakers tend to switch to more standard English grammar and vocabulary, usually while retaining elements of the vernacular (non-standard) accent. AAVE is widespread throughout the United States, but is not the native dialect of all African Americans, nor are all of its speakers African American. Like most varieties of African-American English, African-American Vernacular English shares a large portion of its grammar and phonology with the regional dialects of the Southern United States, and especially older Southern American English, due to the hist ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
