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Grammaticalization
Grammaticalization (also known as grammatization or grammaticization) is a linguistic process in which words change from representing objects or actions to serving grammatical functions. Grammaticalization can involve content words, such as nouns and verbs, developing into new function words that express grammatical relationships among other words in a sentence. This may happen rather than speakers deriving such new function words from (for example) existing bound, inflectional constructions. For example, the Old English verb 'to want', 'to wish' has become the Modern English auxiliary verb ''will'', which expresses intention or simply futurity. Some concepts are often grammaticalized; others, such as evidentiality, less frequently. In explaining this process, linguistics distinguishes between two types of linguistic items: * lexical items or content words, which carry specific lexical meaning * grammatical items or function words, which serve mainly to express grammatical ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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Bernd Heine
Bernd Heine (born 25 May 1939) is a German linguist and specialist in African studies. From 1978 to 2004 Heine held the chair for African Studies at the University of Cologne, Germany, now being a Professor Emeritus. His main focal points in research and teaching are African linguistics, sociolinguistics, grammaticalization theory and language contact and discourse grammar. The grammaticalisation theory, which deals with the changes in grammar, and to which he contributed 7 books and numerous articles, is his main focal point. Jointly with Tania Kuteva and Gunther Kaltenböck, Heine is the founder of the framework of discourse grammar. Early years and education Heine was born in Mohrungen, East Prussia (now Morąg, Poland). During the Second World War, in 1944 his parents fled to Austria and later took up residence in Bavaria, before settling in Leverkusen in 1948. From 1949 to 1959 Heine attended the Landrat-Lucas-Gymnasium in Opladen. Afterwards, he studied at the Univ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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Sentence Connectives
A discourse marker is a word or a phrase that plays a role in managing the flow and structure of discourse. Since their main function is at the level of discourse (sequences of utterances) rather than at the level of utterances or sentences, discourse markers are relatively syntax-independent and usually do not change the truth conditional meaning of the sentence. They can also indicate what a speaker is doing on a variety of different planes. Examples of discourse markers include the particles ''oh'', ''well'', ''now'', ''then'', ''you know'', and ''I mean'', and the discourse connectives ''so'', ''because'', ''and'', ''but'', and ''or''. The term ''discourse marker'' was popularized by Deborah Schiffrin in her 1987 book ''Discourse Markers''. Usage in English Common discourse markers used in the English language include ''you know'', ''actually'', ''basically'', ''like'', ''I mean'', ''okay'' and ''so''. Discourse markers come from varied word classes, such as adverbs (''well'' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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Evidentiality
In linguistics, evidentiality is, broadly, the indication of the nature of evidence for a given statement; that is, whether evidence exists for the statement and if so, what kind. An evidential (also verificational or validational) is the particular grammatical element (affix, clitic, or particle) that indicates evidentiality. Languages with only a single evidential have had terms such as mediative, médiatif, médiaphorique, and indirective used instead of ''evidential''. Evidentiality may be direct or indirect: direct evidentials are used to describe information directly perceived by the speaker through vision as well as other sensory experiences while indirect evidentials consist of the other grammatical markers for evidence such as quotatives and inferentials. Introduction All languages have some means of specifying the source of information. European languages (such as Germanic and Romance languages) often use modal verbs (, , , ) or other lexicon, lexical words (adverb ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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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] |
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Function Word
In linguistics, function words (also called functors) are words that have little lexical meaning or have ambiguous meaning and express grammatical relationships among other words within a sentence, or specify the attitude or mood of the speaker. They signal the structural relationships that words have to one another and are the glue that holds sentences together. Thus they form important elements in the structures of sentences. Words that are not function words are called '' content words'' (or open class words, ''lexical words,'' or ''autosemantic words'') and include nouns, most verbs, adjectives, and most adverbs, although some adverbs are function words (like ''then'' and ''why''). Dictionaries define the specific meanings of content words but can describe only the general usages of function words. By contrast, grammars describe the use of function words in detail but treat lexical words only in general terms. Since it was first proposed in 1952 by C. C. Fries, the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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Wilhelm Von Humboldt
Friedrich Wilhelm Christian Karl Ferdinand von Humboldt (22 June 1767 – 8 April 1835) was a German philosopher, linguist, government functionary, diplomat, and founder of the Humboldt University of Berlin. In 1949, the university was named after him and his younger brother, Alexander von Humboldt, a Natural history, naturalist. He was a linguist who made contributions to the philosophy of language, ethnolinguistics, and to the Learning theory (education), theory and practice of education. He made a major contribution to the development of liberalism by envisioning education as a means of potential, realizing individual possibility rather than a way of indoctrination, drilling traditional ideas into youth to suit them for an already established occupation or social role. In particular, he was the architect of the Humboldtian education ideal, which was used from the beginning in Prussian education system, Prussia as a model for its system of public education, as well as in the Un ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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Grammaticality
In linguistics, grammaticality is determined by the conformity to language usage as derived by the grammar of a particular speech variety. The notion of grammaticality rose alongside the theory of generative grammar, the goal of which is to formulate rules that define well-formed, grammatical sentences. These rules of grammaticality also provide explanations of ill-formed, ungrammatical sentences. In theoretical linguistics, a speaker's judgement on the well-formedness of a linguistic 'string'—called a grammaticality judgement—is based on whether the sentence is interpreted in accordance with the rules and constraints of the relevant grammar. If the rules and constraints of the particular lect are followed, then the sentence is judged to be grammatical. In contrast, an ungrammatical sentence is one that violates the rules of the given language variety. Linguists use grammaticality judgements to investigate the syntactic structure of sentences. Generative linguists are larg ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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Discourse Analysis
Discourse analysis (DA), or discourse studies, is an approach to the analysis of written, spoken, or sign language, including any significant semiotic event. The objects of discourse analysis (discourse, writing, conversation, communicative symbolic interactionism, event) are variously defined in terms of coherent sequences of sentence (linguistics), sentences, propositions, speech acts, speech, or Conversation Analysis#Turn-taking organization, turns-at-talk. Contrary to much of traditional linguistics, discourse analysts not only study language use 'beyond the sentence boundary' but also prefer to analyze 'naturally occurring' language use, not invented examples. Text linguistics is a closely related field. The essential difference between discourse analysis and text linguistics is that discourse analysis aims at revealing social psychology (sociology), socio-psychological characteristics of a person/persons rather than text structure. Discourse analysis has been taken up in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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Indo-European Studies
Indo-European studies () is a field of linguistics and an interdisciplinary field of study dealing with Indo-European languages, both current and extinct. The goal of those engaged in these studies is to amass information about the hypothetical proto-language from which all of these languages are descended, a language dubbed Proto-Indo-European (PIE), and its speakers, the Proto-Indo-Europeans, including their society and Proto-Indo-European mythology. The studies cover where the language originated and how it spread. This article also lists Indo-European scholars, centres, journals and book series. Naming The term ''Indo-European'' itself now current in English literature, was coined in 1813 by the British scholar Sir Thomas Young, although at that time, there was no consensus as to the naming of the recently discovered language family. However, he seems to have used it as a geographical term, to indicate the newly proposed language family in Eurasia spanning from the Indian sub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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Synchronic Analysis
Synchrony and diachrony are two complementary viewpoints in linguistic analysis. A ''synchronic'' approach - from ,("together") + ,("time") - considers a language at a moment in time without taking its history into account. In contrast, a ''diachronic'' - from ,("through, across") + ,("time") - approach, as in historical linguistics, considers the development and origin of language, evolution of a language through history. For example, the study of Middle English—when the subject is temporally limited to a sufficiently homogeneous form—is synchronic focusing on understanding how a given stage in the history of English functions as a whole. The diachronic approach, by contrast, studies language change by comparing the different stages. This latter approach is what wikt:surface analysis, surface analysis often relies on, as a given composition may not have appeared synchronously in history. The terms ''synchrony'' and ''diachrony'' are often associated with historical linguist ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |