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Antipassive
The antipassive voice (abbreviated or ) is a type of grammatical voice that either does not include the object or includes the object in an oblique case. This construction is similar to the passive voice, in that it decreases the verb's valency by one – the passive by deleting the agent and "promoting" the object to become the subject of the passive construction, the antipassive by deleting the object and "promoting" the agent to become the subject of the antipassive construction. Occurrence The antipassive voice is found in Basque, in Mayan, Salishan, Northeast Caucasian, Austronesian, and Australian languages, and also in some Amazonian languages (e.g. Cavineña, Kanamarí). Dixon, R.M.W. & Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald (eds) (1990). ''The Amazonian Languages''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Antipassive voice predominantly occurs in ergative languages where the deletion of an object "promotes" the subject from ergative case to absolutive case. In certain accusative ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
List Of Glossing Abbreviations
This article lists common abbreviations for grammatical terms that are used in linguistic interlinear glossing of oral languages in English. The list provides conventional glosses as established by standard inventories of glossing abbreviations such as the Leipzig Glossing rules, the most widely known standard. These will generally be the glosses used on Wikipedia. Synonymous glosses are listed as alternatives for reference purposes. In a few cases, long and short standard forms are listed, intended for texts where that gloss is rare or common. Conventions * Grammatical abbreviations are generally written in full or small caps to visually distinguish them from the translations of lexical words. For instance, capital or small-cap (frequently abbreviated to ) glosses a grammatical past-tense morpheme, while lower-case 'past' would be a literal translation of a word with that meaning. Similarly, (small) cap might be a locative suffix used in nominal inflections, prototypically ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mayan Languages
The Mayan languagesIn linguistics, it is conventional to use ''Mayan'' when referring to the languages, or an aspect of a language. In other academic fields, ''Maya'' is the preferred usage, serving as both a singular and plural noun, and as the adjectival form. form a language family spoken in Mesoamerica, both in the south of Mexico and northern Central America. Mayan languages are spoken by at least 6 million Maya people, primarily in Guatemala, Mexico, Belize, El Salvador and Honduras. In 1996, Guatemala formally recognized 21 Mayan languages by name,Achiʼ is counted as a variant of Kʼicheʼ by the Guatemalan government. and Mexico recognizes eight within its territory. The Mayan language family is one of the best-documented and most studied in the Americas. Modern Mayan languages descend from the Proto-Mayan language, thought to have been spoken at least 5,000 years ago; it has been partially reconstructed using the comparative method. The proto-Mayan language di ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Affix
In linguistics, an affix is a morpheme that is attached to a word stem to form a new word or word form. Affixes may be derivational, like English ''-ness'' and ''pre-'', or inflectional, like English plural ''-s'' and past tense ''-ed''. They are bound morphemes by definition; prefixes and suffixes may be separable affixes. Affixation is the linguistic process that speakers use to form different words by adding morphemes at the beginning (prefixation), the middle (infixation) or the end (suffixation) of words. Positional categories of affixes ''Prefix'' and ''suffix'' may be subsumed under the term ''adfix'', in contrast to ''infix.'' When marking text for interlinear glossing, as in the third column in the chart above, simple affixes such as prefixes and suffixes are separated from the stem with hyphens. Affixes which disrupt the stem, or which themselves are discontinuous, are often marked off with angle brackets. Reduplication is often shown with a tilde. Affixes whi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Syntactic Pivot
{{Linguistic_typology_topics The syntactic pivot is the verb argument around which sentences "revolve" in a given language. This usually means the following: *If the verb has more than zero arguments, then one argument is the syntactic pivot. *If the verb agrees with at least one of its arguments, then it agrees with the syntactic pivot. *In coordinated propositions, in languages where an argument can be left out, the omitted argument is the syntactic pivot. The first two characteristics have to do with simple morphosyntax, and from them, it is quite obvious the syntactic pivot in English (and most other European languages) is called the subject. An English verb cannot lack a subject (even in the imperative mood, the subject is implied to be "you" and is not ambiguous or unspecified) and cannot have just a direct object and no subject; and (at least in the present tense, and for the verb ''to be'') it agrees partially with the subject. The third point deserves an explanation. C ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Animacy
Animacy (antonym: inanimacy) is a grammatical and semantic feature, existing in some languages, expressing how sentient or alive the referent of a noun is. Widely expressed, animacy is one of the most elementary principles in languages around the globe and is a distinction acquired as early as six months of age. Concepts of animacy constantly vary beyond a simple animate and inanimate binary; many languages function off of a hierarchical general animacy scale that ranks animacy as a "matter of gradience". Typically (with some variation of order and of where the cutoff for animacy occurs), the scale ranks humans above animals, then plants, natural forces, concrete objects, and abstract objects, in that order. In referring to humans, this scale contains a hierarchy of persons, ranking the first- and second-person pronouns above the third person, partly a product of empathy, involving the speaker and interlocutor. Examples The distinction between ''he'', ''she'', and other per ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Agreement (linguistics)
In linguistics, agreement or concord ( abbreviated ) occurs when a word changes form depending on the other words to which it relates. It is an instance of inflection, and usually involves making the value of some grammatical category (such as gender or person) "agree" between varied words or parts of the sentence. For example, in Standard English, one may say ''I am'' or ''he is'', but not "I is" or "he am". This is because English grammar requires that the verb and its subject agree in ''person''. The pronouns ''I'' and ''he'' are first and third person respectively, as are the verb forms ''am'' and ''is''. The verb form must be selected so that it has the same person as the subject in contrast to notional agreement, which is based on meaning. By category Agreement generally involves matching the value of some grammatical category between different constituents of a sentence (or sometimes between sentences, as in some cases where a pronoun is required to agree with its ante ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
K'iche' Language
K'iche', K'ichee', or Quiché may refer to: * K'iche' people of Guatemala, a subgroup of the Maya * K'iche' language, a Maya language spoken by the K'iche' people ** Classical K'iche' language, the 16th century form of the K'iche' language * Kʼicheʼ kingdom of Qʼumarkaj, a pre-Columbian state in the Guatemalan highlands See also * Quiche (other) {{disambig Language and nationality disambiguation pages ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Koyraboro Senni
Koyraboro Senni (Koroboro Senni, Koyra Senni or Gao Senni) is a member of the Songhay languages of Mali and is spoken by some 400,000 people along the Niger River from the town of Gourma-Rharous, east of Timbuktu, through Bourem, Gao and Ansongo to the Mali–Niger border. The expression "''koyra-boro senn-i''" denotes "the language of the town dwellers", as opposed to nomads like the Tuareg people and other transhumant people. Although Koyraboro Senni is associated with settled towns, it is a cosmopolitan language which has spread east and west of Gao, to the Fula people living at the Mali–Niger border and to the Bozo people of the Niger River. East of Timbuktu, Koyra Senni gives way relatively abruptly to the closely related Koyra Chiini. Geographic distribution The majority of speakers live in the Gao Region of Mali. It is also spoken in other parts of Mali and in other countries. Phonology Consonants Vowels Nasalized realizations of vowel sounds may also occur, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Songhay Languages
The Songhay, Songhai or Ayneha languages (, or ) are a group of closely related languages/dialects centred on the middle stretches of the Niger River in the West African countries of Mali, Niger, Benin, Burkina Faso and Nigeria. In particular, they are spoken in the cities of Timbuktu, Niamey and Gao. They have been widely used as a ''lingua franca'' in that region ever since the era of the Songhai Empire. In Mali, the government has officially adopted the dialect of Gao (east of Timbuktu) as the dialect to be used as a medium of primary education. Some Songhay languages have little to no mutual intelligibility between each other. For example, Koyraboro Senni, spoken in Gao, is unintelligible to speakers of Zarma in Niger, according to ''Ethnologue''. However, Songhoyboro Ciine, Zarma, and Dendi have high mutual intelligibility within Niger. For linguists, a major point of interest in the Songhay languages has been the difficulty of determining their genetic affiliation; the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Krongo Language
Krongo, also spelled ''Korongo'' or ''Kurungu'' and known as ''Dimodongo, Kadumodi,'' or ''Tabanya'' after local towns, is a Kadu language spoken in Kordofan Kordofan ( ar, كردفان ') is a former province of central Sudan. In 1994 it was divided into three new federal states: North Kordofan, South Kordofan and West Kordofan. In August 2005, West Kordofan State was abolished and its territory .... Fama is a dialect. ''Ethnologue'' (22nd edition) lists Angolo, Tabanya, and Toroji in Krongo hills; and Buram, Damaguto, Dar, Dimadragu, and Dimodongo villages. References External links Krongo basic lexicon at the Global Lexicostatistical Database Definitely endangered languages Languages of Sudan Kadu languages {{ns-lang-stub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Johanna Nichols
Johanna Nichols (born 1945, Iowa City, Iowa) is an American linguist and professor emerita in the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures at the University of California, Berkeley. She earned her Ph.D. in Linguistics at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1973 with a dissertation titled, "The Balto-Slavic predicate instrumental: a problem in diachronic syntax." Her research interests include the Slavic languages, the linguistic prehistory of northern Eurasia, language typology, ancient linguistic prehistory, and languages of the Caucasus, chiefly Chechen and Ingush. She has made fundamental contributions to these fields. A festschrift in her honor, ''Language Typology and Historical Contingency: In honor of Johanna Nichols'', was published in 2013. Nichols's best known work, ''Linguistic Diversity in Space and Time'', won the Linguistic Society of America's Leonard Bloomfield Book Award for 1994. Books * ''Predicate Nominals: A Partial Surface Syntax of Russian.' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
