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Grammar
In linguistics, the grammar of a natural language is its set of structural constraints on speakers' or writers' composition of clauses, phrases, and words. The term can also refer to the study of such constraints, a field that includes domains such as phonology, morphology, and syntax, often complemented by phonetics, semantics, and pragmatics. There are currently two different approaches to the study of grammar: traditional grammar and theoretical grammar. Fluent speakers of a language variety or ''lect'' have effectively internalized these constraints, the vast majority of which – at least in the case of one's native language(s) – are acquired not by conscious study or instruction but by hearing other speakers. Much of this internalization occurs during early childhood; learning a language later in life usually involves more explicit instruction. In this view, grammar is understood as the cognitive information underlying a specific instance of language prod ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
History Of English Grammars
The history of English grammars begins late in the sixteenth century with the ''Pamphlet for Grammar'' by William Bullokar. In the early works, the structure and rules of English grammar were based on those of Latin. A more modern approach, incorporating phonology, was introduced in the nineteenth century. Sixteenth to eighteenth centuries The first English grammar, ''Pamphlet for Grammar'' by William Bullokar, written with the seeming goal of demonstrating that English was quite as rule-bound as Latin, was published in 1586. Bullokar's grammar was faithfully modeled on William Lily's Latin grammar, ''Rudimenta Grammatices'' (1534). Lily's grammar was being used in schools in England at the time, having been "prescribed" for them in 1542 by Henry VIII. Although Bullokar wrote his grammar in English and used a " reformed spelling system" of his own invention, many English grammars, for much of the century after Bullokar's effort, were to be written in Latin; this was especially t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Construction Grammar
Construction grammar (often abbreviated CxG) is a family of theories within the field of cognitive linguistics which posit that constructions, or learned pairings of linguistic patterns with meanings, are the fundamental building blocks of human language. Constructions include words (''aardvark'', ''avocado''), morphemes (''anti-'', ''-ing''), fixed expressions and idioms (''by and large'', ''jog X's memory''), and abstract grammatical rules such as the passive voice (''The cat was hit by a car'') or the ditransitive (''Mary gave Alex the ball''). Any linguistic pattern is considered to be a construction as long as some aspect of its form or its meaning cannot be predicted from its component parts, or from other constructions that are recognized to exist. In construction grammar, every utterance is understood to be a combination of multiple different constructions, which together specify its precise meaning and form. Advocates of construction grammar argue that language and cult ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Grammar
In linguistics, the grammar of a natural language is its set of structural constraints on speakers' or writers' composition of clauses, phrases, and words. The term can also refer to the study of such constraints, a field that includes domains such as phonology, morphology, and syntax, often complemented by phonetics, semantics, and pragmatics. There are currently two different approaches to the study of grammar: traditional grammar and theoretical grammar. Fluent speakers of a language variety or ''lect'' have effectively internalized these constraints, the vast majority of which – at least in the case of one's native language(s) – are acquired not by conscious study or instruction but by hearing other speakers. Much of this internalization occurs during early childhood; learning a language later in life usually involves more explicit instruction. In this view, grammar is understood as the cognitive information underlying a specific instance of language prod ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Traditional Grammar
Traditional grammar (also known as classical grammar) is a framework for the description of the structure of a language. The roots of traditional grammar are in the work of classical Greek and Latin philologists. The formal study of grammar based on these models became popular during the Renaissance. Traditional grammars may be contrasted with more modern theories of grammar in theoretical linguistics, which grew out of traditional descriptions. While traditional grammars seek to describe how particular languages are used, or to teach people to speak or read them, grammar frameworks in contemporary linguistics often seek to explain the nature of language knowledge and ability. Traditional grammar is often prescriptive, and may be regarded as unscientific by those working in linguistics. Traditional Western grammars classify words into parts of speech. They describe the patterns for word inflection, and the rules of syntax by which those words are combined into sentences. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Linguistics
Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Linguistics is concerned with both the cognitive and social aspects of language. It is considered a scientific field as well as an academic discipline; it has been classified as a social science, natural science, cognitive science,Thagard, PaulCognitive Science, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2008 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.). or part of the humanities. Traditional areas of linguistic analysis correspond to phenomena found in human linguistic systems, such as syntax (rules governing the structure of sentences); semantics (meaning); morphology (structure of words); phonetics (speech sounds and equivalent gestures in sign languages); phonology (the abstract sound system of a particular language); and pragmatics (ho ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cognitive Grammar
Cognitive grammar is a cognitive approach to language developed by Ronald Langacker, which hypothesizes that grammar, semantics, and lexicon exist on a continuum instead of as separate processes altogether. This approach to language was one of the first projects of cognitive linguistics. In this system, grammar is not a formal system operating independently of meaning. Rather, grammar is itself meaningful and inextricable from semantics. Construction grammar is a similar focus of cognitive approaches to grammar. While cognitive grammar emphasizes the study of the cognitive principles that give rise to linguistic organization, construction grammar aims to provide a more descriptively and formally detailed account of the linguistic units that comprise a particular language. Langacker first explicates the system of cognitive grammar in his seminal, two-volume work ''Foundations of Cognitive Grammar''. Volume one is titled "Theoretical Prerequisites", and it explores Langacker's hypo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Linguistic Prescription
Linguistic prescription, or prescriptive grammar, is the establishment of rules defining preferred usage of language. These rules may address such linguistic aspects as spelling, pronunciation, vocabulary, syntax, and semantics. Sometimes informed by linguistic purism, such normative practices often suggest that some usages are incorrect, inconsistent, illogical, lack communicative effect, or are of low aesthetic value, even in cases where such usage is more common than the prescribed usage. They may also include judgments on socially proper and politically correct language use. Linguistic prescriptivism may aim to establish a standard language, teach what a particular society or sector of a society perceives as a correct or proper form, or advise on effective and stylistically felicitous communication. If usage preferences are conservative, prescription might appear resistant to language change; if radical, it may produce neologisms. Prescriptive approaches to language are ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Clause (linguistics)
In language, a clause is a constituent that comprises a semantic predicand (expressed or not) and a semantic predicate. A typical clause consists of a subject and a syntactic predicate, the latter typically a verb phrase composed of a verb with any objects and other modifiers. However, the subject is sometimes unvoiced if it is retrievable from context, especially in null-subject language but also in other languages, including English instances of the imperative mood. A complete simple sentence includes a single clause with a finite verb. Complex sentences contain multiple clauses including at least one ''independent clause'' (meaning, a clause that can stand alone as a simple sentence) coordinated either with at least one dependent clause (also called an embedded clause) or with one or more independent clauses. Two major distinctions A primary division for the discussion of clauses is the distinction between independent clauses and dependent clauses. An independent clause ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Simple Sentence
In grammar, sentence and clause structure, commonly known as sentence composition, is the classification of sentences based on the number and kind of clauses in their syntactic structure. Such division is an element of traditional grammar. Typology of clauses In standard English, sentences are composed of five ''clause'' patterns : # Subject + Verb (intransitive)''Example:'' She runs. # Subject + Verb (transitive) + Object''Example:'' She runs the meeting. # Subject + Verb (linking) + Subject Complement (adjective, noun, pronoun)''Example:'' Abdul is happy. Jeanne is a person. I am her. # Subject + Verb (transitive) + Indirect Object + Direct Object''Example:'' She made me a pie.This clause pattern is a derivative of S+V+O, transforming the object of a preposition into an indirect object of the verb, as the example sentence in transformational grammar is actually "She made a pie for me". # Subject + Verb (transitive) + Object + Object Complement''Example:'' They made him happy.T ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Language Acquisition
Language acquisition is the process by which humans acquire the capacity to perceive and comprehend language (in other words, gain the ability to be aware of language and to understand it), as well as to produce and use words and sentences to communicate. Language acquisition involves structures, rules and representation. The capacity to use language successfully requires one to acquire a range of tools including phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, and an extensive vocabulary. Language can be vocalized as in speech, or manual as in sign. Human language capacity is represented in the brain. Even though human language capacity is finite, one can say and understand an infinite number of sentences, which is based on a syntactic principle called recursion. Evidence suggests that every individual has three recursive mechanisms that allow sentences to go indeterminately. These three mechanisms are: ''relativization'', ''complementation'' and ''coordination''. There are two m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Standard English
In an English-speaking country, Standard English (SE) is the variety of English that has undergone substantial regularisation and is associated with formal schooling, language assessment, and official print publications, such as public service announcements and newspapers of record, etc. All linguistic features are subject to the effects of standardisation, including morphology, phonology, syntax, lexicon, register, discourse markers, pragmatics, as well as written features such as spelling conventions, punctuation, capitalisation and abbreviation practices. SE is local to nowhere: its grammatical and lexical components are no longer regionally marked, although many of them originated in different, non-adjacent dialects, and it has very little of the variation found in spoken or earlier written varieties of English. According to Peter Trudgill, Standard English is a social dialect pre-eminently used in writing that is distinguishable from other English dialects larg ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Language Teaching
Language education – the process and practice of teaching a second or foreign language – is primarily a branch of applied linguistics, but can be an interdisciplinary field. There are four main learning categories for language education: communicative competencies, proficiencies, cross-cultural experiences, and multiple literacies. Need Increasing globalization has created a great need for people in the workforce who can communicate in multiple languages. Common languages are used in areas such as trade, tourism, diplomacy, technology, media, translation, interpretation and science. Many countries such as Korea (Kim Yeong-seo, 2009), Japan (Kubota, 1998) and China (Kirkpatrick & Zhichang, 2002) frame education policies to teach at least one foreign language at the primary and secondary school levels. However, some countries such as India, Singapore, Malaysia, Pakistan, and the Philippines use a second official language in their governments. According to GAO (2010), Ch ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
