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Nonsense Word
A nonsense word, unlike a sememe, may have no definition. Nonsense words can be classified depending on their orthographic and phonetic similarity with (meaningful) words. If it can be pronounced according to a language's phonotactics, it is a pseudoword. Nonsense words are used in literature for poetic or humorous effect. Proper names of real or fictional entities are sometimes nonsense words. Nonsense words are also used by researchers and educators as a tool to assess a learner's phonetic decoding ability. The words follow phonetic rules but have no meaning. A stunt word is a nonsense word used for a special effect, or to attract attention, as part of a performance. Such words are a feature of the work of Dr. Seuss ("Sometimes I am quite certain there's a Jertain in the curtain"). The ability to infer the (hypothetical) meaning of a nonsense word from context is used to test for brain damage. See also *"Gostak" *"Jabberwocky" *"Runcible" *Meaning (linguistics) * Nonce wo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sememe
__NOTOC__ A sememe () is a semantic language unit of meaning, analogous to a morpheme. The concept is relevant in structural semiotics. A seme is a proposed unit of transmitted or intended meaning; it is atomic or indivisible. A sememe can be the meaning expressed by a morpheme, such as the English pluralizing morpheme ''-s'', which carries the sememic feature plural Alternatively, a single sememe (for example oor ove can be conceived as the abstract representation of such verbs as ''skate, roll, jump, slide, turn'', or ''boogie''. It can be thought of as the semantic counterpart to any of the following: a meme in a culture, a gene in a genome, or an atom (or, more generally, an elementary particle) in a substance. A seme is the name for the smallest unit of meaning recognized in semantics, referring to a single characteristic of a sememe. There are five types of sememes: two denotational and three connotational, the latter occurring only in phrase units (they do not reflect t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nonce Word
A nonce word (also called an occasionalism) is a lexeme created for a single occasion to solve an immediate problem of communication.''The Cambridge Encyclopedia of The English Language''. Ed. David Crystal. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995. Some nonce words may acquire a fixed meaning inferred from context and use, possibly even becoming an established part of the language, at which point they stop being nonce words. Some nonce words may be essentially meaningless and disposable, but they are useful for exactly that reason—the words " wug" and "blicket" for instance were invented by researchers to be used in exercises in child language testing. Lexicology The term is used because such a word is created " for the nonce" (i.e., for the time being, or this once). All nonce words are also neologisms, that is, recent or relatively new words that have not been fully accepted into mainstream or common use. The term ''nonce word'' in this sense is due to James Murray, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Phonetics
Phonetics is a branch of linguistics that studies how humans produce and perceive sounds, or in the case of sign languages, the equivalent aspects of sign. Linguists who specialize in studying the physical properties of speech are phoneticians. The field of phonetics is traditionally divided into three sub-disciplines based on the research questions involved such as how humans plan and execute movements to produce speech (articulatory phonetics), how various movements affect the properties of the resulting sound (acoustic phonetics), or how humans convert sound waves to linguistic information (auditory phonetics). Traditionally, the minimal linguistic unit of phonetics is the phone—a speech sound in a language which differs from the phonological unit of phoneme; the phoneme is an abstract categorization of phones. Phonetics deals with two aspects of human speech: production—the ways humans make sounds—and perception—the way speech is understood. The communicative moda ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Poetic Devices
Poetic devices are a form of literary device used in poetry. Poems are created out of poetic devices composite of: structural, grammatical, rhythmic, metrical, verbal, and visual elements. They are essential tools that a poet uses to create rhythm, enhance a poem's meaning, or intensify a mood or feeling. Poetic device style Poetic Diction is a style of writing in poetry which encompasses vocabulary, phrasing, and grammatical usage. Along with syntax, poetic diction functions in setting the tone, mood, and atmosphere of a poem to convey the poet's intention. Poetic devices shape a poem. Types of poetic diction Sound Poetic devices that have a sonic quality achieve specific effects when heard. Words with a sound-like quality can strike readers as soothing or dissonant while evoking certain thoughts and feelings associated with them. * Alliteration–Repeated consonant sounds at the beginning of words placed near each other, usually on the same or adjacent lines. Alliterat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Humour
Humour ( Commonwealth English) or humor (American English) is the tendency of experiences to provoke laughter and provide amusement. The term derives from the humoral medicine of the ancient Greeks, which taught that the balance of fluids in the human body, known as humours (Latin: ', "body fluid"), controlled human health and emotion. People of all ages and cultures respond to humour. Most people are able to experience humour—be amused, smile or laugh at something funny (such as a pun or joke)—and thus are considered to have a ''sense of humour''. The hypothetical person lacking a sense of humour would likely find the behaviour to be inexplicable, strange, or even irrational. Though ultimately decided by personal taste, the extent to which a person finds something humorous depends on a host of variables, including geographical location, culture, maturity, level of education, intelligence and context. For example, young children may favour slapstick such as Punch and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Language
Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of methods, including spoken, sign, and written language. Many languages, including the most widely-spoken ones, have writing systems that enable sounds or signs to be recorded for later reactivation. Human language is highly variable between cultures and across time. Human languages have the properties of productivity and displacement, and rely on social convention and learning. Estimates of the number of human languages in the world vary between and . Precise estimates depend on an arbitrary distinction (dichotomy) established between languages and dialects. Natural languages are spoken, signed, or both; however, any language can be encoded into secondary media using auditory, visual, or tactile stimuli – for example, writ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nonce Words
A nonce word (also called an occasionalism) is a lexeme created for a single occasion to solve an immediate problem of communication.''The Cambridge Encyclopedia of The English Language''. Ed. David Crystal. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995. Some nonce words may acquire a fixed meaning inferred from context and use, possibly even becoming an established part of the language, at which point they stop being nonce words. Some nonce words may be essentially meaningless and disposable, but they are useful for exactly that reason—the words " wug" and "blicket" for instance were invented by researchers to be used in exercises in child language testing. Lexicology The term is used because such a word is created " for the nonce" (i.e., for the time being, or this once). All nonce words are also neologisms, that is, recent or relatively new words that have not been fully accepted into mainstream or common use. The term ''nonce word'' in this sense is due to James Murray ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vocable
In the broadest sense of the word, a vocable is any meaningful sound uttered by people, such as a word or term, that is fixed by their language and culture. Use of the words in the broad sense is archaic and the term is instead used for utterances which are not considered words, such as the English vocables of assent and denial, ''uh-huh'' and ''uh-uh'' , or the vocable of error, ''uh-oh'' . Such non-lexical vocables are often used in music, for example ''la la la'' or ''dum dee dum'', or in magical incantations, such as ''abra-cadabra''. Many Native American songs consist entirely of vocables; this may be due to both phonetic substitution to increase the resonance of the song, and to the trade of songs between nations speaking different languages. Jewish Nigunim also feature wordless melodies composed entirely of vocables such as ''Yai nai nai'' or ''Yai dai dai''. Vocables are common as pause fillers, such as ''um'' and ''er'' in English, where they have little formal me ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Neologism
A neologism Greek νέο- ''néo''(="new") and λόγος /''lógos'' meaning "speech, utterance"] is a relatively recent or isolated term, word, or phrase that may be in the process of entering common use, but that has not been fully accepted into mainstream language. Neologisms are often driven by changes in culture and technology. In the process of language formation, neologisms are more mature than '' protologisms''. A word whose development stage is between that of the protologism (freshly coined) and neologism (new word) is a ''prelogism''. Popular examples of neologisms can be found in science, fiction (notably science fiction), films and television, branding, literature, jargon, cant, linguistics, the visual arts, and popular culture. Former examples include '' laser'' (1960) from Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation; ''robot'' (1941) from Czech writer Karel Čapek's play '' R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots)''; and ''agitprop'' (1930) (a portmanteau ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nonsense Verse
Nonsense verse is a form of nonsense literature usually employing strong prosodic elements like rhythm and rhyme. It is often whimsical and humorous in tone and employs some of the techniques of nonsense literature. Limericks are probably the best known form of nonsense verse, although they tend nowadays to be used for straightforward humour, rather than having a nonsensical effect. Among writers in English noted for nonsense verse are Edward Lear, Lewis Carroll, Mervyn Peake, Edward Gorey, Colin West, Dr. Seuss, and Spike Milligan. The Martian Poets and Ivor Cutler are considered by some to be in the nonsense tradition. Variants In some cases, the humor of nonsense verse relies on the incompatibility of phrases which make grammatical sense but semantic nonsense – at least in certain interpretations – as in the traditional: Compare . Other nonsense verse makes use of nonsense words—words without a clear meaning or any meaning at all. Lewis Carroll and Edward ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nonsense Syllable
A pseudoword is a unit of speech or text that appears to be an actual word in a certain language, while in fact it has no meaning in the lexicon. It is a kind of non-lexical vocable. A pseudoword is a specific type of non-word composed of a combination of phonemes which conform to the language's phonotactic rules. Such words without a meaning in a certain language or no occurrence in any text corpus or dictionary can be the result of (the interpretation of) a truly random signal, but there will often be an underlying deterministic source, as is the case for: *nonsense words (e.g. ''jabberwocky'') *nonce words (e.g. '' galumph'') *ghost words (e.g. ''dord'') *cyphers *typos A string of nonsensical words may be described as gibberish. Word salad, in contrast, may contain legible and intelligible words but without semantic or syntactic correlation or coherence. Characteristics Within linguistics, a pseudoword is defined specifically as respecting the phonotactic restricti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
