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Intensive Care Organizations
In grammar, an intensive word form is one which denotes stronger, more forceful, or more concentrated action relative to the root on which the intensive is built. Intensives are usually lexical formations, but there may be a regular process for forming intensives from a root. Intensive formations, for example, existed in Proto-Indo-European, and in many of the Semitic languages. Morphological devices Certain prefixes and suffixes may be used as intensifiers. English language: "preeminent" (pre+eminent) or Latin language: ''excellentissimus'' ('' excellens'' + -issimus) Grammatical categories Intensives generally function as adverbs before the word or phrase that they modify. For example, ''bloody well,'' as in "I will ''bloody well'' do it," is a commonly used intensive adverb in Great Britain. Intensives also can function as postpositive adjectives. An example in American English today is ''"the heck"'', e.g. "What ''the heck'' is going on here?" All intensives are exp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Proto-Indo-European Language
Proto-Indo-European (PIE) is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European language family. Its proposed features have been derived by linguistic reconstruction from documented Indo-European languages. No direct record of Proto-Indo-European exists. Far more work has gone into reconstructing PIE than any other proto-language, and it is the best understood of all proto-languages of its age. The majority of linguistic work during the 19th century was devoted to the reconstruction of PIE or its daughter languages, and many of the modern techniques of linguistic reconstruction (such as the comparative method) were developed as a result. PIE is hypothesized to have been spoken as a single language from 4500 BC to 2500 BC during the Late Neolithic to Early Bronze Age, though estimates vary by more than a thousand years. According to the prevailing Kurgan hypothesis, the original homeland of the Proto-Indo-Europeans may have been in the Pontic–Caspian st ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Semitic Languages
The Semitic languages are a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. They are spoken by more than 330 million people across much of West Asia, the Horn of Africa, and latterly North Africa, Malta, West Africa, Chad, and in large immigrant and expatriate communities in North America, Europe, and Australasia. The terminology was first used in the 1780s by members of the Göttingen school of history, who derived the name from Shem, one of the three sons of Noah in the Book of Genesis. Semitic languages occur in written form from a very early historical date in West Asia, with East Semitic Akkadian and Eblaite texts (written in a script adapted from Sumerian cuneiform) appearing from the 30th century BCE and the 25th century BCE in Mesopotamia and the north eastern Levant respectively. The only earlier attested languages are Sumerian and Elamite (2800 BCE to 550 BCE), both language isolates, and Egyptian (a sister branch of the Afroasiatic family, related to the Semitic la ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Postpositive Adjective
A postpositive adjective or postnominal adjective is an adjective that is placed after the noun or pronoun that it modifies, as in noun phrases such as ''attorney general'', ''queen regnant'', or ''all matters financial''. This contrasts with prepositive adjectives, which come before the noun or pronoun, as in noun phrases such as ''red rose'', ''lucky contestant'', or ''busy bees''. In some languages ( Spanish, Welsh, Indonesian, etc.), the postpositive placement of adjectives is the normal syntax, but in English it is largely confined to archaic and poetic uses (e.g. "Once upon a midnight ''dreary''", as opposed to "Once upon a ''dreary'' midnight") as well as phrases borrowed from Romance languages or Latin (e.g. ''heir apparent'', '' aqua regia'') and certain fixed grammatical constructions (e.g. "Those ''anxious'' to leave soon exited").Rodney Huddleston, ''English Grammar: An Outline'', CUP 1988, p. 109. In syntax, postpositive position is independent of predicative posit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Expletive (linguistics)
An expletive is a word or phrase inserted into a sentence that is not needed to express the basic meaning of the sentence. It is regarded as semantically null or a placeholder. Expletives are not insignificant or meaningless in all senses; they may be used to give emphasis or tone, to contribute to the meter in verse, or to indicate tense. The word "expletive" derives from the Latin word : Serving to fill out or take up space. In these examples ''in fact'' and ''indeed'' are expletives: :*The teacher was not, in fact, present. :*Indeed, the teacher was absent. In conversation the expressions ''like'' and ''you know'', when they are not meaningful, are expletives. The word ''so'', used as an introductory particle (especially when used in answer to a question), has become a common modern expletive. Oaths or profanities may be expletives, as occurs in Shakespeare: :"Yes, ''by Saint Patrick'', but there is, Horatio." :: ''Hamlet,'' act 1, scene 5, line 134 :"''Zounds'', sir, you ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
