|
List Of Linguistic Example Sentences
The following is a partial list of linguistic example sentences illustrating various linguistic phenomena. Ambiguity Different types of ambiguity which are possible in language. Lexical ambiguity Demonstrations of words which have multiple meanings dependent on context. * Will, will Will will Will Will's will? – Will (a person), will (future tense auxiliary verb) Will (a second person) will (bequeath) Will (a third person) Will's (the second person) will (a document)? (Someone asked Will 1 directly if Will 2 plans to bequeath his own will, the document, to Will 3.) * Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo. – Bison (the plural of "buffalos" or "buffalo" is also accepted) from Buffalo, New York, whom bison from Buffalo bully, bully bison from Buffalo. * Police police Police police police police Police police. – Police officers from Police, Poland, whom police officers from Police patrol, patrol police officers from Police. * Rose ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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] |
Donkey Sentence
In semantics, a donkey sentence is a sentence containing a pronoun which is semantically bound but syntactically free. They are a classic puzzle in formal semantics and philosophy of language because they are fully grammatical and yet defy straightforward attempts to generate their formal language equivalents. In order to explain how speakers are able to understand them, semanticists have proposed a variety of formalisms including systems of dynamic semantics such as Discourse representation theory. Their name comes from the example sentence "Every farmer who owns a donkey beats it", in which "it" acts as a donkey pronoun because it is semantically but not syntactically bound by the indefinite noun phrase "a donkey". The phenomenon is known as donkey anaphora. Examples The following sentences are examples of donkey sentences. * ("Every man who owns a donkey sees it") — Walter Burley (1328), *Every farmer who owns a donkey beats it. *If a farmer owns a donkey, he beats it. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ojibwe Language
Ojibwe ( ), also known as Ojibwa ( ), Ojibway, Otchipwe,R. R. Bishop Baraga, 1878''A Theoretical and Practical Grammar of the Otchipwe Language''/ref> Ojibwemowin, or Anishinaabemowin, is an Indigenous languages of the Americas, indigenous language of North America of the Algonquian languages, Algonquian language family.Goddard, Ives, 1979.Bloomfield, Leonard, 1958. The language is characterized by a series of dialects that have local names and frequently local writing systems. There is no single dialect that is considered the most prestigious or most prominent, and no standard writing system that covers all dialects. Dialects of Ojibwemowin are spoken in Canada, from southwestern Quebec, through Ontario, Manitoba and parts of Saskatchewan, with outlying communities in Alberta;Nichols, John, 1980, pp. 1–2. and in the United States, from Michigan to Wisconsin and Minnesota, with a number of communities in North Dakota and Montana, as well as groups that were removed to Kansas ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Noam Chomsky
Avram Noam Chomsky (born December 7, 1928) is an American professor and public intellectual known for his work in linguistics, political activism, and social criticism. Sometimes called "the father of modern linguistics", Chomsky is also a major figure in analytic philosophy and one of the founders of the field of cognitive science. He is a laureate professor of linguistics at the University of Arizona and an institute professor emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Among the most cited living authors, Chomsky has written more than 150 books on topics such as linguistics, war, and politics. In addition to his work in linguistics, since the 1960s Chomsky has been an influential voice on the American Left, American left as a consistent critic of U.S. foreign policy, Criticism of capitalism, contemporary capitalism, and Corporate influence on politics in the United States, corporate influence on political institutions and the media. Born to Ashkenazi Jew ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Colorless Green Ideas Sleep Furiously
''Colorless green ideas sleep furiously'' was composed by Noam Chomsky in his 1957 book '' Syntactic Structures'' as an example of a sentence that is grammatically well-formed, but semantically nonsensical. The sentence was originally used in his 1955 thesis '' The Logical Structure of Linguistic Theory'' and in his 1956 paper "Three Models for the Description of Language". There is no obvious understandable meaning that can be derived from it, which demonstrates the distinction between syntax and semantics, and the idea that a syntactically well-formed sentence is not guaranteed to also be semantically well-formed. As an example of a category mistake, it was intended to show the inadequacy of certain probabilistic models of grammar, and the need for more structured models. Senseless but grammatical Chomsky wrote in his 1957 book '' Syntactic Structures'': It is fair to assume that neither sentence (1) nor (2) had ever previously occurred in an English discourse. Hence, i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Comparative Illusion
In linguistics, a comparative illusion (CI) or Escher sentence is a comparative sentence which initially seems to be acceptable but upon closer reflection has no well-formed, sensical meaning. The typical example sentence used to typify this phenomenon is ''More people have been to Russia than I have''. The effect has also been observed in other languages. Some studies have suggested that, at least in English, the effect is stronger for sentences whose predicate is repeatable. The effect has also been found to be stronger in some cases when there is a plural subject in the second clause. Overview of ungrammaticality Escher sentences are ungrammatical because a matrix clause subject like ''more people'' is making a comparison between two sets of individuals, but there is no such set of individuals in the second clause. For the sentence to be grammatical, the subject of the second clause must be a bare plural. Linguists have marked that it is "striking" that, despite the grammar o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Prepositional Phrase
An adpositional phrase is a syntactic category that includes ''prepositional phrases'', ''postpositional phrases'', and ''circumpositional phrases''. Adpositional phrases contain an adposition (preposition, postposition, or circumposition) as head (linguistics), head and usually a Complement (linguistics), complement such as a noun phrase. Language syntax treats adpositional phrases as units that act as Argument (linguistics), arguments or Adjunct (grammar), adjuncts. Prepositional and postpositional phrases differ by the order of the words used. Languages that are primarily Head-directionality parameter, head-initial such as English predominantly use prepositional phrases whereas head-final languages predominantly employ postpositional phrases. Many languages have both types, as well as circumpositional phrases. Types There are three types of adpositional phrases: prepositional phrases, postpositional phrases, and circumpositional phrases. Prepositional phrases The underlined ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Constituent (linguistics)
In syntactic analysis, a constituent is a word or a group of words that function as a single unit within a hierarchical structure. The constituent structure of sentences is identified using ''tests for constituents''. These tests apply to a portion of a sentence, and the results provide evidence about the constituent structure of the sentence. Many constituents are phrases. A phrase is a sequence of one or more words (in some theories two or more) built around a head lexical item and working as a unit within a sentence. A word sequence is shown to be a phrase/constituent if it exhibits one or more of the behaviors discussed below. The analysis of constituent structure is associated mainly with phrase structure grammars, although dependency grammars also allow sentence structure to be broken down into constituent parts. Tests for constituents in English Tests for constituents are diagnostics used to identify sentence structure. There are numerous tests for constituents that are ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (30 November 1874 – 24 January 1965) was a British statesman, military officer, and writer who was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1940 to 1945 (Winston Churchill in the Second World War, during the Second World War) and again from 1951 to 1955. For some 62 of the years between 1900 and 1964, he was a Member of Parliament (United Kingdom), member of parliament (MP) and represented a total of five Constituencies of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, constituencies over that time. Ideologically an adherent to economic liberalism and imperialism, he was for most of his career a member of the Conservative Party (UK), Conservative Party, which he led from 1940 to 1955. He was a member of the Liberal Party (UK), Liberal Party from 1904 to 1924. Of mixed English and American parentage, Churchill was born in Oxfordshire into the wealthy, aristocratic Spencer family. He joined the British Army in 1895 and saw action in British R ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ernest Gowers
Sir Ernest Arthur Gowers (; 2 June 1880 – 16 April 1966) was a British civil servant and author who is best remembered for his book ''Plain Words,'' first published in 1948, and his revision of Henry Watson Fowler, Fowler's classic ''Modern English Usage''. Before making his name as an author, he had a long career in the Civil Service (United Kingdom), Civil Service, which he entered in 1903. His final full-time appointment was as Senior Regional Commissioner for Civil Defence, London Region (1940–45). After the Second World War, he was appointed chairman of numerous government inquiries, including the Royal Commission on Capital Punishment 1949–1953, 1949 Royal Commission into Capital Punishment. He was also chairman of the Harlow New Town Development Corporation. Education and early life Gowers was born in London, the younger son of the neurologist William Richard Gowers, Sir William Gowers and his wife, Mary, (daughter of Frederick Baines, one of the proprietors of the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ex Nihilo
(Latin, 'creation out of nothing') is the doctrine that matter is not eternal but had to be created by some divine creative act. It is a theistic answer to the question of how the universe came to exist. It is in contrast to ''creatio ex materia'', sometimes framed in terms of the dictum ''ex nihilo nihil fit'' or ' nothing comes from nothing', meaning all things were formed ''ex materia'' (that is, from pre-existing things). ''Creatio ex materia'' ''Creatio ex materia'' refers to the idea that matter has always existed and that the modern cosmos is a reformation of pre-existing, primordial matter; it is sometimes articulated by the philosophical dictum that nothing can come from nothing. In ancient near eastern cosmology, the universe is formed ''ex materia'' from eternal formless matter, namely the dark and still primordial ocean of chaos. In Sumerian myth this cosmic ocean is personified as the goddess Nammu "who gave birth to heaven and earth" and had existed fore ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Preposition Stranding
Preposition stranding or p-stranding is the syntax, syntactic construction in which a so-called ''stranded'', ''hanging'', or ''dangling'' preposition occurs somewhere other than immediately before its corresponding object (grammar), object; for example, at the end of a sentence. The term ''preposition stranding'' was coined in 1964, predated by stranded preposition in 1949. Linguists had previously identified such a construction as a sentence-terminal preposition or as a preposition at the end. Preposition stranding is found in English and other Germanic languages, as well as in Vata and Gbadi (languages in the Niger–Congo languages, Niger–Congo family), and certain dialects of French language, French spoken in North America. P-stranding occurs in various syntactic contexts, including passive voice, wh-movement, ''wh-''movement, and sluicing. ''Wh-''movement and P-stranding Wh-movement, ''Wh-''movement—which involves ''wh-''words like ''who'', ''what'', ''when'', ''where ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
