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Semantic Property
Semantic properties or meaning properties are those aspects of a linguistic unit, such as a morpheme, word, or sentence, that contribute to the meaning of that unit. Basic semantic properties include being ''meaningful'' or ''meaningless'' – for example, whether a given word is part of a language's lexicon with a generally understood meaning; ''polysemy'', having multiple, typically related, meanings; ''ambiguity'', having meanings which aren't necessarily related; and ''anomaly'', where the elements of a unit are semantically incompatible with each other, although possibly grammatically sound. Beyond the expression itself, there are higher-level semantic relations that describe the relationship between units: these include synonymy, antonymy, and hyponymy. Besides basic properties of semantics, semantic property is also sometimes used to describe the semantic components of a word, such as ''man'' assuming that the referent is ''human'', ''male'', and ''adult'', or ''female'' bei ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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Morpheme
A morpheme is any of the smallest meaningful constituents within a linguistic expression and particularly within a word. Many words are themselves standalone morphemes, while other words contain multiple morphemes; in linguistic terminology, this is the distinction, respectively, between free and bound morphemes. The field of linguistic study dedicated to morphemes is called morphology. In English, inside a word with multiple morphemes, the main morpheme that gives the word its basic meaning is called a root (such as ''cat'' inside the word ''cats''), which can be bound or free. Meanwhile, additional bound morphemes, called affixes, may be added before or after the root, like the ''-s'' in ''cats'', which indicates plurality but is always bound to a root noun and is not regarded as a word on its own. However, in some languages, including English and Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European langua ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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Boundedness (linguistics)
In linguistics, boundedness is a semantic feature that relates to an understanding of the referential limits of a lexical item. Fundamentally, words that specify a spatio-temporal demarcation of their reference are considered ''bounded'', while words that allow for a fluidly interpretable referent are considered ''unbounded''. This distinction also relies on the divisibility of the lexical item's referent into distinct segments, or strata. Though this feature most often distinguishes countability in nouns and aspect in verbs, it applies more generally to any syntactic category. Boundedness in verbs For verbs, certain grammatical aspects express boundedness. Boundedness is characteristic of perfective aspects such as the Ancient Greek aorist and the Spanish preterite. The simple past of English commonly expresses a bounded event ("I found out"), but sometimes expresses, for example, a stative ("I knew"). The perfective aspect often includes a contextual variation similar to an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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Semantic Feature
A semantic feature is a component of the concept associated with a lexical item ('female' + 'performer' = 'actress'). More generally, it can also be a component of the concept associated with any grammatical unit, whether composed or not ('female' + 'performer' = 'the female performer' or 'the actress'). An individual semantic feature constitutes one component of a word's intention, which is the inherent sense or concept evoked. Linguistic meaning of a word is proposed to arise from contrasts and significant differences with other words. Semantic features enable linguistics to explain how words that share certain features may be members of the same semantic domain. Correspondingly, the contrast in meanings of words is explained by diverging semantic features. For example, ''father'' and ''son'' share the common components of "human", "kinship", "male" and are thus part of a semantic domain of male family relations. They differ in terms of "generation" and "adulthood", which is what gi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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Semantic Class
A semantic class contains words that share a semantic feature. For example within nouns there are two sub classes, concrete nouns and abstract nouns. The concrete nouns include people, plants, animals, materials and objects while the abstract nouns refer to concepts such as qualities, actions, and processes. According to the nature of the noun, they are categorized into different semantic classes. Semantic classes may intersect. The intersection of ''female'' and ''young'' can be ''girl''. See also * Semantic property * Categorization * Semantic field In linguistics, a semantic field is a related set of words grouped semantically (by meaning) that refers to a specific subject.Howard Jackson, Etienne Zé Amvela, ''Words, Meaning, and Vocabulary'', Continuum, 2000, p14. The term is also used in ... References * Semantics {{semantics-stub es:Campo semántico kk:Семантикалық өріс ru:Семантическое поле ta:சொற்பொருள� ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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Dyirbal Language
Dyirbal (also ''Djirubal'') is an Australian Aboriginal language spoken in northeast Queensland by the Dyirbal people. In 2016, the Australian Bureau of Statistics reported that there were 8 speakers of the language. It is a member of the small Dyirbalic branch of the Pama–Nyungan family. It possesses many outstanding features that have made it well known among linguists. In the years since the Dyirbal grammar by Robert Dixon was published in 1972, Dyirbal has steadily moved closer to extinction as younger community members have failed to learn it. Dialects There are many different groups speaking dialects of Dyirbal language. Researcher Robert Dixon estimates that Dyirbal had, at its peak, 10 dialects. Dialects include: * Dyirbal (or Jirrbal) spoken by the Dyirbalŋan * Mamu, spoken by the Waɽibara, Dulgubara, Bagiɽgabara, Dyiɽibara, and Mandubara (There are also different types of Mamu spoken by individual groups, such as Warribara Mamu, and Dulgubara Mamu) * G ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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Honorific
An honorific is a title that conveys esteem, courtesy, or respect for position or rank when used in addressing or referring to a person. Sometimes, the term "honorific" is used in a more specific sense to refer to an Honorary title (academic), honorary academic title. It is also often Conflation, conflated with systems of Honorifics (linguistics), honorific speech in linguistics, which are grammatical or morphology (linguistics), morphological ways of encoding the relative social status of speakers. Honorifics can be used as prefixes or suffixes depending on the appropriate occasion and presentation in accordance with Style (form of address), style and Convention (norm), customs. Typically, honorifics are used as a Style (manner of address), style in the grammatical third Grammatical person, person, and as a form of address in the second person. Some languages have anti-honorific (''despective'' or ''humilific'') first person forms (expressions such as "your most humble servant" ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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Kinship Terminology
Kinship terminology is the system used in languages to refer to the persons to whom an individual is related through kinship. Different societies classify kinship relations differently and therefore use different systems of kinship terminology; for example, some languages distinguish between consanguine and Affinal kin, affinal uncles (i.e. the brothers of one's parents and the husbands of the sisters of one's parents, respectively), whereas others have only one word to refer to both a father and his brothers. Kinship terminologies include the terms of address used in different languages or communities for different relatives and the terms of reference used to identify the relationship of these relatives to ego or to each other. Historical view Anthropologist Lewis H. Morgan, Lewis Henry Morgan (1818–1881) performed the first survey of kinship terminologies in use around the world. Though much of his work is now considered dated, he argued that kinship terminologies reflect di ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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Grammatical Gender
In linguistics, a grammatical gender system is a specific form of a noun class system, where nouns are assigned to gender categories that are often not related to the real-world qualities of the entities denoted by those nouns. In languages with grammatical gender, most or all nouns inherently carry one value of the grammatical category called ''gender''. The values present in a given language, of which there are usually two or three, are called the ''genders'' of that language. Some authors use the term "grammatical gender" as a synonym of "noun class", whereas others use different definitions for each. Many authors prefer "noun classes" when none of the inflections in a language relate to Sex–gender distinction, sex or gender. According to one estimate, gender is used in approximately half of the world's languages. According to one definition: "Genders are classes of nouns reflected in the behavior of associated words." Overview Languages with grammatical gender usually h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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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 an 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. It is obvious that the ability to distinguish between animate and i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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Specificity (linguistics)
In linguistics, specificity is a semantic feature of noun phrases (NPs) that distinguishes between entities/nouns/referents that are unique in a given context and those that are not. Several distinct known factors determine an entity/noun/referent's relative specificity, including: * Singular terms (e.g. proper names) * Habituality * Actual/Nonactual moods * Factivity * Negation Specificity does not rely on existence. This is because specificity relies on the ''uniqueness'' of an entity, regardless of whether it may or may not actually exist. For example, “I’m looking for a male sister” refers to no actual entity. However, the ambiguity of its specificity (are you looking for a particular male sister, or any male sister?) is retained. Marking specificity In English, the concept of specificity is often denoted by the use of particular adjectives, such as ''certain''. Indefinite noun phrases without these adjectives, like ''a chair'', ''one coat'', or ''three men'', can typ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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Word
A word is a basic element of language that carries semantics, meaning, can be used on its own, and is uninterruptible. Despite the fact that language speakers often have an intuitive grasp of what a word is, there is no consensus among linguistics, linguists on its definition and numerous attempts to find specific criteria of the concept remain controversial. Different standards have been proposed, depending on the theoretical background and descriptive context; these do not converge on a single definition. Some specific definitions of the term "word" are employed to convey its different meanings at different levels of description, for example based on phonology, phonological, grammar, grammatical or orthography, orthographic basis. Others suggest that the concept is simply a convention used in everyday situations. The concept of "word" is distinguished from that of a morpheme, which is the smallest unit of language that has a meaning, even if it cannot stand on its own. Words a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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Semantic Field
In linguistics, a semantic field is a related set of words grouped semantically (by meaning) that refers to a specific subject.Howard Jackson, Etienne Zé Amvela, ''Words, Meaning, and Vocabulary'', Continuum, 2000, p14. The term is also used in anthropology,Ingold, Tim (1996). ''Key debates in anthropology''. Routledge. , . Source(accessed: Sunday May 2, 2010), p.127 computational semiotics, and technical exegesis. Definition and usage Brinton (2000: p. 112) defines "semantic field" or "semantic domain" and relates the linguistic concept to hyponymy: Related to the concept of hyponymy, but more loosely defined, is the notion of a semantic field or domain. A semantic field denotes a segment of reality symbolized by a set of related words. The words in a semantic field share a common semantic property. A general and intuitive description is that words in a semantic field are not necessarily synonymous, but are all used to talk about the same general phenomenon.Adrian ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |