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Elative (gradation)
In Semitic linguistics, the elative ( ', literally meaning "noun of preference") is a stage of gradation that can be used to express comparatives or superlatives. The Arabic elative has a special inflection similar to that of colour and defect adjectives but differs in the details. To form an elative, the consonants of the adjective's root are placed in the transfix ' (or ' if the second and third root consonants are the same), which generally inflects for case but not for gender or number. Furthermore, elatives belong to the diptote declension. E.g. ' 'small' derives the elative ' 'smaller', ' 'new' derives ' 'newer', ' 'rich' (root ') derives ' 'richer'. However, there are several words that have particular feminine and plural forms when the elative is prefixed with the definite article In grammar, an article is any member of a class of dedicated words that are used with noun phrases to mark the identifiability of the referents of the noun phrases. The category of ar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Semitic Languages
The Semitic languages are a branch of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family. They include Arabic, Amharic, Tigrinya language, Tigrinya, Aramaic, Hebrew language, Hebrew, Maltese language, Maltese, Modern South Arabian languages and numerous other ancient and modern languages. They are spoken by more than 330 million people across much of Western Asia, West Asia, North Africa, the Horn of Africa, Malta, and in large Immigration, immigrant and Expatriate, 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 Generations of Noah, sons of Noah in the Book of Genesis. Semitic languages List of languages by first written account, occur in written form from a very early historical date in West Asia, with East Semitic languages, East Semitic Akkadian language, Akkadian (also known as Ancient Assyrian language, Assyrian ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Comparative
The degrees of comparison of adjectives and adverbs are the various forms taken by adjectives and adverbs when used to compare two entities (comparative degree), three or more entities (superlative degree), or when not comparing entities (positive degree) in terms of a certain property or way of doing something. The usual degrees of comparison are the ''positive'', which denotes a certain property or a certain way of doing something without comparing (as with the English words ''big'' and ''fully''); the ''comparative degree'', which indicates ''greater'' degree (e.g. ''bigger'' and ''more fully'' omparative of superiorityor ''as big'' and ''as fully'' omparative of equalityor ''less big'' and ''less fully'' omparative of inferiority; and the ''superlative'', which indicates ''greatest'' degree (e.g. ''biggest'' and ''most fully'' uperlative of superiorityor ''least big'' and ''least fully'' uperlative of inferiority. Some languages have forms indicating a very large degree ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Color Term
A color term (or color name) is a word or phrase that refers to a specific color. The color term may refer to human perception of that color (which is affected by visual context) which is usually defined according to the Munsell color system, or to an underlying physical property (such as a specific wavelength on the spectrum of visible light). There are also numerical systems of color specification, referred to as color spaces. An important distinction must be established between color and shape, as these two attributes usually are used in conjunction with one another when describing in language. For example, they are labeled as alternative parts of speech terms color term and shape term. Psychological conditions for recognition of colors exist, such as those who cannot discern colors in general or those who see colors as sound (a variety of synesthesia). Color dimensions Typical human color vision is trichromatic, meaning it is based on a three-dimensional color gamut. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Adjective
An adjective (abbreviations, abbreviated ) is a word that describes or defines a noun or noun phrase. Its semantic role is to change information given by the noun. Traditionally, adjectives are considered one of the main part of speech, parts of speech of the English language, although historically they were classed together with Noun, nouns. Nowadays, certain words that usually had been classified as adjectives, including ''the'', ''this'', ''my'', etc., typically are classed separately, as Determiner (class), determiners. Examples: * That's a ''funny'' idea. (Prepositive attributive) * That idea is ''funny''. (Predicate (grammar), Predicative) * * The ''good'', the ''bad'', and the ''funny''. (Substantive adjective, Substantive) * Clara Oswald, completely ''fictional'', died three times. (Apposition, Appositive) Etymology ''Adjective'' comes from Latin ', a calque of (whence also English ''epithet''). In the grammatical tradition of Latin and Greek, because adjectives were I ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Triliteral
The roots of verbs and most nouns in the Semitic languages are characterized as a sequence of consonants or " radicals" (hence the term consonantal root). Such abstract consonantal roots are used in the formation of actual words by adding the vowels and non-root consonants (or "transfixes"), which go with a particular morphological category around the root consonants, in an appropriate way, generally following specific patterns. It is a peculiarity of Semitic linguistics that many of these consonantal roots are triliterals, meaning that they consist of three letters (although there are a number of quadriliterals, and in some languages also biliterals). Such roots are also common in other Afroasiatic languages. While Berber mostly has triconsonantal roots, Chadic, Omotic, and Cushitic have mostly biconsonantal roots; and Egyptian shows a mix of biconsonantal and triconsonantal roots. Triconsonantal roots A triliteral or triconsonantal root (; , ';, '; , ') is a root containing ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Transfix
In linguistic morphology, a transfix is a discontinuous affix which is inserted into a word root, as in root-and-pattern systems of morphology, like those of many Semitic languages. A discontinuous affix is an affix whose phonetic components are not sequential within a word, and instead, are spread out between or around the phones that comprise the root. The word root is often an abstract series of three consonants, though single consonant, biliteral, and quadriliteral roots do exist.Bennett, Patrick R. Comparative Semitic Linguistics : a Manual. Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1998. 62-64. Print. An example of a triconsonantal root would be ''ḍ–r–b'' ( ض ر ب) in Arabic, which can be inflected to create forms such as ''ḍaraba'' 'he beat' and ''yaḍribu'' 'he beats'. While triconsonantal roots are widely considered to be the most common state, some linguists posit that biliteral roots may in fact be the default, though at least one scholar is skeptical of the leg ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Arabic Nouns And Adjectives
Arabic nouns and adjectives are declined according to case, state, gender and number. While this is strictly true in Classical Arabic, in colloquial or spoken Arabic, there are a number of simplifications such as loss of certain final vowels and loss of case. A number of derivational processes exist for forming new nouns and adjectives. Adverbs can be formed from adjectives. Noun and adjective inflection (Classical Arabic) Nouns ( ') and adjectives in Classical Arabic are declined according to the following properties: * Case (nominative, genitive, and accusative) * State (indefinite, definite or construct) * Gender (masculine or feminine): an inherent characteristic of nouns, but part of the declension of adjectives * Number (singular, dual or plural) Nouns are normally given in their pausal form. For example, ' 'king' would be declined as ' 'king-', ' 'the king-', etc. A feminine noun like ' 'queen' would be declined as ' 'queen-', ' 'the queen-', etc. The citati ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Definite Article In Arabic
(, also romanized as ''el-'', ''il-'', and ''l-'' as pronounced in some varieties of Arabic), is the definite article in the Arabic language: a particle (''ḥarf'') whose function is to render the noun on which it is prefixed definite. For example, the word ''kitāb'' "book" can be made definite by prefixing it with ''al-'', resulting in ''al-kitāb'' "the book". Consequently, ''al-'' is typically translated as "the" in English. Unlike most other Arabic particles, ''al-'' is always prefixed to another word and never stands alone. Consequently, many dictionaries do not list it, and it is almost invariably ignored in collation, as it is not an intrinsic part of the word. ''Al-'' does not inflect for gender, number or grammatical case. The sound of the final ''-l'' consonant, however, can vary; when followed by a sun letter such as ''t'', ''d'', ''r'', ''s'', ''n'' and a few others, it assimilates to that sound, thus doubling it. For example: for "the Nile", one does not say ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Linguistic Morphology
In linguistics, morphology is the study of words, including the principles by which they are formed, and how they relate to one another within a language. Most approaches to morphology investigate the structure of words in terms of morphemes, which are the smallest units in a language with some independent meaning. Morphemes include roots that can exist as words by themselves, but also categories such as affixes that can only appear as part of a larger word. For example, in English the root ''catch'' and the suffix ''-ing'' are both morphemes; ''catch'' may appear as its own word, or it may be combined with ''-ing'' to form the new word ''catching''. Morphology also analyzes how words behave as parts of speech, and how they may be inflected to express grammatical categories including number, tense, and aspect. Concepts such as productivity are concerned with how speakers create words in specific contexts, which evolves over the history of a language. The basic fields of lingu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Semitic Linguistics
Semitic most commonly refers to the Semitic languages, a name used since the 1770s to refer to the language family currently present in West Asia, North and East Africa, and Malta. Semitic may also refer to: People * Ancient Semitic-speaking peoples * Semitic people, an obsolete term for an ethnic, cultural or racial group who speak or spoke the Semitic languages Religions * Ancient Semitic religion * Semitic religions (other) Other linguistic terms * Proto-Semitic language * Semitic root * Semitic studies See also * Semitism (other) * Shem Shem (; ''Šēm''; ) is one of the sons of Noah in the Bible ( Genesis 5–11 and 1 Chronicles 1:4). The children of Shem are Elam, Ashur, Arphaxad, Lud and Aram, in addition to unnamed daughters. Abraham, the patriarch of Jews, Christ ... {{Disambiguation Language and nationality disambiguation pages ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Arabic Grammar
Arabic grammar () is the grammar of the Arabic language. Arabic is a Semitic languages, Semitic language and its grammar has many similarities with the Semitic languages#Grammar, grammar of other Semitic languages. Classical Arabic and Modern Standard Arabic have largely the same grammar; colloquial spoken varieties of Arabic can vary in different ways. The largest differences between classical and colloquial Arabic are the loss of morpheme, morphological markings of grammatical case; changes in word order, an overall shift towards a more analytic language, analytic morphosyntax, the loss of the previous system of grammatical mood, along with the evolution of a new system; the loss of the inflected passive voice, except in a few relict varieties; restriction in the use of the Dual (grammatical number), dual number and (for most varieties) the loss of the feminine plural. Many Arabic dialects, Maghrebi Arabic in particular, also have significant vowel shifts and unusual consonant ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
