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Prototonic
In the Goidelic languages, dependent and independent verb forms are distinct verb forms; each tense of each verb exists in both forms. Verbs are often preceded by a particle which marks negation, or a question, or has some other force. The dependent verb forms are used after a particle, while independent forms are used when the verb is not subject to a particle. For example, in Irish, the past tense of the verb ("to see") has two forms: the independent form and the dependent form . The independent form is used when no particle precedes the verb, as in ("I saw John").As the Goidelic languages use verb–subject–object word orders, the verb ("saw") precedes the subject ("I"). The dependent form is used when a particle such as ("not") precedes the verb, as in ("I did not see John").The particle triggers lenition of the verb, changing (pronounced ) to (pronounced ). Old Irish The distinction between dependent and independent forms originates with two distinct but related ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Interpunct
An interpunct , also known as an interpoint, middle dot, middot, centered dot or centred dot, is a punctuation mark consisting of a vertically centered dot used for interword separation in Classical Latin. ( Word-separating spaces did not appear until some time between 600 and 800 CE.) It appears in a variety of uses in some modern languages. The multiplication dot or "dot operator" is frequently used in mathematical and scientific notation, and it may differ in appearance from the interpunct. In written language Various dictionaries use the interpunct (in this context, sometimes called a hyphenation point) to indicate where to split a word and insert a hyphen if the word doesn't fit on the line. There is also a separate Unicode character, . English In British typography, the space dot was once used as the formal decimal point. Its use was advocated by laws and can still be found in some UK-based academic journals such as ''The Lancet''. When the pound sterling was de ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Goidelic Languages
The Goidelic ( ) or Gaelic languages (; ; ) form one of the two groups of Insular Celtic languages, the other being the Brittonic languages. Goidelic languages historically formed a dialect continuum stretching from Ireland through the Isle of Man to Scotland. There are three modern Goidelic languages: Irish ('), Scottish Gaelic ('), and Manx ('). Manx died out as a first language in the 20th century but has since been revived to some degree. Nomenclature ''Gaelic'', by itself, is sometimes used to refer to Scottish Gaelic, especially in Scotland, and therefore is ambiguous. Irish and Manx are sometimes referred to as Irish Gaelic and Manx Gaelic (as they are Goidelic or Gaelic languages), but the use of the word ''Gaelic'' is unnecessary because the terms Irish and Manx, when used to denote languages, always refer to those languages. This is in contrast to Scottish Gaelic, for which "Gaelic" distinguishes the language from the Germanic language known as Scots. In Englis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Insular Celtic Languages
Insular Celtic languages are the group of Celtic languages spoken in Brittany, Great Britain, Ireland, and the Isle of Man. All surviving Celtic languages are in the Insular group, including Breton, which is spoken on continental Europe in Brittany, France. The Continental Celtic languages, although once widely spoken in continental Europe, mainland Europe and in Anatolia, are extinct. Six Insular Celtic languages are extant (in all cases written and spoken) in two distinct groups: * Insular Celtic languages ** Brittonic languages, Brittonic (or Brythonic) languages *** Breton language, Breton *** Cornish language, Cornish *** Welsh language, Welsh ** Goidelic languages *** Irish language, Irish *** Manx language, Manx *** Scottish Gaelic Insular Celtic hypothesis The Insular Celtic hypothesis is the theory that these languages historical linguistics, evolved together in those places, having a later common descent, common ancestor than any of the Continental Celtic languag ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Osborn Bergin
Osborn Joseph BerginOsborn Ó hAimhirgín (26 November 1873 – 6 October 1950) was an Irish scholar of the Irish language and early Irish literature, who discovered what is now known as Bergin's law. Biography Bergin was born in Cork, sixth child and eldest son of Osborn Roberts Bergin and Sarah Reddin, and was educated at Queen's College Cork (now University College Cork). He then went to Germany for advanced studies in Celtic languages, working with Heinrich Zimmer at the Friedrich Wilhelm University of Berlin (now the Humboldt University of Berlin) and later with Rudolf Thurneysen at the University of Freiburg, where he wrote his dissertation on palatalization in 1906. He then returned to Ireland and taught at the School of Irish Learning and at University College Dublin. Within one year of becoming Director of the School of Irish Studies in the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, Bergin resigned both the senior professorship and his office of director. The reason f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Irrealis
In linguistics, irrealis moods (abbreviated ) are the main set of grammatical moods that indicate that a certain situation or action is not known to have happened at the moment the speaker is talking. This contrasts with the realis moods. They are used in statements without truth value (imperative, interrogative, subordinate, etc) Every language has grammatical ways of expressing unreality. Linguists tend to reserve the term "irrealis" for particular morphological markers or clause types. Many languages with irrealis mood make further subdivisions between kinds of irrealis moods. This is especially so among Algonquian languages such as Blackfoot. List of irrealis moods Moods Subjunctive The subjunctive mood, sometimes called conjunctive mood, has several uses in dependent clauses. Examples include discussing hypothetical or unlikely events, expressing opinions or emotions, or making polite requests (the exact scope is language-specific). A subjunctive mood exists in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Realis
A realis mood (abbreviated ) is a grammatical mood which is used principally to indicate that something is a statement of fact; in other words, to express what the speaker considers to be a known state of affairs, as in declarative sentences. Most languages have a single realis mood called the indicative mood, although some languages have additional realis moods, for example to express different levels of certainty. By contrast, an irrealis mood is used to express something that is not known to be the case in reality. An example of the contrast between realis and irrealis moods is seen in the English sentences "He works" and "It is necessary that he work". In the first sentence, ''works'' is a present indicative (realis) form of the verb, and is used to make a direct assertion about the real world. In the second sentence, ''work'' is in the subjunctive mood, which is an irrealis mood – here ''that he work'' does not necessarily express a fact about the real world (he could be ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Conditional Clause
A conditional sentence is a sentence in a natural language that expresses that one thing is contingent on another, e.g., "If it rains, the picnic will be cancelled." They are so called because the impact of the sentence’s main clause is ''conditional'' on a subordinate clause. A full conditional thus contains two clauses: the subordinate clause, called the ''antecedent'' (or ''protasis'' or ''if-clause''), which expresses the condition, and the main clause, called the ''consequent'' (or ''apodosis'' or ''then-clause'') expressing the result. To form conditional sentences, languages use a variety of grammatical forms and constructions. The forms of verbs used in the antecedent and consequent are often subject to particular rules as regards their tense, aspect, and mood. Many languages have a specialized type of verb form called the conditional mood – broadly equivalent in meaning to the English "would (do something)" – for use in some types of conditional sentences. Typ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eclipsis
Irish, like all modern Celtic languages, is characterised by its initial consonant mutations. These mutations affect the initial consonant of a word under specific morphological and syntactic conditions. The mutations are an important tool in understanding the relationship between two words and can differentiate various meanings. Irish, like Scottish Gaelic and Manx, features two initial consonant mutations: lenition ( ) and eclipsis ( ) (the alternative names, '' aspiration'' for lenition and ''nasalisation'' for eclipsis, are also used, but those terms are misleading). Originally these mutations were phonologically governed external sandhi effects: lenition was caused by a consonant being between two vowels, and eclipsis when a nasal preceded an obstruent, including at the beginning of a word. Irish also features t- prothesis and h-prothesis, related phenomena which affect vowel-initial words. See Irish phonology for a discussion of the symbols used on this page. Hi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Irish Syntax
Irish syntax is rather different from that of most Indo-European languages, especially because of its VSO word order. Normal word order The normal word order in an Irish sentence is: # Preverbal particle #Verb # Subject #Direct object or predicate adjective #Indirect object #Location descriptor #Manner descriptor #Time descriptor Only the verb and subject are obligatory; all other parts are optional (unless the primary or finite verb is transitive, in which case a direct object is required). In synthetic verb forms, the verb and subject are united in a single word, so that even one-word sentences are possible, e.g. "I understand." An example sentence: Questions and answers Irish has no words for "yes" and "no". The answer to a question contains a repetition (the same as in Latin) of the verb, either with or without a negative particle. For analytic forms, only the verb is given and the subject is not repeated. If a verb has different dependent and independent forms, the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Relative Clause
A relative clause is a clause that modifies a noun or noun phrase and uses some grammatical device to indicate that one of the arguments in the relative clause refers to the noun or noun phrase. For example, in the sentence ''I met a man who wasn't too sure of himself'', the Dependent clause, subordinate clause ''who wasn't too sure of himself'' is a relative clause since it modifies the noun ''man'' and uses the pronoun ''who'' to indicate that the same "MAN" is referred to in the subordinate clause (in this case as its subject (grammar), subject). In many languages, relative clauses are introduced by a special class of pronouns called ''relative pronouns'', such as ''who'' in the example just given. In other languages, relative clauses may be marked in different ways: they may be introduced by a special class of conjunctions called ''relativizers'', the main verb of the relative clause may appear in a special morphological variant, or a relative clause may be indicated by word o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Early Modern Irish
Early Modern Irish () represented a transition between Middle Irish and Modern Irish. Its literary form, Classical Gaelic, was used in Ireland and Scotland from the 13th to the 18th century. Classical Gaelic Classical Gaelic or Classical Irish () was a shared literary form of Gaelic that was in use by poets in Scotland and Ireland from the 13th century to the 18th century. Although the first written signs of Scottish Gaelic having diverged from Irish appear as far back as the 12th century annotations of the Book of Deer, Scottish Gaelic did not have a separate standardised form and did not appear in print on a significant scale until the 1767 translation of the New Testament into Scottish Gaelic;Thomson (ed.), ''The Companion to Gaelic Scotland'' however, in the 16th century, John Carswell's ', an adaptation of John Knox's ''Book of Common Order'', was the first book printed in either Scottish or Irish Gaelic. Before that time, the vernacular dialects of Ireland and Scotland ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Initial Mutation
Consonant mutation is change in a consonant in a word according to its morphological or syntactic environment. Mutation occurs in languages around the world. A prototypical example of consonant mutation is the initial consonant mutation of all modern Celtic languages. Initial consonant mutation is also found in Indonesian or Malay, in Nivkh, in Southern Paiute and in several West African languages such as Fula. The Nilotic language Dholuo, spoken in Kenya, shows mutation of stem-final consonants, as does English to a small extent. Mutation of initial, medial and final consonants is found in Modern Hebrew. Also, Japanese exhibits word medial consonant mutation involving voicing, ''rendaku'', in many compounds. Uralic languages like Finnish show consonant gradation, a type of consonant mutation. Similar sound changes Initial consonant mutation must not be confused with sandhi, which can refer to word-initial alternations triggered by their phonological environment, unlik ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
