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Linguistics
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The Science of Translation: How Our Brains Process Different Languages
In today's globalized society, being able to connect with people from other origins and cultures is becoming crucial. Effective communication between people who speak various languages depends on translation. This blog will explore the science behind translation and how our brains process different languages...
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Scribal abbreviations
Scribal abbreviations, or Sigla (singular: siglum and sigil) are the abbreviations used by ancient and medieval scribes writing in Latin, and later in Greek and Old Norse. Modern manuscript editing (substantive and mechanical) employs sigla as symbols indicating the location of a source manuscript and to identify the copyist(s) of a work...
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Señoras
y Señores diputados/'Onorevoli deputati'. Un estudio contrastivo
del léxico político español/italiano
In this article the postulates of Robert Lado's lexicon are applied
to the study of Italian and Spanish political language. Most terms
proposed are extracted from the Italian translation of Diario de
Sesiones del Congreso de lo Diputados. Thus, this study tries to
provide the researcher of Political Sciences with some of the needed
tools to identify the 'false friends' (most of all the 'illusory'
ones) between the Spanish and the Italian political languages...
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the full article…
Corpus
Linguistics Approach: A Novel Framework for Translation Studies
Research
As a relatively new approach, corpus linguistics emerged in 1960's
which was an important point in the way of applying corpus studies
in language sciences. The term "Corpus Linguistics" was initially
presented by Leech in 1980s (Leech, 1992). Leech in 1992, speaks
of the general story of corpus linguistics. In the 1940s to 1950s,
American structuralists were increasingly interested in using corpora.
"A corpus of authentically occurring discourse was the thing that
the linguist was meant to be studying"...
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the full article…
Investigating
the Role and Variability of Miscellaneous English Cohesive Devices
Across Registers
As throughout our lives we deal with a great variety of texts and
discourses, we intuitively know what lexical and syntactical patterns
we should use when we want to produce discourse appropriate to certain
situations. Text producers and recipients also feel that in some
cases they are free to choose from a variety of linguistic means
to express their communicative purposes, while in others there are
strict regulations imposed on what lexis and syntactical structures
to use...
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the full article…
Word
Formation Processes in English
One of the distinctive properties of human language is creativity,
by which we mean the ability of native speakers of a language to
produce and understand new forms in their language. Even though
creativity is most apparent when it comes to sentence formation,
it is also manifest in our lexical knowledge, where new words are
added to our mental lexicon regularly. In this paper the most comprehensive
expositions of word formation processes that speakers of a language
use regularly (and unconsciously too) to create new words in their
language are presented...
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the full article…
Word
formation process
Nowadays, the terms ‘word formation’ does not have a clear cut,
universally accepted usage. It is sometimes referred to all processes
connected with changing the form of the word by, for example, affixation,
which is a matter of morphology...
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the full article…
Vowel
length
In linguistics, vowel length is the perceived duration of a vowel
sound. Often the chroneme, or the "longness", acts like
a consonant, and may etymologically be one such as in Australian
English. While not distinctive in most dialects of English, vowel
length is an important phonemic factor...
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the full article…
Vowel
harmony
Vowel harmony is a type of long-distance (see below) assimilatory
phonological process involving vowels in some languages. In languages
with vowel harmony, there are constraints on what vowels may be
found near each other...
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the full article…
Vowel
In phonetics, a vowel is a sound in spoken language, such as English
ah! or oh!, pronounced with an open vocal tract so that there is
no build-up of air pressure at any point above the glottis. This
contrasts with consonants, such as English sh!, where there is a
constriction or closure at some point along the vocal tract...
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the full article…
Verb
phrase
In linguistics, a verb phrase or VP is a syntactic structure composed
of the predicative elements of a sentence and functions in providing
information about the subject of the sentence...
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the full article…
Universal
grammar
Universal grammar is a theory of linguistics postulating principles
of grammar shared by all languages, thought to be innate to humans
(linguistic nativism). It attempts to explain language acquisition
in general, not describe specific languages...
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the full article…
T-unit
In linguistics, the term T-unit was coined by Hunt in 1965. It is
defined as the "shortest grammatically allowable sentences
into which (writing can be split) or minimally terminable unit",
and thus is often but not always a sentence...
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the full article…
Tone
Tone is the use of pitch in language to distinguish lexical or grammatical
meaning - that is, to distinguish or inflect words. All languages
use pitch to express emotional and other paralinguistic information,
and to convey emphasis, contrast, and other such features in what
is called intonation...
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the full article…
Systemic
functional grammar
Systemic functional grammar (SFG) or systemic functional linguistics
(SFL) is a model of grammar that was developed by Michael Halliday
in the 1960s. It is part of a broad social semiotic approach to
language called systemic linguistics...
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the full article…
Programming language
A programming language is an artificial language designed to express
computations that can be performed by a machine, particularly a
computer. Programming languages can be used to create programs that
specify the behavior of a machine, to express algorithms precisely,
or as a mode of human communication...
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the full article…
Periodic sentence
A periodic sentence (also called a period) is a sentence that is
not grammatically complete until its end. Periodicity is accomplished
by the use of parallel phrases or clauses at the opening or by the
use of dependent clauses preceding the independent clause...
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Non-finite clause
In linguistics, a non-finite clause is a subordinate clause whose
verb is non-finite; for example, many languages can form non-finite
clauses from infinitives. Like any subordinate clause, a non-finite
clause serves a grammatical role — commonly that of a noun, adjective,
or adverb — in a greater clause that contains it...
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the full article…
Natural language processing
Natural language processing (NLP) is a field of computer science
concerned with the interactions between computers and human (natural)
languages. Natural language generation systems convert information
from computer databases into readable human language...
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List of language regulators
This is a list of bodies that regulate standard languages...
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List of constructed languages
This list of constructed languages is in alphabetical order, and
divided into auxiliary, engineered, and artistic (including fictional)
languages, and their respective subgenres...
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the full article…
Linguistic typology
Linguistic typology is a subfield of linguistics that studies and
classifies languages according to their structural features. Its
aim is to describe and explain the structural diversity of the world's
languages. It includes three subdisciplines: qualitative typology,
which deals with the issue of comparing languages and within-language
variance, quantitative typology, which deals with the distribution
of structural patterns in the world’s languages, and theoretical
typology, which explains these distributions...
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the full article…
Language planning
Language planning refers to deliberate efforts to influence the
behaviour of others with respect to the acquisition, structure,
or functional allocation of language. Typically it will involve
the development of goals, objectives and strategies to change the
way language is used...
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Language family
A language family is a group of languages related by descent from
a common ancestor, called the proto-language of that family. As
with biological families, the evidence of relationship is observable
shared characteristics. An accurately identified family is a phylogenetic
unit...
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the full article…
Grammatical polarity
Grammatical polarity is the distinction of affirmative and negative,
which indicates the truth or falsehood of a statement respectively.
In English, grammatical polarity is generally indicated by the presence
or absence of the modifier not, which negates the statement. Many
other languages contain similar modifiers...
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the full article…
Formant
A formant is a peak in the frequency spectrum of a sound caused
by acoustic resonance. In phonetics, the word refers to sounds produced
by the vocal tract. In acoustics, it refers to resonance in sound
sources, notably musical instruments, as well as that of sound chambers.
However, it is equally valid to talk about the formant frequencies
of the air in a room, as exploited, for example...
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the full article…
Epenthesis
In phonology, epenthesis is the addition of one or more sounds to
a word, especially to the interior of a word. Epenthesis may be
divided into two types...
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the full article…
English spelling reform
English spelling reform is the collective term for various campaigns
and efforts to change the spelling of the English language to make
it simpler and more rationally consistent...
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the full article…
Elision
Elision is the omission of one or more sounds (such as a vowel,
a consonant, or a whole syllable) in a word or phrase, producing
a result that is easier for the speaker to pronounce. Sometimes,
sounds may be elided for euphonic effect...
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the full article…
Diglossia
In linguistics, diglossia, also called linguistic duality, is a
situation where, in a given society, there are two (often closely-related)
languages, one of high prestige, which is generally used by the
government and in formal texts...
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the full article…
Constructed language
A constructed or artificial language - known colloquially or informally
as a conlang - is a language whose phonology, grammar, and/or vocabulary
have been consciously devised by an individual or group, instead
of having evolved naturally...
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Areal feature
In linguistics, an areal feature is any typological feature shared
by languages within the same geographical area. Resemblances between
two or more languages (whether typological or in vocabulary) can
be due to genetic relation...
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the full article…
Place of articulation
In articulatory phonetics, the place of articulation (also point
of articulation) of a consonant is the point of contact, where an
obstruction occurs in the vocal tract between an active (moving)
articulator (typically some part of the tongue) and a passive (stationary)
articulator (typically some part of the roof of the mouth)...
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the full article…
Tonal language
A tonal language is a language that uses tone to distinguish words.
Tone is a phonological trait common to many languages around the
world (though rare in Europe, the Middle East, South Asia, and the
Pacific). Chinese is perhaps the most well-known of such languages...
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the full article…
Spelling
Spelling is the writing of a word or words with the necessary letters
and diacritics present in an accepted standard order. It is one
of the elements of orthography and a prescriptive element of language.
Most spellings attempt to approximate a transcribing of the sounds
of the language into alphabetic letters...
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Assimilation
Assimilation is a common phonological process by which the phonetics
of a speech segment becomes more like that of another segment in
a word (or at a word boundary). A common example of assimilation
would be "don't be silly" where the /n/ and /t/ in "don't"
become /m/ and /p/, where said naturally in many accents and discourse
styles ("dombe silly")...
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the full article…
First language
A first language (also mother tongue, native language, arterial
language, or L1) is the language a human being learns from birth.
A person's first language is a basis for sociolinguistic identity...
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Transformational grammar
In linguistics, a transformational grammar, or transformational-generative
grammar (TGG), is a generative grammar, especially of a natural
language, that has been developed in a Chomskyan tradition. Additionally,
transformational grammar is the Chomskyan tradition that gives rise
to specific transformational grammars...
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Subject
According to a tradition that can be tracked back to Aristotle,
every sentence can be divided in two main constituents, one being
the subject of the sentence and the other being its predicate...
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Predicate
In traditional grammar, a predicate is one of the two main parts
of a sentence (the other being the subject, which the predicate
modifies). In current linguistic semantics, a predicate is an expression
that can be true of something...
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Sentence
In linguistics, a sentence is a grammatical unit of one or more
words, bearing minimal syntactic relation to the words that precede
or follow it, often preceded and followed in speech by pauses, having
one of a small number of characteristic intonation patterns...
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Phoneme
In human language, a phoneme (from the Greek: φώνημα,
phōnēma, "a sound uttered") is the smallest posited
structural unit that distinguishes meaning. Phonemes are not the
physical segments themselves, but, in theoretical terms, cognitive
abstractions or categorizations of them...
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List of writing systems
This is a list of writing systems (or scripts), classified according
to some common distinguishing features. The usual name of the script
is given first (and bolded); the name of the language(s) in which
the script is written follows...
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Head-driven phrase structure grammar
Head-driven phrase structure grammar (HPSG) is a highly lexicalized,
non-derivational generative grammar theory developed by Carl Pollard
and Ivan Sag (1985). It is the immediate successor to generalized
phrase structure grammar...
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Finite verb
A finite verb is a verb that is inflected for person and for tense
according to the rules and categories of the languages in which
it occurs. Finite verbs can form independent clauses...
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Accent
In linguistics, an accent is a manner of pronunciation of a language.
Accents can be confused with dialects which are varieties of language
differing in vocabulary and syntax as well as pronunciation...
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Postalveolar consonant
Postalveolar consonants are consonants articulated with the tongue
near or touching the back of the alveolar ridge, placing
them a bit further back in the mouth than the alveolar consonants,
which are at the ridge itself, but not as far back as the hard palate
(the place of articulation for palatal consonants)...
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the full article…
Retroflex consonant
In phonetics, retroflex consonants are consonant sounds used in
some languages. (They are sometimes referred to as cerebral consonants,
especially in indology.) The tongue is placed behind the alveolar
ridge, and may even be curled back to touch the palate: that is,
they are articulated in the postalveolar to palatal region of the
mouth...
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the full article…
Higher order grammar
Higher Order grammar (HOG) is a grammar theory based on higher-order
logic. It can be viewed simultaneously as generative-enumerative
(like Categorial Grammar and Principles & Parameters) or model
theoretic (like Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar or Lexical
Functional Grammar)...
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the full article…
Syllable nucleus
In phonetics and phonology, the nucleus (sometimes called peak)
is the central part of the syllable, most commonly a vowel. In addition
to a nucleus, a syllable may begin with an onset and end with a
coda, but in most languages the only part of a syllable that is
mandatory is the nucleus. The nucleus and coda form the rime of
the syllable...
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Dependency grammar
Dependency grammar (DG) is a class of syntactic theories developed
by Lucien Tesnière. It is distinct from phrase structure
grammars, as it lacks phrasal nodes. Structure is determined by
the relation between a word (a head) and its dependents...
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Fricative consonant
Fricatives are consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow
channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may
be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of [f]; the
back of the tongue against the soft palate, in the case of German
[x], the final consonant of Bach; or the side of the tongue
against the molars, in the case of Welsh [ɬ], appearing twice
in the name Llanelli. This turbulent airflow is called frication.
A particular subset of fricatives are the sibilants...
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Dental consonant
In linguistics, a dental consonant or dental is a consonant that
is articulated with the tongue against the upper teeth, such as
/t/, /d/, /n/, and /l/ in some languages. Dentals are primarily
distinguished from sounds in which contact is made with the tongue
and the gum ridge, as in English...
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Ambiguous grammar
In computer science, a grammar is said to be an ambiguous grammar
if there is some string that it can generate in more than one way
(i.e., the string has more than one parse tree or more than one
leftmost derivation)...
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Alveolar consonant
Alveolar consonants are articulated with the tongue against or close
to the superior alveolar ridge, which is called that because it
contains the alveoli (the sockets) of the superior teeth...
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Affricate
Affricate consonants begin as stops (most often an alveolar, such
as [t] or [d]) but release as a fricative (such as [s] or [z] or
occasionally into a fricative trill) rather than directly into the
following vowel...
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Voiced alveolar fricative
The voiced alveolar fricatives are consonantal sounds. The symbol
in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents these sounds
depends on whether a sibilant or non-sibilant fricative is being
described...
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Stop consonant
A stop, plosive, or occlusive is a consonant sound produced by stopping
the airflow in the vocal tract. The terms plosive and stop
are usually used interchangeably, but they are not perfect synonyms.
Plosives are oral stops with a pulmonic egressive airstream mechanism...
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Sonorant
In phonetics and phonology, a sonorant is a speech sound that is
produced without turbulent airflow in the vocal tract. Essentially
this means a sound that's "squeezed out" (like /z/) or "spat out"
(like /t/) is not a sonorant...
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Role and reference grammar
Role and Reference Grammar (RRG) is a model of grammar developed
by William Foley and Robert Van Valin, Jr. in the 1980s, which incorporates
many of the points of view of current functional grammar theories...
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Principles and parameters
Principles and parameters is a framework in generative linguistics.
Principles and parameters was largely formulated by the linguists
Noam Chomsky and Howard Lasnik, though it was the culmination of
the research of many linguists...
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Lexical functional grammar
Lexical functional grammar (LFG) is a grammar framework in theoretical
linguistics, a variety of generative grammar. The development of
the theory was initiated by Joan Bresnan and Ronald Kaplan in the
1970s, in reaction to the direction research in the area of transformational
grammar had begun to take...
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International Phonetic Alphabet
The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is a system of phonetic
notation based on the Latin alphabet, devised by the International
Phonetic Association as a standardized representation of the sounds
of spoken language...
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History of linguistics
Linguistics as a study endeavors to describe and explain the human
faculty of language...
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Generalised phrase structure grammar
Generalised phrase structure grammar (GPSG) is a framework for describing
the syntax and semantics of natural languages. GPSG was initially
developed in the late 1970s by Gerald Gazdar. Other contributors
include Ewan Klein, Ivan Sag, and Geoffrey Pullum...
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the full article…
Continuant
A continuant is a sound produced with an incomplete closure of the
vocal tract. That is, any sound except a stop (plosive or nasal).
An affricate is considered to be a complex segment, composed of
both a stop and a continuant...
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Voiceless apicoalveolar fricative
The voiceless alveolar fricatives are consonantal sounds. The symbol
in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents these sounds
depends on whether a sibilant or non-sibilant fricative is being
described...
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Vocal tract
The vocal tract is that cavity in animals and humans, where sound
that is produced at the sound source (larynx in mammals; syrinx
in birds) is filtered. In birds it consists of the trachea, the
syrinx, the oral cavity, the upper part of the esophagus, and the
beak...
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Stress
In linguistics, stress is the relative emphasis that may be given
to certain syllables in a word. The term is also used for similar
patterns of phonetic prominence inside syllables. The word accent
is sometimes also used with this sense...
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Prosodic unit
In linguistics, a prosodic unit, often called an intonation unit
or intonational phrase, is a segment of speech that occurs with
a single prosodic contour (pitch and rhythm contour). The abbreviation
IU is preferred because of the negative connotations of "PU"...
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Phonotactics
Phonotactics (in Greek phone = voice and tactic =
course) is a branch of phonology that deals with restrictions in
a language on the permissible combinations of phonemes. Phonotactics
defines permissible syllable structure, consonant clusters, and
vowel sequences by means of phonotactical constraints...
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Prosody
In linguistics, prosody (from Greek προσωδία)
is the rhythm, stress, and intonation of speech. Prosody may reflect
the emotional state of a speaker; whether an utterance is a statement,
a question, or a command; whether the speaker is being ironic or
sarcastic; emphasis, contrast and focus...
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Linguolabial consonant
Linguolabials or apicolabials are consonants articulated by placing
the tongue tip or blade against the upper lip, which is drawn downward
to meet the tongue. They represent one extreme of a coronal articulatory
continuum which extends from linguolabial to sub-apical palatal
places...
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Nasalization
In phonetics, nasalization is the production of a sound while the
velum is lowered, so that some air escapes through the nose during
the production of the sound by the mouth...
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Intonation
In linguistics, intonation is variation of pitch whilst speaking
which is not used to distinguish words. (Compare tone.) Intonation
and stress are two main elements of linguistic prosody...
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Lateral consonant
Laterals are "L"-like consonants pronounced with an occlusion made
somewhere along the axis of the tongue, while air from the lungs
escapes at one side or both sides of the tongue...
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Word
A word is a unit of language that carries meaning and consists of
one or more morphemes which are linked more or less tightly together,
and has a phonetic value. Typically a word will consist of a root
or stem and zero or more affixes...
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Generative linguistics
Generative linguistics is a school of thought within linguistics
that makes use of the concept of a generative grammar. The term
"generative grammar" is used in different ways by different people,
and the term "generative linguistics" therefore has a range of different,
though overlapping, meanings...
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Morphophonology
Morphophonology (also morphophonemics, morphonology) is a branch
of linguistics which studies - The phonological structure of morphemes...
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Coronal consonant
Coronal consonants are articulated with the flexible front part
of the tongue. Only the coronal consonants can be divided into apical
(using the tongue tip), laminal (using the tongue blade), domed
(with the tongue bunched up), or sub-apical...
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English phonology
English phonology is the study of the phonology (i.e. the sound
system) of the English language. Like all languages, spoken English
has wide variation in its pronunciation both diachronically and
synchronically from dialect to dialect. This variation is especially
salient in English, because the language is spoken over such a wide
territory...
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Consonant
In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is
articulated with complete or partial closure of the upper vocal
tract, the upper vocal tract being defined as that part of the vocal
tract that lies above the larynx. Consonants contrast with vowels...
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Clause
In grammar, a clause is a pair of words or group of words that consists
of a subject and a predicate, although in some languages and some
types of clauses, the subject may not appear explicitly as a noun
phrase...
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Cherology
Cherology (from Greek: χείρ,
"hand") is the sign-language equivalent of phonology. It is cognitively
equivalent to the phonology of oral languages. The term is not widely
used in the academic literature...
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Absolute neutralisation
In phonology, absolute neutralisation is a phenomenon in which a
segment of the underlying representation of a morpheme is not realized
in any of its phonetic representation. For example, Chomsky &
Halle (1968) assume that the underlying representation of the word
ellipse contains a final segment /e/ even though this segment
is never pronounced...
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Computational linguistics
Computational linguistics is an interdisciplinary field dealing
with the statistical and/or rule-based modeling of natural language
from a computational perspective. This modeling is not limited to
any particular field of linguistics. Traditionally, computational
linguistics was usually performed by computer scientists who had
specialized...
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Ingressive speech
Ingressive speech (IS) is when sounds are articulated with the flow
of air in opposition to the flow that would be experienced during
normal speech. The air used to voice the speech will be drawn in
rather than pushed out. Ingressive speech can be either glottal,
veleric or pulmonic...
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Egressive
In human speech, egressive sounds are those in which the air stream
is created by pushing air out through the mouth or nose. The three
types of egressive sounds are pulmonic egressive (exhaled), glottalic
egressive, lingual egressive...
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Retroflex consonant
In phonetics, retroflex consonants are consonant sounds used in
some languages. (They are sometimes referred to as cerebral consonants,
especially in indology.) The tongue is placed behind the alveolar
ridge, and may even be curled back to touch the palate...
Read
the full article…
Initiation
In phonetics, the airstream mechanism is the method by which airflow
is created in the vocal tract. Along with phonation, it is one of
two mandatory aspects of sound production; without these, there
can be no speech sound...
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Sibilant consonant
A sibilant is a type of fricative or affricate consonant, made by
directing a jet of air through a narrow channel in the vocal tract
towards the sharp edge of the teeth...
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Interjection
An interjection is a part of speech that usually has no [grammatical]
connection with the rest of the sentence and simply expresses emotion
on the part of the speaker, although most interjections have clear
definitions. Filled pauses such as uh, er, um,
are also considered interjections...
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Vocal folds
The vocal folds, also known commonly as vocal cords,
are composed of twin infoldings of mucous membrane stretched horizontally
across the larynx. They vibrate, modulating the flow of air being
expelled from the lungs during phonation...
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Epiglotto-pharyngeal consonant
An epiglotto-pharyngeal consonant is a newly reported type of consonant,
articulated with the epiglottis against the back wall of the pharynx.
This contrasts with the pharyngeal consonants, where the root of
the tongue contacts the back wall of the pharynx, and prototypical
epiglottal consonants...
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Phonation
Phonation has slightly different meanings depending on the subfield
of phonetics. Among some phoneticians, phonation is the process
by which the vocal folds produce certain sounds through quasi-periodic
vibration. This is the definition used among those who study laryngeal
anatomy and physiology and speech production in general...
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Stylistics
Stylistics is the study of varieties of language whose properties
position that language in context. For example, the language of
advertising, politics, religion, individual authors, etc., or the
language of a period in time, all are used distinctively and belong
in a particular situation. In other words, they all have ‘place’
or are said to use a particular 'style'...
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Linguistic prescription
In linguistics, prescription can refer both to the codification
and the enforcement of rules governing how a language is to be used.
These rules can cover such topics as standards for spelling and
grammar or syntax; or rules for what is deemed socially or politically
correct...
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Functional grammar
Functional Grammar is a model of grammar motivated by functions.
The model was originally developed by Simon C. Dik at the University
of Amsterdam in the 1970s, and has undergone several revisions ever
since. The latest standard version under the original name is laid
out in the two-volume 1997 edition, published shortly after Dik's
tragic death of cancer. The latest incarnation features the expansion
of the model with a pragmatic/interpersonal module by Kees Hengeveld
and Lachlan Mackenzie...
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the full article…
Applied linguistics
Applied linguistics is an interdisciplinary field of study that
identifies, investigates, and offers solutions to language-related
real life problems. Some of the academic fields related to applied
linguistics are education, linguistics, psychology, anthropology,
and sociology...
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Morphological dictionary
In the field of computational linguistics, a morphological dictionary
is a file that contains correspondences between surface form and
lexical forms of words. Surface forms of words are those found in
any text. The corresponding lexical form of a surface form is the
lemma followed by grammatical information...
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Pharyngealization
Pharyngealization is a secondary articulation of consonants or vowels
by which the pharynx or epiglottis is constricted during the articulation
of the sound. In the International Phonetic Alphabet, pharyngealization
can be indicated by one of two methods...
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Null subject language
In linguistic typology, a null subject language is a language whose
grammar permits an independent clause to lack an explicit subject.
Such a clause is then said to have a null subject. Typically,
null subject languages express person, number, and/or gender agreement...
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Labialisation
Labialisation is a secondary articulatory feature of sounds in some
languages. Labialized sounds involve the lips while the remainder
of the oral cavity produces another sound. The term is normally
used to refer to consonants. When vowels involve the lips, they
are usually called rounded...
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Palatalization
Palatalization or palatalisation generally refers to two phenomena:
As a process or the result of a process, the effect
that front vowels and the palatal approximant [j]
frequently have on consonants...
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Syllable
A syllable (Greek: συλλαβή)
is a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds. For example,
the word water is composed of two syllables: wa and
ter...
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Pharynx
The pharynx (plural: pharynges) is the part of the neck and
throat situated immediately posterior to (behind) the mouth and
nasal cavity, and cranial, or superior, to the oesophagus, larynx,
and trachea...
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Voice
Voice or voicing is a term used in phonetics and phonology to characterize
speech sounds, with sounds described as either voiceless (unvoiced)
or voiced. The term, however, is used to refer to two separate concepts.
Voicing can refer to the articulatory process in which the vocal
cords vibrate...
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Implosive consonant
Implosive consonants are stops (rarely affricates) with a mixed
glottalic ingressive and pulmonic egressive airstream mechanism.
That is, the airstream is controlled by moving the glottis downward
in addition to expelling air from the lungs...
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Aryepiglottic fold
The entrance of the larynx is a triangular opening, wide in front,
narrow behind, and sloping obliquely downward and backward. It is
bounded, in front, by the epiglottis; behind, by the apices of the
arytenoid cartilages, the corniculate cartilages, and the interarytenoid
notch...
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Generative grammar
In theoretical linguistics, generative grammar refers to a particular
approach to the study of syntax. A generative grammar of a language
attempts to give a set of rules that will correctly predict which
combinations of words will form grammatical sentences...
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Schwa
In linguistics, specifically phonetics and phonology, schwa can
mean the following: An unstressed and toneless neutral vowel sound
in any language, often but not necessarily a mid-central vowel.
Such vowels are often transcribed with the symbol <ə>...
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Obstruent
In phonetics, articulation may be divided into two large classes,
obstruents and sonorants. An obstruent is a consonant sound formed
by obstructing outward airflow, causing increased air pressure
in the vocal tract...
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Palate
The palate (pronounced /ˈpælɨt/)
is the roof of the mouth in humans and vertebrate animals. It separates
the oral cavity from the nasal cavity. The palate is divided into
two parts, the anterior bony hard palate, and the posterior fleshy
soft palate or velum...
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Labiodental consonant
In phonetics, labiodentals are consonants articulated with the lower
lip and the upper teeth. The labiodental consonants identified by
the International Phonetic Alphabet are...
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Labial consonant
Labials are consonants articulated either with both lips (bilabial
articulation) or with the lower lip and the upper teeth (labiodental
articulation). English [m] is a bilabial nasal sonorant, [b] and
[p] are bilabial stops (plosives), [v] and [f] are labiodental fricatives...
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Epiglottal consonant
An epiglottal consonant is a consonant that is articulated with
the aryepiglottic folds against the epiglottis. They are occasionally
called aryepiglottal consonants. The epiglottal consonants identified
by the International Phonetic Alphabet are...
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Radical consonant
Radical consonants are those consonants articulated with the root
(base) of the tongue in the throat. They include the pharyngeal
and epiglottal places of articulation. The term radical was coined
to help disambiguate pharyngeal, which had come to mean any consonant
articulated in the throat, whether the articulator was the back
of the tongue ("high" pharyngeals) or the epiglottis ("low"
pharyngeals)...
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Velarization
Velarization is a secondary articulation of consonants by which
the back of the tongue is raised toward the velum during the articulation
of the consonant. In the International Phonetic Alphabet, velarization
is transcribed by one of three diacritics...
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Uvular consonant
Uvulars are consonants articulated with the back of the tongue against
or near the uvula, that is, further back in the mouth than velar
consonants. Uvulars may be plosives, fricatives, nasal stops, trills,
or approximants, though the IPA does not provide a separate symbol
for the approximant, and the symbol for the voiced fricative is
used instead...
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Velar consonant
Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue
(the dorsum) against the soft palate (the back part of the roof
of the mouth, known also as the velum)...
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Palatal consonant
Palatal consonants are consonants articulated with the body of the
tongue raised against the hard palate (the middle part of the roof
of the mouth). Consonants with the tip of the tongue curled back
against the palate are called retroflex...
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Glottal consonant
Glottal consonants are consonants articulated with the glottis.
Many phoneticians consider them, or at least the so-called fricatives,
to be transitional states of the glottis without a point of articulation
as other consonants have; in fact, some do not consider them to
be consonants at all...
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Bilabial consonant
In phonetics, a bilabial consonant is a consonant articulated with
both lips. The bilabial consonants identified by the International
Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) are...
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Laminal consonant
A laminal consonant is a phone produced by obstructing the air passage
with the blade of the tongue, which is the flat top front surface
just behind the tip of the tongue. This contrasts with apical consonants,
which are produced by creating an obstruction with the tongue apex
(tongue tip) only. This distinction applies only to coronal consonants,
which use the front of the tongue...
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Dorsal consonant
Dorsal consonants are articulated with the mid body of the tongue
(the dorsum). They contrast with coronal consonants articulated
with the flexible front of the tongue, and radical consonants articulated
with the root of the tongue...
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Manner of articulation
In linguistics (articulatory phonetics), manner of articulation
describes how the tongue, lips, jaw, and other speech organs are
involved in making a sound make contact. Often the concept is only
used for the production of consonants. For any place of articulation,
there may be several manners, and therefore several homorganic consonants...
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Discourse analysis
Discourse analysis (DA), or discourse studies, is a general term
for a number of approaches to analyzing written, spoken or signed
language use. The objects of discourse analysis—discourse, writing,
talk, conversation, communicative event, etc.—are variously defined
in terms of coherent sequences of sentences, propositions, speech
acts or turns-at-talk...
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Apical consonant
An apical consonant is a phone (speech sound) produced by obstructing
the air passage with the apex of the tongue (i.e. the tip of the
tongue). This contrasts with laminal consonants, which are produced
by creating an obstruction with the blade of the tongue (which is
just behind the apex)...
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Morphology
Morphology is the field of linguistics that studies the internal
structure of words. (Words as units in the lexicon are the subject
matter of lexicology.) While words are generally accepted as being
(with clitics) the smallest units of syntax, it is clear that in
most (if not all) languages, words can be related to other words
by rules...
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Formal grammar
In formal semantics, computer science and linguistics, a formal
grammar (also called formation rules) is a precise description of
a formal language – that is, of a set of strings over some alphabet.
In other words, a grammar describes which of the possible sequences
of symbols (strings) in a language constitute valid words or statements
in that language, but it does not describe their semantics...
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Stop consonant
A stop, plosive, or occlusive is a consonant sound produced by stopping
the airflow in the vocal tract. The terms plosive and stop are usually
used interchangeably, but they are not perfect synonyms. Plosives
are stops with a pulmonic egressive airstream mechanism. The term
is also used to describe oral (non-nasal) stops...
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Transcription
Transcription is the conversion into written, typewritten or printed
form, of a spoken language source, such as the proceedings of a
court hearing. It can also mean the conversion of a written source
into another medium, such as scanning books and making digital versions.
A transcriptionist is a person who performs transcription...
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Sub-apical consonant
A sub-apical consonant is a consonant made by contact with the underside
of the tip of the tongue. The only common sub-apical articulations
are in the postalveolar to palatal region; these are called "retroflex"...
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Historical linguistics
Historical linguistics (also called diachronic linguistics)
is the study of language change. It has five main concerns:
- to describe and account for observed changes in particular
languages;
- to reconstruct the pre-history of languages
and determine their relatedness, grouping them into language families
(comparative linguistics);
- to develop general theories about how and
why language changes...
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Language acquisition
Language acquisition is the study of the processes through which
learners acquire language. First Language Acquisition studies
the infants' acquisition of their native language, whereas Second
Language Acquisition deals with acquisition of additional languages
in both children and adults...
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Allophone
In phonetics, an allophone is one of several similar speech sounds
(phones) that belong to the same phoneme. A phoneme is an abstract
unit of speech sound that can distinguish words...
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Semiotics
Semiotics, semiotic studies, or semiology is the study of sign processes
(semiosis), or signification and communication, signs and symbols,
both individually and grouped into sign systems. It includes the
study of how meaning is constructed and understood...
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Phonemic orthography
A phonemic orthography is a writing system where the written graphemes
correspond to phonemes, the spoken sounds of the language. These
are sometimes termed true alphabets, but non-alphabetic writing
systems like syllabaries can be phonemic as well. Scripts with a
good grapheme-to-phoneme correspondence include those of...
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Modality
In semiotics, a modality is a particular way in which the information
is to be encoded for presentation to humans, i.e. to the type of
sign and to the status of reality ascribed to or claimed by a sign,
text or genre. It is more closely associated with the semiotics
of Charles Peirce (1839-1914) than Saussure (1857-1913) because
meaning is conceived as an effect of a set of signs...
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Semantics
Semantics is the study of meaning in communication. The word derives
from Greek σημαντικός
(semantikous), "significant",
from σημαίνω (semaino),
"to signify, to indicate" and that from σήμα
(sema), "sign, mark, token".
In linguistics it is the study of interpretation of signs as used
by agents or communities within particular circumstances and contexts.
It has related meanings in several other fields...
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Phonology
Phonology (word, speech, subject of discussion) is the systematic
use of sound to encode meaning in any spoken human language, or
the field of linguistics studying this use. Just as a language has
syntax and vocabulary, it also has a phonology in the sense of a
sound system. When describing the formal area of study, the term
typically describes linguistic analysis either beneath the word...
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Syntax
In linguistics, syntax (from Ancient Greek συν- syn-,
"together", and τάξις táxis,
"arrangement") is the study of the principles and rules for constructing
sentences in natural languages. In addition to referring to the
discipline, the term syntax is also used to refer directly to the
rules and principles that govern the sentence structure of any individual
language, as in "the syntax of Modern Irish". Modern research in
syntax attempts to describe languages in terms of such rules...
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Pragmatics
Pragmatics is the study of the ability of natural language speakers
to communicate more than that which is explicitly stated. The ability
to understand another speaker's intended meaning is called pragmatic
competence. An utterance describing pragmatic function is described
as metapragmatic. Another perspective is that pragmatics deals with
the ways we reach our goal in communication...
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Grammar framework
In theoretical linguistics, the following fundamental approaches
towards constructing grammar frameworks for natural languages are
distinguished...
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Adaptive grammar
An adaptive grammar is a formal grammar that explicitly provides
mechanisms within the formalism to allow its own production rules
to be manipulated...
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Philosophy of language
Philosophy of language is the reasoned inquiry into the nature,
origins, and usage of language. As a topic, the philosophy of language
for Analytic Philosophers is concerned with four central problems:
the nature of meaning, language use, language cognition, and the
relationship between language and reality. For Continental philosophers,
however, the philosophy of language tends to be dealt with, not
as a separate topic, but as a part of Logic, History or Politics...
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Glossolalia
Glossolalia or speaking in tongues is the vocalizing of fluent speech;
but unintelligible (not pre-cognitive) utterances, often as part
of religious practice. Its use (including use in this article) also
embraces Xenoglossy - speaking in a natural language that was previously
unknown to the speaker...
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Text linguistics
Text linguistics is a branch of linguistics that deals with texts
as communication systems. Its original aims lay in uncovering and
describing text grammars. The application of text linguistics has,
however, evolved from this approach to a point in which text is
viewed in much broader terms that go beyond...
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Multilingualism
The term multilingualism can refer to an individual speaker who
uses two or more languages, a community of speakers in which two
or more languages are used, or speakers of different languages.
Multilingual speakers outnumber monolingual speakers in the world's
population...
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Phonological hierarchy
Phonological hierarchy describes a series of increasingly smaller
regions of a phonological utterance. From larger to smaller units,
it is as follows...
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Phonetics topics
- Acoustic phonetics
- Active articulator
- Affricate
- Airstream mechanism
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First language
A first language (also mother tongue, native language, arterial
language, or L1) is the language a human being learns from birth.
A person's first language is a basis for sociolinguistic identity...
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Written language
A written language is the representation of a language by means
of a writing system. Written language is an invention in that it
must be taught to children, who will instinctively learn or create
spoken or gestural languages. A written language exists only as
a complement to a specific spoken or gestural language, and no natural
language is purely written. However, extinct languages may be in
effect purely written when only their writings survive...
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Syllable weight
In linguistics, syllable weight is the concept that
syllables pattern together according to the number and/or duration
of segments in the rime. In classical poetry, both Greek and Latin,
distinctions of syllable weight were fundamental to the meter of
the line...
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Writing system
A writing system is a type of symbolic system used
to represent elements or statements expressible in language...
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Formal language
A formal language is a set of words, i.e. finite
strings of letters, or symbols. The inventory from which these letters
are taken is called the alphabet over which the language is defined.
A formal language is often defined by means of a formal grammar.
Formal languages are a purely syntactical notion, so there is not
necessarily any meaning associated with them. To distinguish the
words that belong to a language from arbitrary words over its alphabet,
the former are sometimes called well-formed words...
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Language
A language is a dynamic set of visual, auditory,
or tactile symbols of communication and the elements used to manipulate
them. Language can also refer to the use of such systems as a general
phenomenon. Language is considered to be an exclusively human mode
of communication; although other animals make use of quite sophisticated
communicative systems, none of these are known to make use of all
of the properties that linguists use to define language…
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Linguistics
Linguistics is the scientific study of language,
encompassing a number of sub-fields. An important topical division
is between the study of language structure (grammar) and the study
of meaning (semantics). Grammar encompasses morphology (the formation
and composition of words), syntax (the rules that determine how
words combine into phrases and sentences) and phonology (the study
of sound systems and abstract sound units)…
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International auxiliary language
An international auxiliary language
(sometimes abbreviated as IAL or auxlang)
or interlanguage is a language meant for communication between people
from different nations who do not share a common native language.
An auxiliary language is primarily a second language…
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Controlled natural language
Controlled natural languages (CNLs) are subsets of
natural languages, obtained by restricting the grammar and vocabulary
in order to reduce or eliminate ambiguity and complexity. Traditionally,
controlled languages fall into two major types: those that improve
readability for human readers (e.g. non-native speakers), and those
that enable reliable automatic semantic analysis of the language…
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Grammar
Grammar is the field of linguistics that covers the
rules governing the use of any given natural language. It includes
morphology and syntax, often complemented by phonetics, phonology,
semantics, and pragmatics…
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The Celebration of Linguistic Diversity
Our planet has over six billion people who speak
between 6000 and 7000 different languages. A few languages are spoken
by hundreds of millions of speakers, such as English or Chinese,
but most are spoken by only a few thousand, or just a handful of
speakers…
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The Linguistic Analysis in a Translation
Translation, as an activity, has been a task
which has been performed for centuries. This is an activity whose
main concern is to facilitate the communication process. The professional
of translation reaches this goal by translating the information
received in a foreign language into the language of the person who
required his services, and vice versa…
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What’s behind what we say...
We spend our whole life repeating things we've heard since childhood, yet we seldom pause to mull over what we're actually saying. This is very often the case with popular sayings. I grew up with a grandmother who sprinkled her chatter with…
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Linguistics
and translation
Most linguistic theories involve several levels of analysis of text
(I use text here to include transcriptions of speech). For example
texts can be analysed from the point of view of phonology – the
organised system of sounds in a language. They can be analysed from
the point of view of morphology – the way that words in a language
can be analysed into meaningful units (or not, as the case may be)…
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Inttranews
Special Report: Andrew Wedel, assistant professor of linguistics,
University of Arizona
One of the most fascinating - and enduring - questions in linguistics
is how language gets its structure: is this structure genetically
determined, and innate, or does emerge over time under the influence
of physical and social constraints on its use? The issue is not
just an academic one: it has ramifications in fields as seemingly
wide apart as primatology and artificial intelligence …
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"1992" versus "Loisaida" (a Linguistic Tour of the Lower East Side)
We keep hearing on all sides that in 1992 at least twelve nations
of Europe will come together in a glorious embrace. Thanks to their
impeccable culture and wisdom developed over the centuries, they
will all get along perfectly and no longer have any need of such
lesser domains as the Americas, Asia, or Africa. Together at last,
this new European colossus will easily put such declining powers
as the US or the USSR in their place …
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