Linguistic terminology terms | LETTER - N
What is a narrative discourse?
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Definition
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A narrative discourse is a discourse that is an account of events, usually in the past, that employs verbs of speech, motion, and action to describe a series of events that are contingent one on another, and that typically focuses on one or more performers of actions.
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Features
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Events are organized chronologically.
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First
or
third person
pronoun
forms are used.
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The text is oriented around a specific agent or agents.
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Examples
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Folk stories
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Stories about real or imagined ancestors, often containing supernatural elements
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Historical events
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Stories or accounts about the social and political history of the world and its contacts with the rest of the world
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Mythology
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Stories explaining origins, natural phenomena, or social and religious customs, often involving the supernatural
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Personal experience
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Accounts of significant events in the life of the narrator or the community
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Parts
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Exposition or setting
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Inciting moment
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Developing conflict
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Climax
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Denouement
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Final suspense
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Conclusion
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Generic
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A narrative discourse is a kind of
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What is a narrative text?
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Definition
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A narrative
text
is an account of events.
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Definition
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Nasalization is a way of pronouncing sounds characterized by resonance produced through the nose.
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What is a nasalized vowel?
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Definition
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A nasalized vowel is a vowel that is nasalized by a process in which the soft palate is lowered, opening the velum, which allows air to go through both the nasal and oral cavities.
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Definition
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A natural class is a set of sounds that have certain phonetic features in common.
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All the members of a natural class are affected in the same way in the same
environment
. Similarly, all members of a natural class have the same effect on other sounds that occur in their environment.
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For a group of sounds to constitute a natural class,
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they must all share one or more features and
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there should be no other sounds in the language that have this feature or combination of features.
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Examples (Isthmus Zapotec, Mexico)
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Examples (English)
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Kinds
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Here are some kinds of natural classes:
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Plosive
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Coronal consonant
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Voiced fricative
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Voiceless fricative
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Rounded vowel
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Sonorant
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Definition
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Necessity is a degree of contingency in modality that in
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Generic
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Necessity is a kind of
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Definition
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Negation is a
morphosyntactic operation
in which a lexical item denies or inverts the meaning of another lexical item or construction.
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A
negator
is a lexical item that expresses negation.
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Examples: Lexical items (English)
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What is a negative conditional relation?
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Definition
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A negative conditional relation is a conditional relation
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in which the consequent is related to the opposite meaning of the
antecedent
, and
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that is marked on
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the antecedent to carry the meaning equivalent to "unless," or
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the consequent to carry the meaning equivalent to "otherwise."
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Examples (English)
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Unless it rains, we’ll have our picnic.
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I was not informed; otherwise I should have taken some action.
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Generic
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A negative conditional relation is a kind of
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What is a negative purpose relation?
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Definition
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A negative purpose relation is a means-purpose relation in which the expressed intent is avoidance of a state or event. The state or event to be avoided is marked by a form equivalent to the meaning of "lest."
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Example (English)
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Generic
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A negative purpose relation is a kind of
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Definition
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Neuter gender is a grammatical gender that
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includes those
nouns
having
referents
which do not have distinctions of sex, and
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often includes some which do have a natural sex distinction.
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Examples (German)
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Here are some examples of words that have neuter gender [diacritical markings are not reproduced here]:
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das Festmahl
‘the banquet’
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das Madchen
‘the girl’
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Generic
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Neuter gender is a kind of
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Definition
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New information is information that is assumed by the
speaker
not
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Discussion
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New information typically
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is placed late in the sentence, and
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has a high amount of stress placed on the words representing it.
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Examples (English)
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Generic
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New information is a kind of
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Definition
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A new metaphor is a metaphor that is not already part of the conceptual system of a culture as reflected in its language.
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Example (English)
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Kind
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Here is a kind of new metaphor:
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Generic
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A new metaphor is a kind of
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Definition
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A newsmark is a move that treats a previous
utterance
as news and encourages further talk about it.
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Examples (English)
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Generic
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A newsmark is a kind of
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What is a next turn repair initiator?
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Definition
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A next turn repair initiator is an
utterance
, used in the
turn
after a
repairable
item, that prompts for a third turn repair in the next turn.
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Example (English)
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Kind
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Here is a kind of a next turn repair initiator:
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Generic
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A next turn repair initiator is a kind of
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Definition
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A nominal is a word which differs grammatically from a
noun
but functions as one.
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Example (English)
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Generic
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A nominal is a kind of
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What is a nominal clause?
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Examples (English)
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I know
that he is here.
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From
where I stood,
I saw the horse.
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Kind
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Here is a kind of nominal clause:
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Generic
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A nominal clause is a kind of
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What is a nominalization?
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Definition
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A nominalization is a noun phrase that has a systematic correspondence with a
clausal
predication
which includes a
head
noun
morphologically related to a corresponding
verb
.
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Example (English)
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Generic
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A nominalization is a kind of
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Definition
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Nominative case is the case that identifies
clause
subjects
in nominative-accusative languages. Nouns used in isolation have this case.
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Discussion
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Nominative case is not often formally marked in nominative-accusative languages.
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Generic
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Nominative case is a kind of
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What is a nonconventional implicature?
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Kinds
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Here are some kinds of nonconventional implicatures:
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Generic
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A nonconventional implicature is a kind of
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What is a nonconversational implicature?
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Kind
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Here is a kind of nonconversational implicature:
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Generic
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A nonconversational implicature is a kind of
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What is a nondefective illocutionary act?
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Generic
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A nondefective illocutionary act is a kind of
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Definition
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Nonextendedness is place deixis that has a component of meaning indicating that the location does not have length or area.
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Generic
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Nonextendedness is a kind of
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What is a nonfinite clause?
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Generic
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A nonfinite clause is a kind of
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What is a nonfinite verb?
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Definition
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A nonfinite verb is a verb that is not fully
inflected
for categories that are marked inflectionally in a language, such as the following:
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Kind
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Here is a kind of nonfinite verb:
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Generic
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A nonfinite verb is a kind of
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Definition
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Nonfuture tense is an absolute tense that
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Generic
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A nonfuture tense is a kind of
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Definition
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Nonpast tense is an absolute tense that
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Generic
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Nonpast tense is a kind of
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What is nonrecent past tense?
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Definition
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Nonrecent past tense is a past tense that refers to a time before the range of a contrasting
recent past tense
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Generic
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Nonrecent past tense is a kind of
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What is nonremote past tense?
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Definition
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Nonremote past tense is a past tense that refers to a time considered not more than a few days ago, in contrast to a
remote past tense
.
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Generic
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Nonremote past tense is a kind of
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What is a nonrestrictive relative clause?
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Definition
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A nonrestrictive relative clause is a relative clause that does not aid in the identification of the
referent
of its
head
noun
, but only provides information about it.
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Discussion
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A nonrestrictive relative clause is formally distinguished in some languages.
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Example (English)
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Generic
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A nonrestrictive relative clause is a kind of
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Definition
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Nonspecificity is a kind of definiteness, expressed by an interpretation of or grammatical marking on a
noun
or
noun phrase
, indicating that the
speaker
presumably does not know the identity of the
referent(s)
.
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Example (English)
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Generic
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A nonspecific is a kind of
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What is a nonvisual evidential?
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Definition
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A nonvisual evidential is a sensory evidential that signals that the
speaker
's evidence for the truth of his or her statement is derived from a sense other than sight.
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Kind
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Here is a kind of nonvisual evidential:
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Generic
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A nonvisual evidential is a kind of
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Definition
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A notional X is an X that is thought of informally or in extralinguistic terms.
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Examples
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A notional noun is a person, place or thing.
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A notional verb is a doing word.
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A notional sentence is a complete thought.
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Definition
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Not-yet tense is an absolute tense that refers to times at and before the moment of
utterance
in asserting the present and past nonoccurrence of an event or state. It tends to imply that the event or state is expected to occur in the future.
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This tense corresponds to the meaning of the English
not yet.
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Example (Luganda)
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Here is an example of not-yet tense:
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te- tu- nna- genda
NEG- we- NOT.YET- go
‘We have not yet gone.’
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Generic
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Not-yet tense is a kind of
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Definition
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A noun is a member of a syntactic class
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that includes words which refer to people, places, things, ideas, or concepts
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whose members may act as any of the following:
subjects
of the verb,
objects
of the verb,
indirect object
of the verb, or object of a preposition (or postposition), and
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most of whose members have inherently determined grammatical
gender
(in languages which
inflect
for gender).
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Discussion
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Nouns embody one of the most time-stable concepts in a language. As with verbs, however, this time-stability criterion defines only the
prototypical
nouns. Other, non-prototypical nouns must be identified by distributional similarities to prototypical nouns.
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Examples (English)
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These nouns are prototypical nouns in English because they are perceived as concrete, physical, compact entities which do not change significantly over time.
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The following nouns are less prototypical because they represent concepts or items that are not perceived as staying the same for a long period of time, or are not concrete:
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Kinds
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Here are some kinds of nouns:
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Generic
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A noun is a kind of
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Definition
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A noun adjunct is a
noun
that functions as a modifier of a noun.
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Example (English)
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Generic
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A noun adjunct is a kind of
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Definition
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A noun class system is a grammatical system that some languages use to overtly categorize
nouns
. Noun classes are
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often based, at least in part, on characteristics (such as gender, animacy, shape) of the
referents
of some of the nouns in each class, and
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distinguished by
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Discussion
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A finer distinction may be made, according to R. M. W. Dixon, between
prototypical
noun classes
(a grammatical system) and
noun classifiers
(a lexical set).
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Noun class
systems have the following characteristics:
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They typically comprise a closed set of two to twenty classes, into which all nouns in the language are divided.
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Typically, few or no nouns can occur in more than one class.
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Expression of the noun class is obligatory in all contexts.
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Class may be marked on the noun itself, but will also always be marked on other constituents in the noun phrase or in the sentence that show
concord (agreement)
with the noun.
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Examples:
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Most types of gender systems and concord systems; many IndoEuropean languages, Bantu languages, Niger Congo languages, Dyirbal (Australian)
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Conversely, languages with
noun classifier
sets have the following characteristics:
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Examples:
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Japanese, Chinese, Southeast Asian languages, Austronesian languages, Mayan languages, American Sign Language
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Not all noun classifying languages fit neatly into one of these two prototypes of linguistic categorization. Various intermediate types are attested in languages of the Americas (see
Craig 1986
4–5 ;
Payne, D. 1986
113, 129, 130 ).
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Examples (Spanish)
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Kinds
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Here are some kinds of noun classes:
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Generic
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A noun class is a kind of
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See also
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See the following for more information:
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Lakoff, G. 1987
91–114 (Chapter 6)
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Definition
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A noun phrase is a phrase that has a
noun
as its
head
.
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Discussion
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A noun phrase generally includes one or more modifying words, but allowance is usually made for single-word minimal noun phrases that are composed only of a noun or
pronoun
.
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Kind
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Here is a kind of noun phrase:
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Generic
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A noun phrase is a kind of
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What is a nuclear syllable?
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Definition
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A nuclear syllable is a syllable that carries maximum prominence, usually due to being stressed.
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Examples
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“I will give you a permit.” Stress is on the nuclear syllable
per
of
permit.
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“I will permit you to do it.” Stress is on the nuclear syllable
mit
of
permit.
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Definition
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Number is a
grammatical category
of
nouns
,
pronouns
, and
verb
agreement
that expresses count distinctions (such as "one" or "more than one").
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The count distinctions typically, but not always, correspond to the actual count of the
referents
of the marked noun or pronoun.
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Example (English)
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Kinds
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Here are some kinds of numbers:
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Generic
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A number is a kind of
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Definition
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A numeral is a word, functioning most typically as an adjective or pronoun, that expresses a
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Kinds
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Here are some kinds of numerals:
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Generic
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A numeral is a kind of
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