Appendix:Glossary
Welcome to the glossary!
| Contents: | A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z |
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A
- absolute superlative
- An inflection, or different form, of a comparable adjective showing a relative quality, used to express a superlative that cannot be exceeded, having the sense as [adjective] as possible or very/absolutely/completely [adjective]. (See also comparative, superlative and degrees of comparison.) It usually contrasts with relative superlative.
C
- comparable
- Of an adjective or adverb: able to be compared, having comparative and superlative forms that end in -er and -est (adjectives only), or in conjunction with the words more or most, or sometimes further or furthest. Examples: big, bigger, and biggest; talented, more talented, and most talented; upstairs, further upstairs, and furthest upstairs. Some adjectives are truly uncomparable, such as daily, additional, and else. Many other adjectives, such as unique, existential, and bearable are generally considered uncomparable, but controversially so, where examples can be readily cited of something being "more bearable" or "most perfect".
- comparative
- An inflection, or different form, of a comparable adjective showing a relative quality, usually denoting "to a greater extent" but not "to the ultimate extent". (See also superlative and degrees of comparison.) In English, the comparative form is usually formed by appending -er, or using the word more. For example, the comparative of hard is "harder"; of difficult, "more difficult".
- conjugation
- The inflection of verbs. See also declension.
- countable
- Describes a noun which can be freely used with the indefinite article (a or an in English) and with numbers, and which therefore has a plural form. Antonym: uncountable or mass noun.
D
- declension
- The inflection of nouns and words like them, or used together with them (i.e. nominals). See also conjugation.
- degrees of comparison
- Inflections of adjectives and adverbs which allow comparisons. English has three degrees of comparison: positive, comparative and superlative. Some other languages have other degrees, e.g.: comparative superlative, relative superlative, elative.
- depersonal
- In Radestrian grammar, depersonalisation refers to the morphosyntactic phenomenon of verbs losing their personal endings to preceding conjunctions or particles, thus carrying only number φ-features. They are typically listed as their own forms in tables. Not to be confused with impersonal verbs.
- dual, dual number
- A grammatical number that indicates exactly two items or individuals. Usually contrasts with singular and plural.
F
- first person
- A grammatical person that indicates the speaker him/her/itself, or a group to which the speaker belongs. Examples are the English pronouns I and we.
G
- gender
- A way of classifying nouns in some languages. In such languages, each noun has a specific gender (often determined by its meaning and/or form), and other words (especially adjectives and pronouns) will often change form to agree with the noun's gender. See also noun class.
I
- indefinite
- Refers to forms of words that present something as not yet identified or not immediately identifiable; in English, this is the basic meaning of the article a; in some languages, this is a nominal or adjectival inflection.
- inflection
- The change in form of a word to represent various grammatical categories, such as tense (e.g. past tense, present tense, future tense) or number (e.g. singular, plural). For example, the verb run may be inflected to produce runs, ran, and running. In highly inflected languages, such as Latin, there will be many more forms. Two major types of inflection are conjugation (inflection of verbs) and declension (inflection of nouns, adjectives, and pronouns).
M
- masculine
- Belonging to the male grammatical gender, in languages that have gender distinctions.
N
- nominal
- Related to nouns. See also denominal.
- As a noun, it refers to any part of speech that is noun-like in some way, and normally includes nouns themselves along with adjectives, pronouns and determiners. The inflection of nominals is commonly called declension.
P
- part of speech
- The category that a word belongs to, with respect to how it's used as part of phrases and sentences. Examples are nouns, adjectives and verbs. The part of speech is inherent in the word itself, and is independent of any specific role that the word may have within any given sentence (e.g. subject, direct object). Words may belong to more than one part of speech: English this is both a determiner and a pronoun, while coat is both a noun and a verb.
- person, grammatical person
- A grammatical category that indicates the relationship between the speaker and what is being spoken of. Examples are first person, second person and third person.
- plural, plural number
- A grammatical number that indicates multiple items or individuals. Most languages contrast it with singular, and plural indicates two or more. Some languages also possess the dual or even trial numbers; in these instances the plural indicates more than the highest specific number.
- pronoun
- A part of speech that acts as a substitute for a noun or noun phrase and refers to a topic of the discussion. Pronouns can refer to a participant in the discussion and can be used instead of a person's name, such as with the pronouns I and you. Other pronouns, such as he, she, and it, can be used to refer to other people or objects that have already been mentioned without repeating their names.
R
- reflexive
- Referring back to the subject, or having an object equal to the subject. Pronouns can be reflexive (e.g. myself, oneself). Romance and Slavic languages make extensive use of reflexive verb forms (e.g. Italian lavarsi, Spanish lavarse (“to wash oneself”)). These are part of a larger group of pronominal verbs.
- relative superlative
- An inflection, or different form, of a comparable adjective showing a relative quality, used to express the highest degree of something in relation to something else. (See also comparative, superlative and degrees of comparison.) It usually contrasts with absolute superlative. In Laefevian the relative superlative is equivalent to the superlative in English.
S
- second person
- A grammatical person that indicates the person or group to whom one is speaking. Examples are the English pronouns you and thou.
- singular, singular number
- A grammatical number that indicates exactly one item or individual. Usually contrasts with plural, and, in some languages, with dual.
- superlative
- An inflection, or different form, of a comparable adjective showing a relative quality, denoting "to the ultimate extent". (See also comparative and degrees of comparison.) In English, the superlative form is often formed by appending -est, or using the word most. For example, the superlative of big is "biggest"; of confident, "most confident".
- synonym
- A word or phrase with a meaning that is the same as, or very similar to, another word or phrase. Contrast antonym.
T
- third person
- A grammatical person that indicates someone or something that is neither the person or group to which the speaker belongs, nor the person or group that the speaker is speaking to. Examples are the English pronouns he, she, it, this, that, and so on. All nouns are generally considered third person. In some languages (like German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, and Hungarian), the third_person conjugation is also used to express the formal you (sometimes combined with the plural and/or capitalizing the personal pronoun in writing).
U
- uncomparable, not comparable
- (of adjectives) unable to be compared, or lacking a comparative and superlative function. See comparable. Examples of adjectives that are not comparable: annual, first, extra, satin, six-figure.
- uncountable
- A noun that cannot be used freely with numbers or the indefinite article, and which therefore usually takes no plural form. For example, the English noun information is a mass noun, and at least in its principal senses is uncountable in most varieties of English. For those senses, we cannot say that we have *one information, nor that we have *many information (or *many informations). Many mass noun senses often have corresponding plural count senses that denote types of the mass sense, instances of the mass sense, or portions (servings) of the mass sense. For example, the main sense of butter is the uncountable sense, so the plural form butters is seldom used, although it occasionally is used to mean "types of butter" (many herb butters contain garlic) or "[packets of] butter". Compare also other implicit references to a container and the portion/serving that it contains (get me a water, order two sodas, have a few beers). Many languages do not distinguish between countable and uncountable nouns. Antonym: countable or count noun.