Computational semanticsComputational semantics is the study of how to automate the process of constructing and reasoning with meaning representations of natural language expressions. It consequently plays an important role in natural-language processing and computational linguistics. Some traditional topics of interest are: construction of meaning representations, semantic underspecification, anaphora resolution, presupposition projection, and quantifier scope resolution. Methods employed usually draw from formal semantics or statistical semantics.
Word orderIn linguistics, word order (also known as linear order) is the order of the syntactic constituents of a language. Word order typology studies it from a cross-linguistic perspective, and examines how different languages employ different orders. Correlations between orders found in different syntactic sub-domains are also of interest. The primary word orders that are of interest are the constituent order of a clause, namely the relative order of subject, object, and verb; the order of modifiers (adjectives, numerals, demonstratives, possessives, and adjuncts) in a noun phrase; the order of adverbials.
Alternation (linguistics)In linguistics, an alternation is the phenomenon of a morpheme exhibiting variation in its phonological realization. Each of the various realizations is called an alternant. The variation may be conditioned by the phonological, morphological, and/or syntactic environment in which the morpheme finds itself. Alternations provide linguists with data that allow them to determine the allophones and allomorphs of a language's phonemes and morphemes and to develop analyses determining the distribution of those allophones and allomorphs.
Generalized quantifierIn formal semantics, a generalized quantifier (GQ) is an expression that denotes a set of sets. This is the standard semantics assigned to quantified noun phrases. For example, the generalized quantifier every boy denotes the set of sets of which every boy is a member: This treatment of quantifiers has been essential in achieving a compositional semantics for sentences containing quantifiers. A version of type theory is often used to make the semantics of different kinds of expressions explicit.
English languageEnglish is a West Germanic language in the Indo-European language family. It originated in early medieval England and, today, is the most spoken language in the world and the third most spoken native language, after Mandarin Chinese and Spanish. English is the most widely learned second language and is either the official language or one of the official languages in 59 sovereign states. There are more people who have learned English as a second language than there are native speakers.
Sentence (linguistics)In linguistics and grammar, a sentence is a linguistic expression, such as the English example "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog." In traditional grammar it is typically defined as a string of words that expresses a complete thought, or as a unit consisting of a subject and predicate. In non-functional linguistics it is typically defined as a maximal unit of syntactic structure such as a constituent.
Mutual intelligibilityIn linguistics, mutual intelligibility is a relationship between languages or dialects in which speakers of different but related varieties can readily understand each other without prior familiarity or special effort. It is sometimes used as an important criterion for distinguishing languages from dialects, although sociolinguistic factors are often also used. Intelligibility between languages can be asymmetric, with speakers of one understanding more of the other than speakers of the other understanding the first.
Fewer versus lessFewer versus less is the debate revolving around grammatically using the words fewer and less correctly. The common perspective of today is that fewer should be used (instead of less) with nouns for countable objects and concepts (discretely quantifiable nouns, or count nouns). On the other hand less should be used only with a grammatically singular noun (including mass nouns). This distinction was first expressed by grammarian Robert Baker in 1770, and has been supported as a general rule since then by other notable grammarians.
Language interpretationInterpreting is a translational activity in which one produces a first and final target-language output on the basis of a one-time exposure to an expression in a source language. The most common two modes of interpreting are simultaneous interpreting, which is done at the time of the exposure to the source language, and consecutive interpreting, which is done at breaks to this exposure. Interpreting is an ancient human activity which predates the invention of writing.
PossessiveA possessive or ktetic form (abbreviated or ; from possessivus; κτητικός) is a word or grammatical construction indicating a relationship of possession in a broad sense. This can include strict ownership, or a number of other types of relation to a greater or lesser degree analogous to it. Most European languages feature possessive forms associated with personal pronouns, like the English my, mine, your, yours, his and so on. There are two main ways in which these can be used (and a variety of terminologies for each): Together with a noun, as in my car, your sisters, his boss.
