Linguistic prescriptionLinguistic prescription, or prescriptive grammar, is the establishment of rules defining preferred usage of language. These rules may address such linguistic aspects as spelling, pronunciation, vocabulary, syntax, and semantics. Sometimes informed by linguistic purism, such normative practices often suggest that some usages are incorrect, inconsistent, illogical, lack communicative effect, or are of low aesthetic value, even in cases where such usage is more common than the prescribed usage.
Latin conjugationIn linguistics and grammar, conjugation has two basic meanings. One meaning is the creation of derived forms of a verb from basic forms, or principal parts. The second meaning of the word conjugation is a group of verbs which all have the same pattern of inflections. Thus all those Latin verbs which in the present tense have 1st singular -ō, 2nd singular -ās, and infinitive -āre are said to belong to the 1st conjugation, those with 1st singular -eō, 2nd singular -ēs and infinitive -ēre belong to the 2nd conjugation, and so on.
Stratum (linguistics)In linguistics, a stratum (Latin for "layer") or strate is a language that influences or is influenced by another through contact. A substratum or substrate is a language that has lower power or prestige than another, while a superstratum or superstrate is the language that has higher power or prestige. Both substratum and superstratum languages influence each other, but in different ways. An adstratum or adstrate is a language that is in contact with another language in a neighbor population without having identifiably higher or lower prestige.
CognateIn historical linguistics, cognates or lexical cognates are sets of words that have been inherited in direct descent from an etymological ancestor in a common parent language. Because language change can have radical effects on both the sound and the meaning of a word, cognates may not be obvious, and often it takes rigorous study of historical sources and the application of the comparative method to establish whether lexemes are cognate. Cognates are distinguished from loanwords, where a word has been borrowed from another language.
Modal verbA modal verb is a type of verb that contextually indicates a modality such as a likelihood, ability, permission, request, capacity, suggestion, order, obligation, necessity, possibility or advice. Modal verbs generally accompany the base (infinitive) form of another verb having semantic content. In English, the modal verbs commonly used are can, could, may, might, shall, should, will, would, ought to, used to and dare A modal auxiliary verb gives information about the function of the main verb that it governs.
Realis moodA realis mood (abbreviated ) is a grammatical mood which is used principally to indicate that something is a statement of fact; in other words, to express what the speaker considers to be a known state of affairs, as in declarative sentences. Most languages have a single realis mood called the indicative mood, although some languages have additional realis moods, for example to express different levels of certainty. By contrast, an irrealis mood is used to express something that is not known to be the case in reality.
Irish languageIrish (Standard Irish: Gaeilge), also known as Gaelic 'geilIk, is a Goidelic language of the Insular Celtic branch of the Celtic language family, which is a part of the Indo-European language family. Irish is indigenous to the island of Ireland and was the population's first language until the 19th century, when English gradually became dominant, particularly in the last decades of the century. Today, Irish is still commonly spoken as a first language in areas of Ireland collectively known as the Gaeltacht, in which only 2% of Ireland's population lived in 2016.
Haitian CreoleHaitian Creole (ˈheɪʃən_ˈkriːoʊl; kreyòl ayisyen, kɣejɔl ajisjɛ̃; créole haïtien, kʁe.ɔl ai.sjɛ̃), commonly referred to as simply Creole, or Kreyòl in the Creole language, is a French-based creole language spoken by 10–12 million people worldwide, and is one of the two official languages of Haiti (the other being French), where it is the native language of the vast majority of the population. Northern, Central, and Southern dialects are the three main dialects of Haitian Creole.
Conditional sentenceConditional sentences are natural language sentences that express that one thing is contingent on something else, e.g. "If it rains, the picnic will be cancelled." They are so called because the impact of the main clause of the sentence is conditional on the dependent clause. A full conditional thus contains two clauses: a dependent clause called the antecedent (or protasis or if-clause), which expresses the condition, and a main clause called the consequent (or apodosis or then-clause) expressing the result.
Arabic verbsArabic verbs (فِعْل ALA; () أَفْعَال ALA), like the verbs in other Semitic languages, and the entire vocabulary in those languages, are based on a set of two to five (but usually three) consonants called a root (triliteral or quadriliteral according to the number of consonants). The root communicates the basic meaning of the verb, e.g. ك-ت-ب ALA 'write', ق-ر-ء ALA 'read', ء-ك-ل ALA 'eat'. Changes to the vowels in between the consonants, along with prefixes or suffixes, specify grammatical functions such as person, gender, number, tense, mood, and voice.
