Grammar
Tenses
Present
Present Simple
Present Continuous
Present Perfect
Present Perfect Continuous
Past
Past Continuous
Past Perfect
Past Perfect Continuous
Past Simple
Future
Future Simple
Future Continuous
Future Perfect
Future Perfect Continuous
Passive and Active
Parts Of Speech
Nouns
Countable and uncountable nouns
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Singular and Plural nouns
Proper nouns
Nouns gender
Nouns definition
Concrete nouns
Abstract nouns
Common nouns
Collective nouns
Definition Of Nouns
Verbs
Stative and dynamic verbs
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Regular and irregular verbs
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Adverbs
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Adjectives
Quantitative adjective
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Numeral adjective
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Distributive adjective
Descriptive adjective
Demonstrative adjective
Pronouns
Subject pronoun
Relative pronoun
Reflexive pronoun
Reciprocal pronoun
Possessive pronoun
Personal pronoun
Interrogative pronoun
Indefinite pronoun
Emphatic pronoun
Distributive pronoun
Demonstrative pronoun
Pre Position
Preposition by function
Time preposition
Reason preposition
Possession preposition
Place preposition
Phrases preposition
Origin preposition
Measure preposition
Direction preposition
Contrast preposition
Agent preposition
Preposition by construction
Simple preposition
Phrase preposition
Double preposition
Compound preposition
Conjunctions
Subordinating conjunction
Correlative conjunction
Coordinating conjunction
Conjunctive adverbs
Interjections
Express calling interjection
Grammar Rules
Preference
Requests and offers
wishes
Be used to
Some and any
Could have done
Describing people
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Possession
Comparative and superlative
Giving Reason
Making Suggestions
Apologizing
Forming questions
Since and for
Directions
Obligation
Adverbials
invitation
Articles
Imaginary condition
Zero conditional
First conditional
Second conditional
Third conditional
Reported speech
Linguistics
Phonetics
Phonology
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Pragmatics
Linguistics fields
Syntax
Morphology
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pragmatics
History
Writing
Grammar
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Variety among languages
المؤلف: P. John McWhorter
المصدر: The Story of Human Language
الجزء والصفحة: 12-3
2024-01-08
407
Variety among languages. The first language has now morphed into 6,000 worldwide. The variety among them is awesome: they are not just variations on the French, German, and Russian we learn most often in school, nor are such languages as Chinese the limit in terms of the variation.
A. There are languages with clicks. The clicks change the meaning of words just as vowels and consonants do in English. The clicks are written with symbols that look rather like profanity in comic strips. In Nama, spoken in Namibia, hara means “swallow,” !hara means “to check out,” |hara means “to dangle,” and hara means “to repulse.” One click language has 48 different click sounds.
B. There are languages in Australia with just three verbs. In Jingulu, the only verbs are come, go, and do. Beyond this, Jingulu speakers use such expressions as “go a dive” and “do a sleep.”
C. There are languages that pack a whole sentence’s worth of meaning into one word. In Yupik Eskimo, to say, “He had not yet said again that he was going to hunt reindeer,” one says,
Tuntussuqatarniksaitengqiggtuq.