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A distinction without a difference is a type of logical fallacy where an author or speaker attempts to describe a distinction between two things where no discernible difference exists. [1] It is particularly used when a word or phrase has connotations associated with it that one party to an argument prefers to avoid.
A aggravate – Some have argued that this word should not be used in the sense of "to annoy" or "to oppress", but only to mean "to make worse". According to AHDI, the use of "aggravate" as "annoy" occurs in English as far back as the 17th century. In Latin, from which the word was borrowed, both meanings were used. Sixty-eight percent of AHD4's usage panel approves of its use in "It's the ...
A tree shows the words, phrases, and clauses that make up a sentence. Any word combination that corresponds to a complete subtree can be seen as a phrase. There are two competing principles for constructing trees; they produce 'constituency' and 'dependency' trees and both are illustrated here using an example sentence.
Every day (two words) is an adverb phrase meaning "daily" or "every weekday". Everyday (one word) is an adjective meaning "ordinary". [48] exacerbate and exasperate. Exacerbate means "to make worse". Exasperate means "to annoy". Standard: Treatment by untrained personnel can exacerbate injuries.
The higher the number of synonyms a word has, the higher the degree of ambiguity. [1] Like other kinds of ambiguity, semantic ambiguities are often clarified by context or by prosody. One's comprehension of a sentence in which a semantically ambiguous word is used is strongly influenced by the general structure of the sentence. [2]
The most common form of oxymoron involves an adjective–noun combination of two words, but they can also be devised in the meaning of sentences or phrases. One classic example of the use of oxymorons in English literature can be found in this example from Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, where Romeo strings together thirteen in a row: [11]
A globally ambiguous sentence is one that has at least two distinct interpretations and where reading the entire sentence does not resolve the ambiguity. Globally ambiguous sentences exist where no feature of the representation (i.e. word order) distinguishes the possible distinct interpretations.
Words combine to form phrases. A phrase typically serves the same function as a word from some particular word class. [3] For example, my very good friend Peter is a phrase that can be used in a sentence as if it were a noun, and is therefore called a noun phrase.