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The way a sentence is spoken, however, can change its meaning which is the vocal channel. This channel of language conveys emotions felt by the speaker and gives us as listeners a better idea of the intended meaning. Nuances in this channel are expressed through intonation, intensity, a rhythm which combined for prosody. Usually these channels ...
An idiom is a common word or phrase with a figurative, non-literal meaning that is understood culturally and differs from what its composite words' denotations would suggest; i.e. the words together have a meaning that is different from the dictionary definitions of the individual words (although some idioms do retain their literal meanings – see the example "kick the bucket" below).
Contrastive stress is another everyday English example of phrasal prosody that helps us determine what parts of the sentence are important. Take these sentences for example: A man went up the STAIRS; Emphasizing that the STAIRS is how the man went up. A MAN went up the stairs; Emphasizing that it was a MAN who went up the stairs. [37]
Often, for a sentence in presumptive mood, no exact translation can be constructed in English which conveys the same nuance. The Romanian sentence, acolo s-o fi dus "he must have gone there" shows the basic presupposition use, while the following excerpt from a poem by Eminescu shows the use both in a conditional clause de-o fi "suppose it is ...
The words constituting idioms are stored as catenae in the lexicon, and as such, they are concrete units of syntax. The dependency grammar trees of a few sentences containing non-constituent idioms illustrate the point: The fixed words of the idiom (in orange) in each case are linked together by dependencies; they form a catena.
A famous example for lexical ambiguity is the following sentence: "Wenn hinter Fliegen Fliegen fliegen, fliegen Fliegen Fliegen hinterher.", meaning "When flies fly behind flies, then flies fly in pursuit of flies." [40] [circular reference] It takes advantage of some German nouns and corresponding verbs being homonymous. While not noticeable ...
Descriptive sentences: are truthful and observable sentences (opinion- and assumption-free) that identify the most relevant factors in a social situation. They often answer "why" questions. They often answer "why" questions.
Uses of figurative language, or figures of speech, can take multiple forms, such as simile, metaphor, hyperbole, and many others. [10] Merriam-Webster's Encyclopedia of Literature says that figurative language can be classified in five categories: resemblance or relationship, emphasis or understatement, figures of sound, verbal games, and errors.