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Split infinitive. A split infinitive is a grammatical construction in which an adverb or adverbial phrase separates the "to" and "infinitive" constituents of what was traditionally called the "full infinitive", but is more commonly known in modern linguistics as the to-infinitive (e.g., to go). In the history of English language aesthetics, the ...
Split sentence. In United States law, a split sentence is a sentence under which the defendant serves up to half of his term of imprisonment outside of prison. Martha Stewart received a split sentence. [1] The Bureau of Prisons ' general counsel has opined that when an offender has received a sentence of imprisonment, the Bureau of Prisons does ...
Comma splices are similar to run-on sentences, which join two independent clauses without any punctuation or a coordinating conjunction such as and, but for, etc. Sometimes the two types of sentences are treated differently based on the presence or absence of a comma, but most writers consider the comma splice a special type of run-on sentence. [7]
Linguistics. In linguistics, grammar is the set of rules for how a natural language is structured, as demonstrated by its speakers or writers. Grammar rules may concern the use of clauses, phrases, and words. The term may also refer to the study of such rules, a subject that includes phonology, morphology, and syntax, together with phonetics ...
On the de re (non-split) reading, this sentence means that there is no employee such that the company needs to fire that employee. This is a non-split scope reading since "no" simply takes scope above the modal "need". On the split scope reading of this sentence, it means that it is not the case that the company needs to fire any employees.
e. In linguistic typology, ergative–absolutive alignment is a type of morphosyntactic alignment in which the single argument ("subject") of an intransitive verb behaves like the object of a transitive verb, and differently from the agent ("subject") of a transitive verb. [1] Examples include Basque, Georgian, Mayan, Tibetan, and certain Indo ...
T-unit. In linguistics, the term T-unit was coined by Kellogg Hunt in 1965. [1] It is defined as the "shortest grammatically allowable sentences into which (writing can be split) or minimally terminable unit." Often, but not always, a T-unit is a sentence. More technically, a T-unit is a dominant clause and its dependent clauses: as Hunt said ...
Preposition stranding. Preposition stranding or p-stranding is the syntactic construction in which a so-called stranded, hanging or dangling preposition occurs somewhere other than immediately before its corresponding object; for example, at the end of a sentence. The term preposition stranding was coined in 1964, predated by stranded ...