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English does not allow topic-drop, as evidenced by the insertion of expletive subjects in sentences such as There is rain. Yang notes that in English child-directed speech, children very rarely hear expletive subjects. Yang asserts that this leads English-acquiring children to momentarily conclude that English is a topic-drop language.
This list comprises widespread modern beliefs about English language usage that are documented by a reliable source to be misconceptions. With no authoritative language academy, guidance on English language usage can come from many sources. This can create problems, as described by Reginald Close:
Speech errors are made on an occasional basis by all speakers. [1] They occur more often when speakers are nervous, tired, anxious or intoxicated. [1] During live broadcasts on TV or on the radio, for example, nonprofessional speakers and even hosts often make speech errors because they are under stress. [1]
The speaker reports an event on the basis of someone else's report (quotative, i.e. hearsay evidence), of a dream (revelative evidence), of a guess (presumptive evidence) or of his own previous experience (memory evidence)." Jakobson also was the first to clearly separate evidentiality from grammatical mood.
A thesaurus (pl.: thesauri or thesauruses), sometimes called a synonym dictionary or dictionary of synonyms, is a reference work which arranges words by their meanings (or in simpler terms, a book where one can find different words with similar meanings to other words), [1] [2] sometimes as a hierarchy of broader and narrower terms, sometimes simply as lists of synonyms and antonyms.
The term antonym (and the related antonymy) is commonly taken to be synonymous with opposite, but antonym also has other more restricted meanings. Graded (or gradable) antonyms are word pairs whose meanings are opposite and which lie on a continuous spectrum (hot, cold).
Studies of English language students have found that ESL learners tend to rely on using synonyms rather than changing sentence structure when paraphrasing. Participants in a study of some Vietnamese ESL learners expressed that they preferred using synonyms out of a fear that using the wrong sentence structure would lead to the sentence having a ...
The Well-Spoken Thesaurus by Tom Heehler (Sourcebooks 2011), is an American style guide and speaking aid. The Chicago Tribune calls The Well-Spoken Thesaurus "a celebration of the spoken word". [1] The book has also been reviewed in the Winnipeg Free Press, [2] and by bloggers at the Fayetteville Observer, [3] and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer ...