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The English modal auxiliary verbs are a subset of the English auxiliary verbs used mostly to express modality, properties such as possibility and obligation. [a] They can most easily be distinguished from other verbs by their defectiveness (they do not have participles or plain forms [b]) and by their lack of the ending ‑(e)s for the third-person singular.
For example, the nonce word wug coined by Jean Berko Gleason is phonologically well-formed, so informants are able to pluralize it regularly. [1] A word, phrase, clause, or utterance may be grammatically well-formed, meaning it obeys the rules of morphology and syntax. A semantically well-formed utterance or sentence is one that is meaningful ...
In some languages (Spanish, Welsh, Indonesian, etc.), the postpositive placement of adjectives is the normal syntax, but in English it is largely confined to archaic and poetic uses (e.g., "Once upon a midnight dreary", as opposed to "Once upon a dreary midnight") as well as phrases borrowed from Romance languages or Latin (e.g., heir apparent ...
In the English language, an honorific is a form of address conveying esteem, courtesy or respect. These can be titles prefixing a person's name, e.g.: Mr, Mrs, Miss, Ms, Mx, Sir, Dame, Dr, Cllr, Lady, or Lord, or other titles or positions that can appear as a form of address without the person's name, as in Mr President, General, Captain, Father, Doctor, or Earl.
Ain't has been called "the most stigmatized word in the language", [25] as well as "the most powerful social marker" in English. [26] It is a prominent example in English of a shibboleth – a word used to determine inclusion in or exclusion from, a group. [25] Historically, this was not so.
Semantics studies meaning in language, which is limited to the meaning of linguistic expressions. It concerns how signs are interpreted and what information they contain. An example is the meaning of words provided in dictionary definitions by giving synonymous expressions or paraphrases, like defining the meaning of the term ram as adult male sheep. [22]
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The American Heritage Guide writes that, "while using whilst runs the risk of sounding pretentious, it can sometimes add a literary or ironically formal note to a piece of writing". [ 11 ] Practical English Usage by Michael Swan ( OUP ), a reference book for intermediate and advanced learners of English, does not include whilst but has several ...