Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
An unpaired word is one that, according to the usual rules of the language, would appear to have a related word but does not. [1] Such words usually have a prefix or suffix that would imply that there is an antonym , with the prefix or suffix being absent or opposite.
An example is "inept," which seems to be "in-" + *"ept," although the word "ept" itself does not exist [citation needed]. Such words are known as unpaired words. Opposites may be viewed as a special type of incompatibility. [1] Words that are incompatible create the following type of entailment (where X is a given word and Y is a different word ...
Likewise, a potential word can be blocked if it is a synonym of an existing word. An older, more common word blocks a potential synonym, known as token-blocking. For example, the word stealer ("someone who steals") is also rarely used, because the word thief already exists. Not only individual words, but entire word formation processes may be ...
English does have some words that are associated with gender, but it does not have a true grammatical gender system. "English used to have grammatical gender. We started losing it as a language ...
Which is indeed the nature of many unpaired words, except that normally the pairing is intuitively plausible (even if etymologically invalid). — Smjg 00:02, 7 October 2011 (UTC) See my note at the end of samples — Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.192.1.67 17:55, 23 December 2011 (UTC)
Specimen of typefaces used to write numerous languages – from the 1728 Cyclopædia by letter founder William Caslon. A written language is the representation of a language by means of writing. This involves the use of visual symbols, known as graphemes, to represent linguistic units such as phonemes, syllables, morphemes, or words.
Essays of Michel de Montaigne. An essay is, generally, a piece of writing that gives the author's own argument, but the definition is vague, overlapping with those of a letter, a paper, an article, a pamphlet, and a short story.
A one-letter word is a word composed of a single letter. The application of this apparently simple definition is complex, due to the difficulty of defining the notions of word and letter. One-letter words have an uncertain status in language theory, dictionaries and social usage.