Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Object abstraction, or simply abstraction, is a concept wherein terms for objects become used for more abstract concepts, which in some languages develop into further abstractions such as verbs and grammatical words (grammaticalisation). Abstraction is common in human language, though it manifests in different ways for different languages.
A noun might have a literal (concrete) and also a figurative (abstract) meaning: "a brass key" and "the key to success"; "a block in the pipe" and "a mental block". Similarly, some abstract nouns have developed etymologically by figurative extension from literal roots (drawback, fraction, holdout, uptake).
In philosophy and the arts, a fundamental distinction is between things that are abstract and things that are concrete.While there is no general consensus as to how to precisely define the two, examples include that things like numbers, sets, and ideas are abstract objects, while plants, dogs, and planets are concrete objects. [1]
Embodied theories of language comprehension assume that abstract concepts, as well as concrete ones, are grounded in the sensorimotor system [4] [14] Some studies have investigated the activation of motor cortices using abstract and also concrete verbs, examining the stimulation of the motor cortices when comprehending literal action verbs ...
For example, the English plural marker has three allomorphs: /-z/ (bugs), /-s/ (bats), or /-ɪz,-əz/ (buses). An allomorph is a concrete realization of a morpheme, which is an abstract unit. That is parallel to the relation of an allophone and a phoneme.
A physical object (a possible referent of a concept or word) is considered concrete (not abstract) if it is a particular individual that occupies a particular place and time. However, in the secondary sense of the term 'abstraction', this physical object can carry materially abstracting processes.
By age 10, children's vocabulary development through reading moves away from learning concrete words to learning abstract words. [ 69 ] Generally, both conversation and reading involve at least one of the four principles of context that are used in word learning and vocabulary development: physical context, prior knowledge, social context and ...
Another example is the difference between thinking of abstract words such as justice or love and thinking of concrete words like elephant or chair. When abstract words are thought of, it is easier to think of them in terms of verbal codes—finding words that define them or describe them. With concrete words, it is often easier to use image ...