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Most English compound nouns that consist of more than two words can be constructed recursively by combining two words at a time. Combining "science" and "fiction", and then combining the resulting compound with "writer", for example, can construct the compound "science fiction writer" or "science-fiction writer".
For example, the English compound white-collar is neither a kind of collar nor a white thing. In an exocentric compound, the word class is determined lexically, disregarding the class of the constituents. For example, a must-have is not a verb but a noun. The meaning of this type of compound can be glossed as "(one) whose B is A", where B is ...
A compound modifier that is spaced rather than hyphenated is referred to as an open compound. [2] When a numeral and a noun are used in a compound modifier that precedes a noun, the noun takes the singular form. For example, the 2021 Belmont Stakes was a "12-furlong race" and an "eight-horse race", not a "12-furlongs race" or an "eight-horses ...
Grammatical abbreviations are generally written in full or small caps to visually distinguish them from the translations of lexical words. For instance, capital or small-cap PAST (frequently abbreviated to PST) glosses a grammatical past-tense morpheme, while lower-case 'past' would be a literal translation of a word with that meaning.
Lexical semantics (also known as lexicosemantics), as a subfield of linguistic semantics, is the study of word meanings. [1] [2] It includes the study of how words structure their meaning, how they act in grammar and compositionality, [1] and the relationships between the distinct senses and uses of a word.
This is a list of dictionaries considered authoritative or complete by approximate number of total words, or headwords, included. number of words in a language. [1] [2] In compiling a dictionary, a lexicographer decides whether the evidence of use is sufficient to justify an entry in the dictionary.
homonym: 1: a: a word pronounced like another, but differing in meaning or derivation or spelling—also known as a homophone (e.g. to, too, two). b: a word spelled like another, but differing in derivation or meaning or pronunciation—also known as a homograph or heteronym (lead, to conduct, and lead, the metal).
In its strictest sense, tmesis (/ ˈ t m iː s ɪ s, t ə ˈ m iː-/; plural tmeses / ˈ t m iː s iː s, t ə ˈ m iː-/; Ancient Greek: τμῆσις tmēsis – "a cutting" < τέμνω temnō, "I cut") is a word compound that is divided into two parts, with another word infixed between the parts, thus constituting a separate word compound.