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In the traditional grammar of Modern English, a phrasal verb typically constitutes a single semantic unit consisting of a verb followed by a particle (e.g., turn down, run into, or sit up), sometimes collocated with a preposition (e.g., get together with, run out of, or feed off of). Phrasal verbs ordinarily cannot be understood based upon the ...
An idiom is a common word or phrase with a figurative, non-literal meaning that is understood culturally and differs from what its composite words' denotations would suggest; i.e. the words together have a meaning that is different from the dictionary definitions of the individual words (although some idioms do retain their literal meanings – see the example "kick the bucket" below).
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In linguistics, phraseology is the study of set or fixed expressions, such as idioms, phrasal verbs, and other types of multi-word lexical units (often collectively referred to as phrasemes), in which the component parts of the expression take on a meaning more specific than, or otherwise not predictable from, the sum of their meanings when used independently.
Due to the English tendency toward conversion, the two classes are not always easily distinguished. 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 ...
TEFL usually takes place in non-English-speaking countries, while TESL takes place in the English-speaking world. When we speak of English as a foreign language (EFL), we are referring to the role of English for learners in a country where English is not spoken by the majority (what Braj Kachru calls the expanding circle). English as a second ...
The above five examples are the most common of phrase types; but, by the logic of heads and dependents, others can be routinely produced. For instance, the subordinator phrase: before that happened — Subordinator phrase (SP); the head is a subordinating conjunction —it subordinates the independent clause
American English has always shown a marked tendency to use nouns as verbs. [13] Examples of verbed nouns are interview, advocate, vacuum, lobby, pressure, rear-end, transition, feature, profile, spearhead, skyrocket, showcase, service (as a car), corner, torch, exit (as in "exit the lobby"), factor (in mathematics), gun ("shoot"), author (which disappeared in English around 1630 and was ...