Language Arts: Figures of Speech, Verb Conjugation, and Semantics

Posted on Oct 1, 2024 in Arts and Humanities

Language Arts

Figures of Speech

We use various literary devices to make language more expressive, convey messages effectively, and draw attention to the author. These devices are classified into:

Phonetic Resources

These relate to the sounds of words:

Alliteration: Repeating a sound to produce sensory effects.
Paronomasia: Using two words with similar pronunciations but different meanings.

Morphosyntactic Resources

Anaphora: Repeating a word at the beginning of multiple lines or sentences.
Epiphora: Repeating a word at the end of multiple lines or sentences.
Anadiplosis: Repeating the last word of a verse at the beginning of the next.
Epanadiplosis: Repeating a word at the beginning and end of a verse.
Concatenation: Continuing Anadiplosis.
Hyperbaton: Altering the usual word order in a sentence.
Parallelism: Repeating syntactic structures or large groups of words.
Chiasmus: Cross-organization of syntactic structures.
Asyndeton: Omitting conjunctions between terms.
Polysyndeton: Using unnecessary conjunctions.
Ellipsis: Omitting an element of a sentence.

Semantic Resources

Simile: Comparing two elements (one real, one figurative) based on similarity.
Epithet: Adjectives expressing an implicit quality of a noun.
Metaphor: Identifying a real term with a figurative one, creating an image. The real term may be omitted.
Metonymy: Identifying a real term with a figurative one based on association, not similarity.
Synesthesia: Combining realities perceived by different senses.
Personification: Attributing human qualities to non-human entities.
Animalization: Attributing animal characteristics to humans (often derogatory).
Cosidification: Attributing object properties to humans.
Hyperbole: Exaggeration for emphasis or humor.
Dilogía: Using a polysemous word to evoke multiple meanings (common in advertising).
Enumeration: Listing elements of the same grammatical category.
Antithesis: Contrasting opposite terms.
Paradox: Presenting contradictory ideas with deeper meaning.
Rhetorical Question: A question not requiring an answer.
Irony: Saying the opposite of what is meant (often humorous).
Etopeya: Describing a person’s moral character.
Prosopography: Describing a person’s physical appearance.
Portrait: Combining moral and physical descriptions.
Caricature: A portrait exaggerating features for a distorted effect.

Verse Classification

Verses are classified by the number of syllables:

Arte Mayor: 9 or more syllables.
Arte Menor: 8 or fewer syllables.

To calculate syllables, consider the last word:

If it’s flat, count as is.
If it’s acute, add a syllable.
If it’s esdrújula, subtract a syllable.

Rhyme

Rhyme is the matching of letters and sounds in the last words of verses:

Consonant Rhyme: All phonemes match from the last stressed syllable.
Assonant Rhyme: Only vowels match.

Stanzas

Stanzas are groups of verses, classified by the number of verses.

Non-strophic Compositions

Romance: 8-syllable verses with assonant rhyme in even lines.
Ballad: 7-syllable verses with assonant rhyme in even lines.
Dirge Romance: 9-syllable verses with consonant rhyme.
Heroic Romance: 10-syllable verses with consonant rhyme.

Verb Conjugation

Spanish has three verb conjugations:

Verbs ending in -ar.
Verbs ending in -er.
Verbs ending in -ir.

Conjugations include simple (one verb) and compound (two verbs) forms.

There are three moods:

Indicative: Expresses real actions.
Subjunctive: Expresses uncertain or hypothetical actions.
Imperative: Expresses commands or requests.

Verb Formation

Verbs can be formed by adding suffixes (-ar, -ear, -ecer, -ificar, -izar) to nouns or adjectives. Prefixes (a-, en-, em-) may also be added.

Verb Form

Verbs consist of lexemes and morphemes. The lexeme is the infinitive without the ending (-ar, -er, -ir). It carries the verb’s meaning. Inflectional morphemes express person, number, tense, mood, aspect, and voice.

Person and Number

Person indicates whether the subject is first, second, or third. Number indicates whether the subject is singular or plural.

Classification of Verbal Forms

Impersonal Forms: Infinitive, gerund, and participle. They lack person, number, tense, and mood.
Personal Forms: Indicative, subjunctive, and imperative forms with inflections for person, number, tense, mood, and aspect. They can be simple or compound.

Monemes

Words are units of writing separated by spaces. Monemes are smaller linguistic units. Lexemes are monemes with lexical meaning. A lexical family is a set of words sharing the same lexeme.

Acronyms are words formed from initials. Abbreviations are words formed from letters or syllables of other words (not just initials).

Semantics

Semantic Field

A set of words sharing a semantic feature while differing in others (e.g., colors).

Hypernym and Hyponym

Hypernym: A word whose meaning includes another (e.g., “color” is a hypernym of “red”).
Hyponym: A word whose meaning is included in another (e.g., “red” is a hyponym of “color”).

Synonymy

Synonymy is the relationship between words with similar meanings:

Total Synonyms: Interchangeable in all contexts (e.g., “oculist” and “ophthalmologist”).
Partial Synonyms: Not always interchangeable (e.g., “avaricious,” “stingy,” “thrifty,” “miserly”).

Causes of synonymy include:

Technical vs. non-technical terms.
Literary vs. non-literary terms.
Colloquial vs. formal terms.
Dialectal vs. standard terms.
Archaic vs. current terms.
Foreign vs. native terms.

Denotation and Connotation

Denotation: The basic dictionary meaning of a word.
Connotation: The subjective or contextual meanings associated with a word (positive or negative).

Monosemy and Polysemy

Monosemy: Words with only one meaning (common in scientific terms).
Polysemy: Words with multiple meanings.

Taboo, Euphemism, and Dysphemism

Taboo: Words or expressions considered crude, vulgar, or offensive.
Euphemism: Substituting a taboo word with a more acceptable one.
Dysphemism: Substituting a taboo word with a humorous or distorted one.

Slang

Specialized meanings of words in certain language communities.

Antonymy

Antonymy is the opposition of words in meaning:

Gradual Antonyms: Intermediate grades exist between opposites (e.g., cold-warm-hot).
Complementary Antonyms: No intermediate grades exist (e.g., legal-illegal).
Reciprocal Antonyms: Words imply each other (e.g., buy-sell).

Antonyms can be formed with negative prefixes (in-, des-, a-) or by changing the word entirely.

Homonymy

Homonymy refers to words with the same or similar sound or spelling:

Homophones: Same sound, different spelling (e.g., “ola” and “hola”).
Homographs: Same sound and spelling (check grammatical category to distinguish from polysemy).

The Noun

Nouns are words with gender and number, used to describe people, animals, or things. They have implicit notions of gender and number and function as the core of noun phrases. They can be recognized by preceding articles, determiners, or descriptive adjectives.

Substantivation

Any word class can function as a noun in a specific context (e.g., adjectives, adverbs, conjunctions, prepositions, interjections, verbs, prepositional phrases). Substantivized adjectives with the neuter article “lo” acquire abstract meanings.

Abstract Nouns

Nouns can be concrete (referring to tangible things) or abstract (referring to intangible concepts). Abstract nouns often derive from adjectives (indicating qualities) or verbs (indicating actions).

Set Phrases

Set phrases are groups of words whose meaning is not the sum of their parts but a consolidated unit.

Compound Words

Compound words can be formed with elements from Latin or Greek, often used in scientific and humanistic disciplines (e.g., “cosmology,” “geography,” “topology”).

Cultisms and Patrimonial Words

Sometimes, a Latin word evolves into two Spanish words: a highly evolved one (patrimonial word) and one that retains its Latin form (cultism). This creates doublets (e.g., “asamblea” – cultism, “asamblea” – patrimonial word).