Lexicography and Linguistic Components: A Concise Analysis
Lexicography and Linguistic Components
Lexicography: The science of linguistics that deals with the preparation of dictionaries. Components include: entrance, pronunciation, etymology, part of speech, definition, meanings, usage examples, idioms, and phrases.
Types of Dictionaries
Regulatory: Words must meet accepted prerequisites for use. The requirement for acceptance of a word is that it is commonly used.
Ideological: Words are ordered by the relation of meaning, although these dictionaries also include an alphabetic part.
Statements and Prayers
A statement is the smallest unit of communication that conveys full meaning. It is independent because it is limited by two breaks and has a distinct intonation.
A prayer (sentence) is a linguistic unit that can be analyzed as follows: it communicates a message with full sense, is independent (i.e., not belonging to another larger syntactic unit), is an intonation unit, and is separated from preceding and following prayers by two breaks in writing, represented by punctuation.
Impersonal Prayers
- Possible: Formed by transitive or intransitive verbs in the third person plural. The subject is not named because it is unknown or the speaker does not want to cite it.
- Unipersonales: Refer to phenomena of nature with verbs that are used only in the third person singular.
- Grammaticalized: Verbs are constructed to be done and be alone in the third person singular.
- Reflecting: Formed by ‘se’ + an active verb.
Classes of Prayers Based on Output
- Declarative: Can be affirmative or negative.
- Interrogative: Can be direct (the question is asked in question form) or indirect (made in an expository manner).
- Exclamatory
- Mandatory or Hortatory: Express a request.
- Desiderativas or Optional: Express a desire.
- Dubitativas: Express a possibility or doubt.
Semantic Classification of Nouns
- Common / Proper
- Concrete / Abstract
- Individual / Collective
- Countable / Uncountable
- Animate / Inanimate
Determinants
The main function of determinants is presenting the core noun and delineating the extent of its meaning without adding any lexical meaning. They act as complements.
Classes of Determinants
- Selected Articles: Show the noun as known (the, a, an).
- Indeterminate Articles: Introduce new realities (a, an, some).
- Demonstratives: (this, that, these, those) with their feminine and plural forms.
- Possessives: (my, your, his, her, its, our, their) with their feminine and plural forms.
- Indefinites: (much, many, everything, any, little, too).
- Numerals
- Interrogatives and Exclamatives
Adjectives
An adjective is a type of word that relates to a noun, agrees in gender and number, and functions as a complement to the noun, attribute of the adjective, or predicative complement.
Degrees of Adjectives
- Positive Degree: Merely expresses the quality of the adjective without comparing it to other beings (e.g., “a flower is white”).
-
Comparative Degree: The quality of the adjective is compared with that of other beings. There are three types:
- Equality: “Your gift is as nice as mine.”
- Superiority: “Your father is more generous than mine.”
- Inferiority: “The engine has less horsepower than mine.”
Noun Phrase (NP) Functions
- Subject: “The festival paid tribute to a friend.”
- Vocative: “Waiter, bring me a soda.”
- Complement of a Noun: “The art exhibition can be visited.”
- Complement of an Adjective: “This is a tamed animal.”
- Predicative Complement: “Mary was elected mayor.”
Verbal Periphrasis
Verbal periphrasis functions as the predicate and is constructed with a conjugated auxiliary verb followed by an infinitive, a gerund, or a participle.