Linguists have long known that sign languages are as grammatically and logically sophisticated as spoken languages—and also make greater use of "iconicity," the property by which some words refer to things by resembling ...
Other
Sep 24, 2024
0
2
Speech consists of a continuous stream of acoustic signals, yet humans can segment words from each other with astonishing precision and speed. To find out how this is possible, a team of linguists has analyzed durations of ...
Social Sciences
Sep 24, 2024
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75
Computerized large language models (LLMs) are making inroads into the realm of literature. Their ability to generate coherent texts and mimic all manner of writing styles has sparked lively debate among writers, literary ...
Social Sciences
Sep 17, 2024
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4
Think about the terms you use and why you started using them. Do you describe circular traffic patterns as "roundabouts," "traffic circles" or "rotaries?" Is your beverage preference called "pop," "soda" or "coke?" Do you ...
Social Sciences
Sep 13, 2024
0
72
For young children, taking the first step towards reading can feel like an uphill task. This is because a child might find it easy to recognize individual letters but combining them into sentences can be overwhelming in the ...
Education
Jun 26, 2024
0
0
UC Merced researchers are shedding light on a little-explored aspect of cross-cultural communication that involves no spoken words but sometimes can cause confusion and anguish for children acting as interpreters for older ...
Social Sciences
Apr 5, 2024
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2
New research from the University of Warwick reveals that words like "sex" endure in our language in a "survival of the fittest" way, similar to natural selection.
Social Sciences
Jan 3, 2024
0
104
New research at Aston University has shown that extra practice in blending printed letter sounds can help struggling beginner readers in reception classes learn to read.
Education
Nov 27, 2023
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10
These days, "Star Wars" is everywhere. There are numerous films and all kinds of merchandise. But is "Star Wars" also an integral part of the English language? That is the question Prof Dr. Christina Sanchez-Stockhammer, ...
Social Sciences
Nov 27, 2023
0
154
Languages around the world have words for "this" and "that" according to new research from an international team, led by the University of East Anglia. Researchers studied more than 1,000 speakers of 29 different languages ...
Social Sciences
Oct 30, 2023
0
46
A word is the smallest free form (an item that may be uttered in isolation with semantic or pragmatic content) in a language, in contrast to a morpheme, which is the smallest unit of meaning. A word may consist of only one morpheme (e.g. cat), but a single morpheme may not be able to exist as a free form (e.g. the English plural morpheme -s).
Typically, a word will consist of a root or stem, and zero or more affixes. Words can be combined to create other units of language, such as phrases, clauses, and/or sentences. A word consisting of two or more stems joined together form a compound. A word combined with an already existing word or part of a word form a portmanteau.
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