SIMILE

SIMILE

A simile  is a figure of speech that directly compares two things through the explicit use of connecting words (such as like, as, so, than, or various verbs such as resemble). Although similes and metaphors are sometimes considered to be interchangeable, similes acknowledge the imperfections and limitations of the comparative relationship to a greater extent than metaphors. Metaphors are subtler and therefore rhetorically stronger in that metaphors equate two things rather than simply compare them. Similes also safeguard the author against outrageous, incomplete, or unfair comparison. Generally, metaphor is the stronger and more encompassing of the two forms of rhetorical analogies. While similes are mainly used in forms of poetry that compare the inanimate and the living, there are also terms in which similes and personifications are used for humorous purposes and comparison.

Function of Simile

From the above discussion, we can infer the function of similes both in our everyday life as well as in literature. Using similes attracts the attention and appeals directly to the senses of listeners or readers encouraging their imagination to comprehend what is being communicated. In addition, it inspires life-like quality in our daily talks and in the characters of fiction or poetry. Simile allows readers to relate the feelings of a writer or a poet to their personal experiences. Therefore, the use of similes makes it easier for the readers to understand the subject matter of a literary text, which may have been otherwise too demanding to be comprehended. Like metaphors, similes also offer variety in our ways of thinking and offers new perspectives of viewing the world.

http://literarydevices.net/simile/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simile

We can find simile examples in our daily speech. We often hear comments like “John is as slow as a snail.” Snails are notorious for their slow pace and here the slowness of John is compared to that of a snail. The use of “as” in the example helps to draw the resemblance. Some more examples of common similes are given below.

Common Examples of Simile

• Our soldiers are as brave as lions.
• Her cheeks are red like a rose.
• He is as funny as a monkey.
• The water well was as dry as a bone.
• He is as cunning as a fox.

Simile inputs vividness into what we say. Authors and poets utilize comparisons to convey their sentiments and thoughts through vivid word pictures like a simile.

Simile Examples in Literature

Example

Written by Joseph Conrad,

“I would have given anything for the power to soothe her frail soul, tormenting itself in its invincible ignorance like a small bird beating about the cruel wires of a cage.”

The lines have been taken from Lord Jim. The helplessness of the soul is being compared with a bird in a cage beating itself against the merciless wires of the cage, to be free.

In her novel To the Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf compares the velocity of her thoughts about the two men with that of spoken words.

“. . . impressions poured in upon her of those two men, and to follow her thought was like following a voice which speaks too quickly to be taken down by one’s pencil . . .”

She says both are difficult to follow and cannot be copied in words by a pencil.

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Metaphor

Metaphor

Metaphor is a figure of speech which makes an implicit, implied or hidden comparison between two things that are unrelated but share some common characteristics. In other words, a resemblance of two contradictory or different objects is made based on a single or some common characteristics.

http://literarydevices.net/metaphor/

Similes and metaphors are both used to make comparisons or elucidate concepts.

Metaphors simply state a comparison. Similes use the words “like” or “as” to compare things. Because they both make comparisons, all similes are metaphors, but not all metaphors are similes.

Here are some examples of similes and metaphors:

Life is like a box of chocolates. (Simile)

My life is an open book. (Metaphor)

That baby is as cute as a button! (Simile)

Baby, you’re a firework. (Metaphor)

Most of us think of a metaphor as a device used in songs or poems only, and that it has nothing to do with our everyday life. In fact, all of us in our routine life speak, write and think in metaphors. We cannot avoid them. Metaphors are sometimes constructed through our common language. They are called conventional metaphors. Calling a person a “night owl” or an “early bird” or saying “life is a journey” are common conventional metaphor examples commonly heard and understood by most of us. Below are some more conventional metaphors we often hear in our daily life:

• My brother was boiling mad. (This implies he was too angry.)
• The assignment was a breeze. (This implies that the assignment was not difficult.)
• It is going to be clear skies from now on. (This implies that clear skies are not a threat and life is going to be without hardships)
• The skies of his future began to darken. (Darkness is a threat; therefore, this implies that the coming times are going to be hard for him.)
• Her voices is music to his ears. (This implies that her voice makes him feel happy)

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Euphemism

                                                     Euphemism

 

The term euphemism refers to polite, indirect expressions which replace words and phrases considered harsh and impolite or which suggest something unpleasant.

Euphemism is an idiomatic expression which loses its literal meanings and refers to something else in order to hide its unpleasantness. For example, “kick the bucket” is a euphemism that describes the death of a person. In addition, many organizations use the term “downsizing” for the distressing act of “firing” its employees.

Euphemism depends largely on the social context of the speakers and writers where they feel the need to replace certain words which may prove embarrassing for particular listeners or readers in a particular situation.

Techniques for Creating Euphemism

Euphemism masks a rude or impolite expression but conveys the concept clearly and politely. Several techniques are employed to create euphemism.

It may be in the form of abbreviations e.g. B.O. (body odor), W.C. (toilet) etc.

Foreign words may be used to replace an impolite expression e.g. faux (fake), or faux pas (foolish error) etc.

Sometimes, they are abstractions e.g. before I go (before I die).

They may also be indirect expressions replacing direct ones which may sound offensive e.g. rear-end, unmentionables etc.

Using longer words or phrases can also mask unpleasant words e.g. flatulence for farting, perspiration for sweat, mentally challenged for stupid etc.

Using technical terms may reduce the rudeness exhibited by words e.g. gluteus maximus.

Deliberately mispronouncing an offensive word may reduce its severity e.g. darn, shoot etc.

Euphemism Examples in Everyday Life

Euphemism is frequently used in everyday life. Let us look at some common euphemism examples:

You are becoming a little thin on top (bald).

Our teacher is in the family way (pregnant).

He is always tired and emotional (drunk).

We do not hire mentally challenged (stupid) people.

He is a special child (disabled or retarded).

Examples of Euphemism in Literature

Example #1

Examples of euphemism referring to sex are found in William Shakespeare’s “Othello” and “Antony and Cleopatra”. In “Othello”, Act 1 Scene 1, Iago tells Brabantio:

“I am one, sir, that comes to tell you your daughter and the Moor are now making the beast with two backs.”

Here, the expression “making the beast with two backs” refers to the act of having sex.

Similarly, we notice Shakespeare using euphemism for sexual intercourse in his play “Antony and Cleopatra”. In Act 2 Scene 2, Agrippa says about Cleopatra:

“Royal wench!

She made great Caesar lay his sword to bed.

He plowed her, and she cropped.”

The word “plowed” refers to the act of sexual intercourse and the word “cropped” is a euphemism for becoming pregnant.

Example #2

John Donne in his poem “The Flea” employs euphemism. He says:

“Mark but this flea, and mark in this,

How little that which thou denies me is;

It suck’d me first, and now sucks thee,

And in this flea our two bloods mingled be.

Thou know’st that this cannot be said

A sin, nor shame, nor loss of maidenhead;

Yet this enjoys before it woo,

And pamper’d swells with one blood made of two;

And this, alas! is more than we would do.”

In order to persuade his beloved to sleep with him, the speaker in the poem tells her how a flea bit both of them and their blood got mixed in it. This is a euphemism.

Example #3

“The Squealer”, a character in George Orwell’s “Animal Farm”, uses euphemisms to help “the pigs” achieve their political ends. To announce the reduction of food to the animals of the farm, Orwell quotes him saying:

“For the time being,” he explains, “it had been found necessary to make a readjustment of rations.”

Substituting the word “reduction” with “readjustment” was an attempt to suppress the complaints of other animals about hunger. It works because reduction means “cutting” food supply while readjustment implies changing the current amount of food.

Function of Euphemism

Euphemism helps writers to convey

A euphemism /ˈjufəˌmɪzəm/ is a generally innocuous word or expression used in place of one that may be found offensive or suggest something unpleasant.[1] Some euphemisms are intended to amuse; while others use bland, inoffensive terms for things the user wishes to downplay. Euphemisms are used to refer to taboo topics (such as disability, sex, excretion, and death) in a polite way, or to mask profanity.[2]

There are three antonyms of euphemism: dysphemism, cacophemism, and loaded language. Dysphemism can be either offensive or merely ironic; cacophemism is deliberately offensive. Loaded language evokes a visceral response beyond the meaning of the words.

Etymology

Euphemism comes from the Greek word εὐφημία (euphemia), meaning "the use of words of good omen", which in turn is derived from the Greek root-words eû (εὖ), "good, well" and phḗmē (φήμη) "prophetic speech; rumour, talk".[3] Etymologically, the eupheme is the opposite of the blaspheme "evil-speaking." The term euphemism itself was used as a euphemism by the ancient Greeks, meaning "to keep a holy silence" (speaking well by not speaking at all).[4]

Purpose

Euphemism use ranges from a polite concern for propriety, to attempting to escape responsibility for war crimes. For instance one reason for the comparative scarcity of written evidence documenting the exterminations at Auschwitz (at least given the scale) is "directives for the extermination process obscured in bureaucratic euphemisms."[5] Columnist David Brooks called the euphemisms for torture at Abu Ghraib, Guantánamo and elsewhere an effort to "dull the moral sensibility."[6]

Formation

Phonetic modification

Phonetic euphemism is used to replace profanities, giving them the intensity of a mere interjection.

Shortening or "clipping" the term ("Jeez" for Jesus, "What the—" for "What the hell")

Mispronunciations, such as "Frak", "Frig" "What the fudge", "What the truck", "Oh my gosh", "Frickin", "Darn", "Oh, shoot", "Be-yotch", etc.

Using the first letter ("SOB", "What the eff", "Suck my D", "BS"). Sometimes, the word "word" is added after it ("F word", "S word", "B word"). Also, the letter can be phonetically respelled, for example, the word "piss" was shortened to "pee" (pronounced as the letter P) in this way.

NOTE: Contrary to popular belief, the words "crap" and "freaking" are not euphemisms for "shit" and "fucking." However, crap is a synonym and is nearly as vulgar as shit, and freaking can refer to obscene and sexual dancing. Crap, on the other hand, can refer to a dice game; to which the word "shit" isn't associated with.

Figures of speech

Ambiguous statements (it for excrement, the situation or "a girl in trouble" for pregnancy, going to the other side for death, do it or come together in reference to a sexual act, tired and emotional for drunkenness)

Understatements ("asleep" for "dead", "drinking" for "consuming alcohol", "hurt" for "injured", etc.)

Metaphors ("beat the meat" or "choke the chicken" for masturbation, "take a dump" and "drain the main vein" for defecation and urination respectively).

Comparisons ("buns" for "buttocks", "weed" for "cannabis").

Metonymy ("lose a person" for "coping with a person's death", "pass away" for "die", "men's room" for "men's toilet").

Rhetoric Edit

Euphemism may be used as a rhetorical strategy, in which case its goal is to change the valence of a description from positive to negative.

Using a less harsh term with similar meaning. For instance, "screwed up" is a euphemism for "fucked up"; "hook-up", "we hooked up", or "laid" for sexual intercourse

There is some disagreement over whether certain terms are or are not euphemisms. For example, sometimes the phrase visually impaired is labeled as a politically correct euphemism for blind. However, visual impairment can be a broader term, including, for example, people who have partial sight in one eye, those with uncorrectable mild to moderate poor vision.

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referent

                                                                     referent

A referent /ˈrɛfərənt/ is a person or thing to which a linguistic expression or other symbol refers. For example, in the sentence Mary saw me, the referent of the word Mary is the particular person called Mary who is being spoken of, while the referent of the word me is the person uttering the sentence.

Two expressions which have the same referent are said to be co-referential. In the sentence John had his dog with him, for instance, the noun John and the pronoun
him are co-referential, since they both refer to the same person (John).




In fields such as semantics and semiotics, a distinction is made between a referent and a reference. Reference is a relationship in which a symbol or sign (a word, for example) signifies something; the referent is the thing signified. The referent may be an actual person or object, or may be something more abstract, such as a set of actions.[3][4]

Reference and referents were considered at length in the 1923 book The Meaning of Meaning by the Cambridge scholars C. K. Ogden and I. A. Richards. Ogden has pointed out that reference is a psychological process, and that referents themselves may be psychological – existing in the imagination of the referrer, and not necessarily in the real world.[5] For further ideas related to this observation, see absent referent and failure to refer.

In syntax
Considerations of the possible arrangement of expressions which may be co-referential – having the same referent – have been undertaken by linguists engaged in the study of syntax, particularly since Noam Chomsky's launch of Government and Binding Theory (GBT) in the 1980s. The subject of binding is largely concerned with the possible syntactic positions of co-referential noun phrases and pronouns. Attempts are made to explain phenomena such as that illustrated by the following pair of sentences:

Before she dried off, Mary was wet.
She dried off because Mary was wet.
In the first sentence, she and Mary may have the same referent (she may refer to Mary), but in the second they normally cannot. More details of these considerations can be found in the articles on GBT and binding linked to above.

In computing
Considerations of references and their referents are sometimes of importance in computing and programming.[6] References play a role in the Perl programming language, for example, and the ref function is used to obtain the type of the referent of an object.

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symbol

symbol

"Symbology" redirects here. For other uses, see Symbology (disambiguation) and Symbol (disambiguation).

A red octagon symbolizes "stop" even without the word.

A symbol is a person or a concept that represents, stands for or suggests another idea, visual image, belief, action or material entity. Symbols take the form of words, sounds, gestures, ideas or visual images and are used to convey other ideas and beliefs. For example, a red octagon may be a symbol for "STOP". On a map, a blue line might represent a river. Numerals are symbols for numbers. Alphabetic letters may be symbols for sounds. Personal names are symbols representing individuals. A red rose may symbolize love and compassion. The variable x in a mathematical equation may symbolize the position of a particle in space.
In cartography, an organized collection of symbols forms a legend for a map.

Paul Tillich argued that, while signs are invented and forgotten, symbols are born and die.^[12] There are, therefore, dead and living symbols. A living symbol can reveal to an individual hidden levels of meaning and transcendent or religious realities. For Tillich a symbol always "points beyond itself" to something that is unquantifiable and mysterious; symbols open up the "depth dimension of reality itself".^[13] Symbols are complex, and their meanings can evolve as the individual or culture evolves. When a symbol loses its meaning and power for an individual or culture, it becomes a dead symbol. The Greek Gods might be an example of symbols that were once living for the ancient Greeks but whose meaning and power are now gone.^[14]
When a symbol becomes identified with the deeper reality to which it refers, it becomes idolatrous as the "symbol is taken for reality." The symbol itself is substituted for the deeper meaning it intends to convey. The unique nature of a symbol is that it gives access to deeper layers of reality which are otherwise inaccessible.^[15]


 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbol

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SYNTAX

SYNTAX

1. Definition of syntax

Based on the experts, Syntax is a central component of human language. Language has often been characterized as a systematic correlation between certain types of gestures and meaning. It is not the case that every possible meaning that can be expressed is correlated with a unique, unanalyzable gesture, be it oral or manual. Rather, each language has stock of meaning-bearing elements and different ways of combining them to express different meaning, and these ways of combining them are themselves meaningful.(Robert and Valin, 2001). Syntax can thus be given the following characterization, taken from Matthews (1982:1) the term ‘syntax’ is from the Ancient Greek syntaxis, a verbal noun which literally means ‘arrangement’ or ‘setting out together’. Traditionally, it refers to the branch of grammar dealing with the ways in which words, with or without appropriate inflections, are arranged to show connections of meaning within the sentence. Similar to the explanation of Matthew, Robert and Van Valin (2001) expresses the essence of itself as the following syntax: “First and foremost, syntax deals with how sentences are constructed, and users of human language employ a striking variety of possible arrangements of the element in sentences”.

Syntax is the study of the principles and processes by which sentences are constructed in particular languages. Syntactic investigation of a given language has as its goal the construction of a grammar that can be viewed as a device of some sort for producing the sentences of the language under analysis.   (Chomsky, 2002)

The study of syntax is the study of how words combine to from phrases and ultimately sentences in languages. Because it consists of phrases that are put together in a particular way, a sentences has a structure. The structure consists of way in which the words are organized into phrases and the phrases are organized into larger phrases. The study of phrases and sentences structure is sometimes called grammar. (Tserdanelis and Wong, 2004)

The syntax of a language is the set of properties which determine the construction of sentences in that language. If a sentence is constructed according to those properties it is well formed or grammatical. If a sentence is constructed  in violation of those properties it is ill-formed or ungrammatical. The study of syntax involves uncovering those properties of language which are involved in the construction of grammatical sentence in particular languages. (Hawkins, 2001)

Syntax is the system of rules and categories that allows words to be combined to the form of sentence. The data that linguists use to study syntax consists primarily of judgments about grammaticality of individual sentence. Roughly speaking, a sentence is considered grammatical if speakers judge it to be a possible sentence of their language. (O’grady, at all.,1989)

                 Syntax is that part of our linguistics knowledge which concerns the structure of sentences. Knowing a language also means being able to put words together to form sentences to express our thoughts. (Fromkin and Rodman,1983)

                 From the experts’ explanation above we can conclude that syntax is the study of internal structure of sentences. In this case, it explains how words are arranged become phrases and clauses for constructing sentence. It is commonly we call structure. Structure manages how words can be combined with another for creating good sentence.

2. Basic idea of syntax

1.      Word ordering and meaning

The order of words in a sentences or phrases is connected to its literal meaning. The basic underlying word order in an English sentence is subject-verb-object (S-V-O). (Murcia and Freeman,1999). Consider the English sentences :

a.       Joe writes poetry

The factors determines the meaning of sentences: (1) the selection of words plays a role in determining the literal meaning of the sentences, (2) the orders of words play a role the literal meaning of the sentences. (Tserdanelis and Wong, 2004). See the two examples:

a.   The mat is on the cat

b.   The cat is on the mat

2.      Ambiguity

As we have studied before, there is factor determining what a sentence means. Consider the following examples:

a.       Can you tell me the time?

b.      We had the president for dinner.

c.       We need more intelligent administrators.

d.      Pat shot the soldier with a telescope.

All three sentences are ambiguous-that is, they have more than one meaning. The first sentences is ambiguous because it can be used either as a straightforward question (“ are you able to tell me the time?”) . we  call this pragmatic ambiguity. The second  sentence is ambiguous because the expression have for dinner can mean either “ host for dinner” or “ have for dinner”. This type of ambiguity is called lexical ambiguity. The third sentence , this sentence also has two meaning. On one meaning, we need administrators who are more intelligent. On the other meaning, we need a grater number of intelligent administrators. The type of ambiguity is called structure ambiguity. (Tserdanelis and Wong, 2004)

3. Phrase Structure

a.       Lexical categories

In English the main categories are Nouns(N), Verb(V), Adjectives(A), Prepositions(P), and Adverbs(Adv).

b.      Phrasal categories

The phrasal categories are built up from the lexical categories (their head) in the ways that we have already illustrated. The phrasal categories are NP(noun phrases), VP(verb phrases), AP(adjective phrases), PP(preposisition phrases) , AdvP(adverb phrase). (Tserdanelis and Wong, 2004)

a.       Noun phrases is any phrase which can act as a complete subject, object, etc. in a sentence; e.q.  “The big red block”, “ Most of the three coaches”.

b.      Verb phrases is basically a verb plus its complement (s); e.g. “ gave the parcel to the clerk”

c.       Prepositional phrases may be required (for instance, by a verb that it comes after) to contain a particular preposition.

d.      Adjective phrases usually consist of single adjectives, but it is possible for these to be accompanied by an indication of degree ad some number of adverb as modifier, as in “very commonly used”.

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MORPHOLOGY

MORPHOLOGY

Etymologically, Morph = form or shape, ology = study of. Morphology is the study of the basic building blocks of meaning in language. These building blocks, called morphemes, are the smallest units of form that bear meaning or have a grammatical function. Morphology is the study of word formation in a particular language. It focuses especially on the internal structure of the words and their alteration through the addition of prefixes and suffixes. 
   THE COMPOSITION OF WORD

Word-composition is a productive type of word-building, in which new words are produced by combining two or more stems. E.g.: campsite, bluebird, whitewash, in-laws, jumpsuit.
Type of words composition:

Composition:

·       Netral:

  *Simple

  *Derived

  *Contracted

·         Morphological

·         Syntactic     
 

MORPHEMES

Etymologicall, morpheme from the French, by analogy with phoneme, from the Greek, "shape, form”. The smallest functioning unit in the composition of words, and the minimal distinctive unit of grammar. Morphemes are commonly classified into free forms (morphemes which can occur as separate words) adn bound forms (morphemes which cannot so occur - mainly affixes). A further distinction may be made between lexical and grammatical morphemes; the former are morphemes used for the construction of new words in a language; the latter are morphemes used to express grammatical relationships between a word and its context. Words are not the most basic units of meaning. They are frequently composed of even more basic elements.

a. obvious: homework, dinnertime, moonlight, classroom

b. medium: fearless, quickly,

c. cult: walks, tenth, dog's, flipped,

The most basic elements of meaning are called morphemes. Each of the preceding examples contained at least 2 morphemes. We can take, for instance, "th" from "tenth" and say that it has a meaning all to itself { namely, "the ordinal numeral corresponding to the cardinal numeral I'm attached to"

dog   dogs

walk  walked

sad    sadly

If you were to look up these words in a dictionary you would not find them listed as eight separate words. You would find only four listings of the words in the first column, i.e. dog, walk, sad and run. The words in the second column would be shown within each listing as a variation of the listed word. For example, the word dog is used to mean a domesticated animal belonging to the same family as the fox, wolf and jackal. The word dogs would then be shown as the plural of dog, i.e. meaning more than one. Grammatically, then, words can be divided into smaller elements. In the example just discussed, one such element is dog and the other element is -s, which can be added to dog to make it plural. These smaller elements are known as morphemes.

In morpheme-based morphology, word forms are analyzed as arrangements of morphemes. A morpheme is defined as the minimal meaningful unit of a language. In a word like independently, we say that the morphemes are in-, depend, -ent, and ly; depend is the root and the other morphemes are, in this case, derivational affixes.In a word like dogs, we say that dog is the root, and that -s is an inflectional morpheme. In its simplest (and most naïve) form, this way of analyzing word forms treats words as if they were made of morphemes put after each other like beads on a string, is called Item-and-Arrangement. More modern and sophisticated approaches (among them, Distributed Morphology) seek to maintain the idea of the morpheme while accommodating non-concatenative, analogical, and other processes that have proven problematic for Item-and-Arrangement theories and similar approaches.

Morpheme-based morphology presumes three basic axioms (cf. Beard 1995 for an overview and references):

Baudoin’s single morpheme hypothesis: Roots and affixes have the same status as morphemes.

Bloomfield’s sign base morpheme hypothesis: As morphemes, they are dualistic signs, since they have both (phonological) form and meaning.

Bloomfield’s lexical morpheme hypothesis: The morphemes, affixes and roots alike, are stored in the lexicon.

Morpheme-based morphology comes in two flavours, one Bloomfieldian and one Hockettian. (cf. Bloomfield 1933 and Charles F. Hockett 1947). For Bloomfield, the morpheme was the minimal form with meaning, but it was not meaning itself. For Hockett, morphemes are meaning elements, not form elements. For him, there is a morpheme plural, with the allomorphs -s, -en, -ren etc. Within much morpheme-based morphological theory, these two views are mixed in unsystematic ways, so that a writer may talk about "the morpheme plural" and "the morpheme -s" in the same sentence, although these are different things.

Morphemes (bound or free) can be either content or function morphemes.

·         Content morphemes carry some semantic content

as opposed to performing a grammatical function.

For example car, -able, -un.

·         Function morphemes act solely to provide

grammatical information and syntactic agreement.

and, plural –s.

Note that these are not simply different names for the derivational/inflectional distinction { D/I morphemes are all bound, while content/function morphemes may be free as well (e.g, prepositions are free function morphemes).

A word can be analyzed as consisting of one morpheme (sad) or two or more morphemes (unluckily; compare luck, lucky, unlucky), each morpheme usually expressing a distinct meaning. When a morpheme is represented by a segment, that segment is a morph. If a morpheme can be represented by more than one morph, the morphs are allomorphs of the same morpheme: the prefixes in- (insane), il- (illegible), im- (impossible), ir- (irregular) are allomorphs of the same negative morpheme.

In addition to serving as resources in the creation of vocabulary, morphemes supply grammatical tags to words, helping us to identify on the basis of form the parts of speech of words in sentences we hear or read. For example, in the sentence Morphemes supply grammatical tags to words, the plural morpheme ending {-s} helps identify morphemes, tags, and words as nouns; the {-ical} ending underscores the adjectival relationship between grammatical and the following noun, tags, which it modifies.

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