Frankly, I'm not really a grammar guy, but here are a few glyphs we can pile up along the bottom of a word to depict its place in the grand scheme of things.
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First Person [I, me, us] (an arm pointing to me) |
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Second Person [you] (a finger pointing to you) |
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Third Person [him, she, they] (based on a drawing of the eye to indicate a person or thing seen.) |
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Plural (stolen directly from Egyptian hieroglyphics.) |
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The definite article, a subscript of the glyph [that] |
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Past tense (rewind button.) |
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Future tense (fast forward button.) |
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Imperative |
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Passive mood (a recliner chair.) |
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To turn a Adjective into a Verb. ("to make ___") |
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To turn a Noun into a Adjective. [___-like] (from mathematics. "approximately equals") |
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To turn a Noun into a Adjective. [-ful] |
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To turn a Noun into a Verb. ("to make like".) |
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To turn a Noun into an infinitive Verb. (The opposite of the symbol below; also v for verb.) |
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To turn a Verb into a Noun. (Simplified symbol of standing, status, to mean "the state of".) |
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Possessive or genitive (I invented this symbol to suggest the English word "of" and the French "de".) |
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Agent [-er, -man] |
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The Plus Sign indicates Comparative [-er, more] |
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Superlative (Double-plus) [-est, most] |
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Diminutive [-ette, mini-] ("Less than or equal to") |
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Negative [Un-, Non-] |
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Really Negative [Dis-, Anti-] |
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Reflexive [-self] (a mirror) |
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Possible [-ible] (from logic) |
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Masculine | ||||||||||
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Feminine | ||||||||||
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Really (When the image is primarily used as a metaphor for an abstract concept, this changes it to meaning exactly what it shows.) |
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Metaphorically (When the image is primarily used as a realistic icon, this changes it to a subtler metaphor for a more generic concept.) |
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Last updated October 2004
Copyright © 2003-04 Matthew White
