English language: Difference between revisions

m
no edit summary
mNo edit summary
Line 34: Line 34:
== English vocabulary ==
== English vocabulary ==


* English contains 170,000 to 220,000 words (when obsolete words are counted)
* English contains about 600,000 words
** when technical terms, mostly from Latin and Greek, are counted, there are about 1 million words  
** as counted by the Oxford English Dictionary, there are 171,476 words in current use and 47,156 obsolete words
*** the Dictionary also counts 250,000 "distinct" words, excluding inflections (word ending changes)
** when word definitions are counted, English has 1,402,895 words
*** i.e., the word "love" generally has five definitions in the dictionary
** when counting "headwords" and "lemmas" (words produced from a headword), English has 578,707 words
*** "headword" = a word from which other words are derived, such as "break > broken > broke
** see
*** [https://web.archive.org/web/20170909203258/https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/explore/how-many-words-are-there-in-the-english-language How many words are there in the Engli... | Oxford Dictionaries (archive.org)]
*** [[wikipedia:Corpus_linguistics#English_corpora|Corpus linguistics - Wikipedia]]
*** [https://www.babbel.com/en/magazine/language-most-words Which Language Has The Most Words? (babbel.com)]
*** [[wikipedia:List_of_dictionaries_by_number_of_words|List of dictionaries by number of words - Wikipedia]]
{| class="wikitable"
{| class="wikitable"
|+English Language Percent Distribution of Parts of Speech
|+English Language Percent Distribution of Parts of Speech in the Oxford English Dictionary
!Adjectives
!Adjectives
!Adverbs
!Adverbs
Line 47: Line 57:
!Verbs
!Verbs
|-
|-
|2.5
|25%
|5
|
|4.5
|
|4.5
|
|50%
|50%
|
|
Line 77: Line 87:


{| class="wikitable"
{| class="wikitable"
|+English Language Percent Distribution of Parts of Speech
|+English Language Percent Frequency of Use of Parts of Speech
!
!Adjectives
!Adjectives
!Adverbs
!Adverbs
Line 87: Line 98:
!Verbs
!Verbs
|-
|-
|2.5
|Conversational
|5
|2.5%
|4.5
|5%
|4.5
|4.5%
|50%
|4.5%
|
|15%
|
|5.5%
|7%
|16.5%
|12.5%
|-
|Formal/ Academic
|10%
|3%
|5%
|10%
|30%
|15%
|4%
|10%
|-
|-
|
|
|Adjectives
|Adverbs
|
|
|
|
|Nouns
|
|
|
|
|Verbs
|-
|
|
|
|
|-
|
|
|
|
Line 114: Line 138:
|
|
|}
|}
* source: [https://ginsengenglish.com/blog/parts-of-speech-in-english#:~:text=Take%20a%20look%20at%20the%20following%20table%20showing,to%20give%20a%20general%20sense%20of%20the%20proportions. The 9 Parts of Speech in English | Ginseng English] (from Biber, et. al., (1999). ''Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English.)''


[[Category:Language Arts]]
[[Category:Language Arts]]
[[Category:Linguistics]]
[[Category:Linguistics]]
[[Category:Language]]
[[Category:Language]]