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Periphrasis
 
 
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In linguistics
Linguistics

Linguistics is the science study of natural language. Linguistics encompasses a number of sub-fields. An important topical division is between the study of language structure and the study of Meaning ....
, periphrasis is a device by which a grammatical
Grammar

Grammar is the field of linguistics that covers the conventions governing the use of any given natural language. It includes morphology and syntax, often complemented by phonetics, phonology, semantics, and pragmatics....
 category or relationship is expressed by a free morpheme (typically one or more function word
Function word

Function words are words that have little lexical Meaning or have ambiguous meaning, but instead serve to express grammar relationships with other words within a Sentence , or specify the attitude or mood of the speaker....
s modifying a content word), instead of being shown by inflection
Inflection

In grammar, inflection or inflexion is the way language handles grammatical relations and relational categories such as grammatical tense, grammatical mood, grammatical voice, grammatical aspect, grammatical person, grammatical number, grammatical gender, grammatical case....
 or derivation
Derivation (linguistics)

In linguistics, derivation is "Used to form new words, as with happi-ness and un-happy from happy, or determination from determine....
. For example, the English
English language

English is a West Germanic language that originated in Anglo-Saxon England and has lingua franca status in many parts of the world as a result of the military, economic, scientific, political and cultural influence of the British Empire in the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries and that of the United States from the mid 20th century onwa...
 future tense is periphrastic: it is formed with an auxiliary verb
Auxiliary verb

In linguistics, an auxiliary is a verb functioning to give further semantics or syntax information about the main or full verb following it....
 (shall or will) followed by the base form of the main verb. Another example is the comparative
Comparative

In grammar, the comparative is the form of an adjective or adverb which denotes the degree or grade by which a person, thing, or other entity has a property or quality greater or less in extent than that of another, and is used in this context with a subordinating conjunction, such as than, as...as, etc....
 and superlative
Superlative

In grammar the superlative of an adjective or adverb is the greatest form of adjective or adverb which indicates that something has some feature to a greater degree than anything it is being compared to in a given context....
 forms of adjectives, when they are formed with the words more and most rather than with the suffix
Suffix

In grammar, a suffix is an affix which is placed after the stem of a word. Common examples are case endings, which indicate the grammatical case of nouns or adjectives, and verb endings, which form the grammatical conjugation of verbs....
es -er and -est: the forms more beautiful and most beautiful are periphrastic, while lovelier and loveliest are not.

Periphrasis is a characteristic of analytic languages, which tend to avoid inflection.






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In linguistics
Linguistics

Linguistics is the science study of natural language. Linguistics encompasses a number of sub-fields. An important topical division is between the study of language structure and the study of Meaning ....
, periphrasis is a device by which a grammatical
Grammar

Grammar is the field of linguistics that covers the conventions governing the use of any given natural language. It includes morphology and syntax, often complemented by phonetics, phonology, semantics, and pragmatics....
 category or relationship is expressed by a free morpheme (typically one or more function word
Function word

Function words are words that have little lexical Meaning or have ambiguous meaning, but instead serve to express grammar relationships with other words within a Sentence , or specify the attitude or mood of the speaker....
s modifying a content word), instead of being shown by inflection
Inflection

In grammar, inflection or inflexion is the way language handles grammatical relations and relational categories such as grammatical tense, grammatical mood, grammatical voice, grammatical aspect, grammatical person, grammatical number, grammatical gender, grammatical case....
 or derivation
Derivation (linguistics)

In linguistics, derivation is "Used to form new words, as with happi-ness and un-happy from happy, or determination from determine....
. For example, the English
English language

English is a West Germanic language that originated in Anglo-Saxon England and has lingua franca status in many parts of the world as a result of the military, economic, scientific, political and cultural influence of the British Empire in the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries and that of the United States from the mid 20th century onwa...
 future tense is periphrastic: it is formed with an auxiliary verb
Auxiliary verb

In linguistics, an auxiliary is a verb functioning to give further semantics or syntax information about the main or full verb following it....
 (shall or will) followed by the base form of the main verb. Another example is the comparative
Comparative

In grammar, the comparative is the form of an adjective or adverb which denotes the degree or grade by which a person, thing, or other entity has a property or quality greater or less in extent than that of another, and is used in this context with a subordinating conjunction, such as than, as...as, etc....
 and superlative
Superlative

In grammar the superlative of an adjective or adverb is the greatest form of adjective or adverb which indicates that something has some feature to a greater degree than anything it is being compared to in a given context....
 forms of adjectives, when they are formed with the words more and most rather than with the suffix
Suffix

In grammar, a suffix is an affix which is placed after the stem of a word. Common examples are case endings, which indicate the grammatical case of nouns or adjectives, and verb endings, which form the grammatical conjugation of verbs....
es -er and -est: the forms more beautiful and most beautiful are periphrastic, while lovelier and loveliest are not.

Periphrasis is a characteristic of analytic languages, which tend to avoid inflection. Even synthetic language
Synthetic language

A synthetic language, in linguistic typology, is a language with a high morpheme-per-word ratio. This linguistic classification is largely independent of morpheme-usage classifications , although there is a common tendency for agglutinative languages to exhibit synthetic properties....
s, which are highly inflected, sometimes make use of periphrasis to fill out an inflectional paradigm that is missing certain forms.

A comparison of some Latin
Latin

Latin is an Italic language, historically spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. Through the Military history of the Roman Empire, Latin spread throughout the Mediterranean and a large part of Europe....
 forms with their English translations shows that English uses periphrasis in many instances where Latin uses inflection:
Latin (inflected) English (periphrastic)
stellae of a star
patientissimus most patient
amaberis you will be loved


See also

  • Adposition
    Adposition

    In grammar, a preposition is a part of speech that introduces a adpositional phrase. For example, in the sentence "The cat sleeps on the sofa", the word "on" is a preposition, introducing the prepositional phrase "on the sofa"....
  • Analytic language
  • Compound verb
    Compound verb

    In linguistics, a compound verb or complex predicate is a multi-word compound that acts as a single verb. One component of the compound is a light verb or vector, which carries any inflections, indicating grammatical tense, grammatical mood, or grammatical aspect, but provides only fine shades of meaning....
  • Deflexion (linguistics)
    Deflexion (linguistics)

    Deflexion is a linguistic process related to inflectional languages. All members of the Indo-European languages language family belong to these kinds of languages and are subject to some degree of deflexional change....
  • Grammatical particle
    Grammatical particle

    A particle, in grammar, is a function word that is not assignable to any of the traditional grammatical word classes . The term is a catch-all term for a heterogeneous set of elements and lacks a precise universal definition....
  • Phrase
    Phrase

    In grammar, a phrase is a group of words that functions as a single unit in the syntax of a Sentence .For example the house at the end of the street is a phrase....