DETERMINATIVE

Determinative

A determinative, also known as a taxogram or semagram, is an ideogram used to mark semantic categories of words in logographic scripts which helps to disambiguate interpretation. They have no direct counterpart in spoken language, though they may derive historically from glyphs for real words, and functionally they resemble classifiers in East Asian and sign languages. For example, Egyptian hieroglyphic determinatives include symbols for divinities, people, parts of the body, animals, plants, and books/abstract ideas, which helped in reading but none of which were pronounced.

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determinative

Noun

  1. An ideogram used to mark semantic categories of words in logographic scripts.
  2. A word that typically functions as a determiner in a noun phrase; many also have other functions.

Adjective

  1. Determining something.


The above text is a snippet from Wiktionary: determinative
and as such is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

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