The development of grammar - stages in grammatical growth

          

My post is based on David Crystal`s Encyclopedia connected with grammar leaning and  stages of grammatical growth. In my previous post I talked about the legal and scientific English, but this time I am going to talk about another essential part of language like grammar. As we all know grammar learning is a continuous process and connected with some stages as well. If we talk about children we should say that they are able to speak correctly without knowing the rules. They express the same word order as the  adults. By all means this do not accurse immediately,children and each of us need some time for that. We pass through several stages in order to express more correct grammatical sentences. Most of the children pass through holophrastic stage. In this stage children express one word which can have the meaning of whole phrase or sentence. For instance, a child can say daddy or papa when hears door bell. There are 50 words which children say most of all during holophrastic stage. Some of these words are uh – oh, down, baby, shoes ,coat and so on. It is interesting that words like mama and daddy are not the first words that a child pronounces. During another stage which is called two – word stage a child is able to pronounce Subject – Verb construction. For example, baby bad, baby like, gone milk and so on. I should say that this book gave us lots of information connected with the English language. Many things which are connected with the English language became more familiar to all of us.

Egypt - Abydos

ABYDOS

My current blog post  is from the Archeology: Egypt podcast. We all know that Egypt is one of the ancient countries in the world and there are many mysteries connected with that coutry`s history  and culture. The most attractive things in Egypt are pyramids by all means. Millions of tourists visit this country in order to admire fascinating picturesquare. So one of the famous archeologists Dr. David O`Coner was talking about Abydos. As he mentioned Abydos is one of the most ancient cities of Upper Egypt and during those days it was called Addju. Abydos lies  west of the Nail river and it is considered as a sacred city. Nowadays  many steps are taken in order to protect this ancient city from modern developments, as new buildings  are constructed here. Abydos was a mysterious place for many Egyptians despite having  religious importance. Even nowadays many Egyptians visit this city for religious rituals. Abydos has some important archeological features such as ancient symmetries  and temples .According to Dr. David O`Coner the pharaohs of the first dynasty were buried here, including Narmer the creator of this dynasty. But some pharaohs of the  second dynasty also were buried here. This city is famous for its temple  Seti I in the nineteenth  dynasty.
It is interesting that many pharaohs built temples in their honor. The same thing I can say about Armenian old cities and its Kings. I think it is really nice when a nation have cities that are very important for them.

Legal and scientific english

My current post is connected with the Legal English. According to  David Crystal`s  Encyclopedia of the  English Language the legal language is connected with the two varieties such as religion and science. Firstly, I would like to define word legal - means established  by or permitted by law, lawful. In legal English language is coherent like in science and shares with religion respect towards traditions and rituals. Here I have to mention that there are several types of legal English varieties. It is used in documents which are legal like deeds, contracts, wills, policies .In legal English the language of case low and spoken language of courtroom exists.The English legal language is interesting and unique. Legal language has to carry such responsibilities that other varieties of language does not have to. Legal English in this case has developed and complicate grammatical structure. Also it is repetitive and has long list of items like debts, bills, accounts…….
The English language which is used in the courtrooms is mostly connected with  smallest of grammatical and lexical characteristics. For instance, using modal verbs there should not be misinterpretation between obligation and discretion. Here I should mention the name of Sir William Blackstone whose Commentaries on the Laws of England (1765 – 9) was the very first comprehensive description of  the main principles of English law. Sir William Blackstone is considered as one of the most interesting personalities in England. My next chapter is connected with scientific English. Definitely it has challenging vocabulary, the structure and discourse of sentences makes scientific English more complicated. In scientific English there are some words which are the typical characteristics of those things. For instance, the name of plants characterizes them .In scientific English 62 % of words are lexical and 38% of words are grammatical. Such features like noun phrases with complicated structures are normal in scientific English. I liked those two chapters because they gave me a great deal of information about two aspects of the English language scientific and legal English. I hope my peers will like them also.

 

Life After Cancer

 In my blogposts I tried  to talk about different diseases from time to time. In one of my posts I was talking about  the  Parkinson`s  Disease. In this post I am going to talk  about breast cancer  and life after it. According to Yale Cancer Center Research podcast many women survived from breast cancer. Several patients were talking about their disease with  great enthusiasm and better hopes. One of the doctors said that most of the women  after finishing their treatment celebrate it with friends and family members. In this cases the support of family members is very essential  and they are involved into the process of treatment as well.The doctor also mentioned  that many women feel insecure and have some mixed  emotions after treatment but this is normal by all means.  As a matter of fact there are some treatment ways for breast cancer. For instance, treatment possibilities include radiation therapy, chemotherapy, hormone therapy, and immune therapy .Of course,  many patients feel secure after every week. It is really fantastic that many women start to get well and back to normal life. Breast cancer is the second most common disease during which it is difficult to concentrate on something. Most of the women gain weight and it is one of the basic problems.
Cancer patients are not active and they need to regain their physical functioning. One of the survivors said that at first she was visiting her doctor every three months, then every fifth and sixth months, then annually. She said that everyone should follow the guideline and visit doctors on time. It is really wonderful when such people have better hopes for future. They do not give up and struggle for their lives. Actually I like such posts because they encourage me.

Personal names and types of first names

According to David Crystal`s Encyclopedia  there are many types of personal names and  first names. The  study of personal names, their origin and history is connected with Etymology. It is interesting that many people do not know  from where their names come from. Many names can be considered as different names when they are spelled differently.  For instance, Steven and Stephen are the same names but Christina or Christine are different names. One thing is obvious we like to pronounce our names in short forms. For example, my name is Anna and many people just call me An in Armenian it sounds better. There are three types of Personal names, the first name, surname and middle name. It is interesting that some children have 26 names starting with different letters of the alphabet. Many surnames derive from occupation names, from nicknames or they have relations with their ancestors. I should mention that there are several types of first names.

1.      They are connected with physical characteristics for instance, Charles means man.

2.      they may relate to a time or place of origin like George which means farmer.

3.      in some cases they may express a parent`s feelings or emotions such as Amy which means loved.

4.      In many cases names can be taken from natural objects. For example, Crystal, Holly or Fern.

The most crucial thing which I learned is that many names like Adolf, Judas or Lucifer are avoided in England  and in many countries. I found out that names like Mary, Ann or Elizabeth are the most wide spread names in England and in the USA. Lots of names came from Old Testament and those names are used around the world of course, in Christian countries.

PARKINSON`S DISEASE

This post is based on podcast  about Parkinson`s disease. Actually my current post is not connected with my previous posts  because topic itself attracted my attention and I have decided to post it. According to many doctors Parkinson`s disease is a degenerative disorder of the central nervous system. It results from the death of dopamine -generating cells in the substantia nigra. The most essential part is that there is no actual treatment for this type of disease. Doctors prescribe lots of medicine to their patients in order to help them somehow. Many doctors say that  people usually do not die from Parkinson`s disease  they simply die with it. Also it is interesting that men suffer from Parkinson`s disease more than women. In the USA nearly one million people have this type of disease.The most challenging part is that doctors do not know how it accurse. They have some hypothesis  and that is all. Many patients say they have supporting groups from different countries in  order to encourage them. In many cases people with this disease have some difficulties in walking. Their actions are slow and limited. Many of them think that life is wonderful and they should continue to live and  just have fun.

Michael J Fox ,Muhammad Ali

I know that there are many celebrities  who have such disease. In my video you can see two of them.

                                                                 

English Synonyms and Antonyms

 

In my previous post I talked about  the punctuation marks  particularly how they were created.  Actually in this post I would like to talk about English Synonyms and Antonyms.  As we all know each language needs words in order to express thoughts and ideas.  According to David Crystal`s  Encyclopedia  and postcard which I listened to,  the English Language is particularly reach in Synonyms. From the time of Julius Caesar  Romans, Normans  and Saxons   were fighting for the  soil of England and  those nationalities and armies influenced on the English Language a lot. English scholars have studied those influences thousands of years.
So Synonyms are those words which have the same meaning, as word Synonym means “same “in Greek. Talking about synonyms   I  should say that there can be a dialect differences between them in British English we say  petrol but in American English we say gas. Also there can  be  differences of emotional feeling for instance youth and youngsters have the same meaning but the usage of youth is less pleasant.
 

Antonyms are words which have opposite meanings. We can call antonyms , as opposite words.
The most essential thing is that there are three types of antonyms
1) Gradable pairs

2)  relational opposites

3)  complementary pairs.

It is obvious that all those three types are very important for language.

Gradable pairs are for instance when we say – big-small , happy – sad

This antonyms are capable in comparison.

Relational opposites are – teacher-pupil, parent –offspring

This type of antonyms are  mutually dependant on each other.

Complementary pairs are – alive –death, present –absent  and so on.

and finally those types of antonyms are completely different in their meaning.
They can not be mutually dependant or . they are not capable in comparison. I  hope my post will be helpful somehow to my peers. To my mind synonyms and antonyms are major part of each language.This video is very useful  especially for children.  I think we can teach them synonyms and antonyms using songs.