In linguistics and especially phonology, functional load (also referred to as phonemic load) refers to the importance of certain features in making distinctions in a language. In other words, a high functional load will make it hard to guess the identity of a phoneme in context when the phoneme has not been heard.
Read more about Functional Load: Overview
Famous quotes containing the words functional and/or load:
“Indigenous to Minnesota, and almost completely ignored by its people, are the stark, unornamented, functional clusters of concrete—Minnesota’s grain elevators. These may be said to express unconsciously all the principles of modernism, being built for use only, with little regard for the tenets of esthetic design.”
—Federal Writers’ Project Of The Wor, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“Men so noble,
However faulty, yet should find respect
For what they have been. ‘Tis a cruelty
To load a falling man.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)