Grammar
Zapotec languages vary considerably. Some characteristics of Zapotec grammar common to the language family (though not necessarily present in all members) are: an extensive 3rd person pronoun system based on noun classes such as divinity, babies, animals, objects (inanimate), etc.; a distinction in the first person plural ("we") as to inclusive (including the hearer(s)) and exclusive (not including the hearer(s)); a frequent underspecificity of singular/plural distinctions.
Read more about this topic: Zapotec Languages
Famous quotes containing the word grammar:
“The old saying of Buffon’s that style is the man himself is as near the truth as we can get—but then most men mistake grammar for style, as they mistake correct spelling for words or schooling for education.”
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“The syntactic component of a grammar must specify, for each sentence, a deep structure that determines its semantic interpretation and a surface structure that determines its phonetic interpretation.”
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“The new grammar of race is constructed in a way that George Orwell would have appreciated, because its rules make some ideas impossible to express—unless, of course, one wants to be called a racist.”
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