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syntax

(Encyclopedia) syntax: see grammar.

Brewer's: Doctor Syntax

A simple-minded, pious henpecked clergyman, very simpleminded, but of excellent taste and scholarship, who left home in search of the picturesque. His adventures are told in eight-syllable…

grammar

(Encyclopedia) grammar, description of the structure of a language, consisting of the sounds (see phonology); the meaningful combinations of these sounds into words or parts of words, called…

Combe, William

(Encyclopedia) Combe, WilliamCombe, Williamk&oobreve;m, kōm [key], 1741–1823, English satirist and miscellaneous writer, b. Bristol. His writing was mainly hack work, issued anonymously to avoid…

Carnap, Rudolf

(Encyclopedia) Carnap, RudolfCarnap, Rudolfkärˈnäp, –năp [key], 1891–1970, German-American philosopher. He taught philosophy at the Univ. of Vienna (1926–31) and at the German Univ. in Prague (1931–…

Duncan, Robert

(Encyclopedia) Duncan, Robert, 1919–88, American poet, b. Oakland, Calif. He was a leading poet of the San Francisco renaissance during the late 1940s. His lyric style contains private allusions,…

Jespersen, Otto

(Encyclopedia) Jespersen, OttoJespersen, Ottoŏˈtō yĕsˈpərsən [key], 1860–1943, Danish philologist. Professor of English language and literature at the Univ. of Copenhagen and later rector there,…

Esperanto

(Encyclopedia) EsperantoEsperantoĕspəränˈtō [key], an artificial language introduced in 1887 and intended by its inventor, Dr. Ludwik Lejzer Zamenhof (1859–1917), a Polish oculist and linguist, to…

Backus, John Warner

(Encyclopedia) Backus, John Warner, 1924–2007, American computer scientist, b. Philadelphia, grad. Columbia (M.A. 1950). Trained as a mathematician, he was hired (1950) by IBM Corp. as a computer…

Borgese, Giuseppe Antonio

(Encyclopedia) Borgese, Giuseppe AntonioBorgese, Giuseppe Antonioj&oomacr;zĕpˈpā äntōˈnyō bōrjāˈzā [key], 1882–1952, Italian-American author, b. near Palermo, Ph.D. Univ. of Florence, 1903. From…