Essential Linguistic Concepts and Literary Devices Explained

Functions of Language

• Referential: The sender intends to transmit information about reality to the recipient.
• Conative: The sender intends to influence the recipient to act in a certain way.
• Expressive: The sender expresses feelings, opinions, or desires.
• Phatic: The sender verifies that the communication channel is open.
• Poetic: Focuses on the language used to create beauty.
• Metalinguistic: Language is used to describe language itself.

Nouns

A word that identifies an animal, person, or abstract reality. Nouns can be common or proper, concrete or abstract, individual or collective, countable or uncountable, animate or inanimate, and function as the head of a nominal group.

Pronouns

Words that refer to a noun and assume all its syntactic functions:

• Demonstrative: Indicates proximity or distance.
• Possessive: Notes the holder of the noun.
• Indefinite: Expresses an undefined amount.
• Numeral: Reports an exact amount.
• Interrogative/Exclamatory: Expresses questions, surprise, or admiration.

Literary Figures

• Hyperbaton: Disruption of logical sentence order.
• Anaphora: Repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of sentences.
• Parallelism: Repetition of similar words or syntactic structures.
• Hyperbole: Exaggeration.
• Personification: Attribution of human qualities to animals or objects.
• Metaphor: Identification of a real term with a fictitious one.
• Comparison: Relates two objects or realities through a link.

Determinants

Words that modify the noun and provide specific meaning, agreeing in gender and number:

• Articles: Indicate if the noun is known or previously mentioned.
• Demonstrative: Indicate the temporal or spatial position.
• Possessive: Indicate the holder of the noun.
• Indefinite: Express an approximate amount.
• Numeral: Express an exact quantity.
• Interrogative/Exclamatory: Used for questions or exclamations regarding the noun.

Adjectives

Words that accompany the noun to describe qualities. Degrees include:

• Positive: Expresses quality without intensity changes.
• Comparative: Compares quality with others (equality, inferiority, or superiority).
• Superlative: Expresses the maximum degree (relative or absolute).

Literary Genres

• Lyrical: The author expresses feelings and emotions, often using verse, evocative language, and stylistic resources to create beauty.
• Narrative: A narrator tells real or fictitious events involving characters within a specific context, space, and time. Features prose and a structure of approach, action, and denouement.
• Dramatic: Characters represent an action without a narrator. Features include stage directions, dialogue, and specific structure.