Longman Dictionary of

PE2379 ch03.qxd 24/1/02 16:05 Page 202
final
final adj
occurring at the end of a linguistic unit, e.g. word final, clause final.
For example, a group of consonants at the end of a word such as st in the
English word list is called a final CONSONANT CLUSTER.
see also INITIAL, MEDIAL, SYLLABLE
final e n
also silent e
the spelling pattern in English in which when e is the last letter in a word
it is not pronounced, as in bite, late. Final e often signals a long vowel
sound for the preceding vowel letter.
final intake n
see INTAKE
finger spelling n
a kind of signing behaviour (see SIGN LANGUAGE) which has been developed
to help hearing-impaired persons communicate. Finger spelling provides
a manual alphabet which is used to spell out words using the fingers.
finite verb n
a form of a verb which is marked to show that it is related to a subject in
PERSON and/or NUMBER, and which shows TENSE 1 . A non-finite verb form
is not marked according to differences in the person or number of the subject,
and has no tense. The INFINITIVE and the PARTICIPLEs are non-finite
forms of verbs in English. For example:
first language n
(generally) a person’s mother tongue or the language acquired first. In
multilingual communities, however, where a child may gradually shift
from the main use of one language to the main use of another (e.g.
because of the influence of a school language), first language may refer
to the language the child feels most comfortable using. Often this term is
used synonymously with NATIVE LANGUAGE. First language is also known
as L1.
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We want to leave.
She wants
I wanted
finite verb non-finite
forms form