pärisõnuline

Pärisõnuline is an Estonian linguistic term that translates to "real word" or "content word." It refers to words that carry significant semantic meaning and are part of the core vocabulary of a language. These are contrasted with function words, which primarily serve grammatical purposes.

The category of pärisõnuline typically includes nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs. These words are essential for conveying information, describing objects, actions, qualities, and circumstances. For example, in the sentence "The cat sat on the mat," the words "cat," "sat," "mat" are considered pärisõnuline. They name entities, describe an action, and specify a location.

Function words, on the other hand, include prepositions, conjunctions, articles (though Estonian does not have articles), pronouns, and auxiliary verbs. These words help to connect and structure the real words within a sentence, establishing grammatical relationships and conveying nuances of meaning. In the same example, "the" and "on" would be function words.

Understanding the distinction between pärisõnuline and function words is crucial in linguistic analysis, particularly in areas such as lexicography, language acquisition, and computational linguistics. It helps in analyzing sentence structure, identifying the core meaning of texts, and developing language processing tools. The concept is fundamental to comprehending how languages build meaning through the interplay of different word classes.