Greek Mythology

What was there in the beginning?

Creation of the World In the begining there was only chaos. Then out of the void appeared Erebus, the unknowable place where death dwells, and Night. All else was empty, silent, endless, darkness. Then somehow Love was born bringing a start of order. From Love came Light and Day. Once there was Light and Day, Gaea, the earth appeared. Then Erebus slept with Night, who gave birth to Ether, the heavenly light, and to Day the earthly light. Then Night alone produced Doom, Fate, Death, Sleep, Dreams, Nemesis, and others that come to man out of darkness. Meanwhile Gaea alone gave birth to Uranus, the heavens. Uranus became Gaea's mate covering her on all sides. Together they produced the three Cyclopes, the three Hecatoncheires, and twelve Titans. However, Uranus was a bad father and husband. He hated the Hecatoncheires. He imprisoned them by pushing them into the hidden places of the earth, Gaea's womb. This angered Gaea and she ploted against Uranus. She made a flint sickle and tried to get her children to attack Uranus. All were too afraid except, the youngest Titan, Cronus. Gaea and Cronus set up an ambush of Uranus as he lay with Gaea at night. Cronus grabed his father and castrated him, with the stone sickle, throwing the severed genitales into the ocean. The fate of Uranus is not clear. He either died, withdrew from the earth, or exiled himself to Italy. As he departed he promised that Cronus and the Titans would be punished. From his spilt blood came the Giants, the Ash Tree Nymphs, and the Erinnyes. From the sea foam where his genitales fell came Aphrodite. Cronus became the next ruler. He imprisoned the Cyclopes and the Hecatoncheires in Tartarus. He married his sister Rhea, under his rule the Titans had many offspring. He ruled for many ages. However, Gaea and Uranus both had prophesied that he would be overthrown by a son. To avoid this Cronus swallowed each of his children as they were born. Rhea was angry at the treatment of the children and ploted against Cronus. When it came time to give birth to her sixth child, Rhea hid herself, then she left the child to be raised by nymphs. To concel her act she wrapped a stone in swaddling cloths and passed it off as the baby to Cronus, who swallowed it. This child was Zeus. He grew into a handsome youth on Crete. He consulted Metis on how to defeat Cronus. She prepaired a drink for Cronus design to make him vomit up the other children. Rhea convinced Cronus to accept his son and Zeus was allowed to return to Mount Olympus as Cronus's cupbearer. This gave Zeus the opertunity to slip Cronus the specially prepaired drink. This worked as planned and the other five children were vomitted up. Being gods they were unharmed. They were thankful to Zeus and made him their leader. Cronus was yet to be defeated. He and the Titans, except Prometheus, Epimetheus, and Oceanus, fought to retain their power. Atlas became their leader in battle and it looked for some time as

though they would win and put the young gods down. However, Zeus was cunning. He went down to Tartarus and freed the Cyclopes and the Hecatoncheires. Prometheus joined Zeus as well. He returned to battle with his new allies. The Cyclopes provided Zeus with lighting bolts for weapons. The Hecatoncheires he set in ambush armed with boulders. With the time right, Zeus retreated drawing the Titans into the Hecatoncheires's ambush. The Hecatoncheires rained down hundreds of boulders with such a fury the Titans thought the mountains were falling on them. They broke and ran giving Zeus victory. Zeus exiled the Titans who had fought against him into Tartarus. Except for Atlas, who was singled out for the special punishment of holding the world on his shoulders. However, even after this victory Zeus was not safe. Gaea angry that her children had been imprisoned gave birth to a last offspring,Typhoeus. Typhoeus was so fearsome that most of the gods fled. However, Zeus faced the monster and flinging his lighting bolts was able to kill it. Typhoeus was burried under Mount Etna in Sicily. Much later a final challenge to Zeus rule was made by the Giants. They went so far as to attempt to invade Mount Olympus, piling mountain upon mountain in an effort to reach the top. But, the gods had grown strong and with the help of Heracles the Giants were subdued or killed.

I am an African child Born with a skin the colour of chocolate Bright, brilliant and articulate Strong and bold; I’m gifted Talented enough to be the best I am an African child Often the target of pity My future is not confined to charity Give me the gift of a lifetime; Give me a dream, a door of opportunity; I will thrive I am an African child Do not hide my fault show me my wrong I am like any other; Teach me to dream And I will become I am an African child I am the son, daughter of the soil Rich in texture and content Full of potential for a better tomorrow Teach me discipline, teach me character, teach me hard work Teach me to think like the star within me I am an African child I can be extra-ordinary call me William Kamkwamba the Inventor; Give me a library with books Give me a scrap yard and discarded electronics Give me a broken bicycle; Plus the freedom to be me And I will build you a wind mill I am an African child We are the new generation Not afraid to be us Uniquely gifted, black and talented Shining like the stars we are We are the children of Africa Making the best of us Yes! I am an African child - See more at: http://www.sierraexpressmedia.com/archives/11296#sthash.GMPaL63y.dpuf

In linguistics, an adjective is a "describing word", the main syntactic role of which is to qualify a nounor noun phrase, giving more information about the object signified.[1] Adjectives are one of the traditional eight Englishparts of speech, although linguists today distinguish adjectives from words such as determiners that formerly were considered to be adjectives. In the immediately previous sentence, "traditional" is an adjective and "eight", while known traditionally as an adjective, is now classified as a determiner; and in the preceding paragraph, both "main" and "syntactic" are traditional adjectives. Contents [hide]              

1 Distribution 2 Adjectives and adverbs 3 Determiners 4 Types of use 5 Adjectival phrases 6 Other noun modifiers 7 Adjective order 8 Comparison of adjectives 9 Restrictiveness 10 Agreement 11 See also 12 References 13 Bibliography 14 External links Distribution[edit]

Most, but not all, languages have adjectives. Those that lack them typically use words of another part of speech, often verbs, to serve the samesemantic function; an example, such a language might have a verb that means "to be big", and would use as attributive verb construction analogous to "big-being house" to express what English expresses as "big house". Even in languages that do have adjectives, one language's adjective might not be another's; for example, whereas

English uses "to be hungry" (hungry being an adjective), Dutch and French use "honger hebben" and "avoir faim," respectively (literally "to have hunger", hunger being a noun), and whereas Hebrew uses the adjective "‫"זקוק‬ (zaqūq, roughly "in need of"), English uses the verb "to need". Adjectives form an open class of words in most languages that have them; that is, it is relatively common for new adjectives to be formed via such processes as derivation. Bantu languages are well known for having only a small closed class of adjectives, however, and new adjectives are not easily derived. Similarly, native Japanese adjectives (i-adjectives) are a closed class (as are native verbs), although nouns (which are open class) may be used in the genitive and there is the separate class of adjectival nouns (na-adjectives), which is also open, and functions similarly to noun adjuncts in English. Adjectives and adverbs[edit]

Many languages, including English, distinguish between adjectives, which qualify nouns and pronouns, and adverbs, which modify verbs, adjectives, and other adverbs. Not all languages have exactly this distinction and many languages, including English, have words that can function as both. For example, in English fast is an adjective in "a fast car" (where it qualifies the noun car), but an adverb in "he drove fast" (where it modifies the verb drove). In Dutch and German, adjectives and adverbs are usually identical in form and many grammarians do not make the distinction, but patterns of inflection can suggest a difference: Eine kluge neue Idee. A clever new idea. Eine klug ausgereifte Idee. A cleverly developed idea. Whether these are distinct parts of speech or distinct usages of the same part of speech is a question of analysis. It is worth noting that while German

linguistic terminology distinguishes adverbiale fromadjektivische Formen, school German refers to both as Eigenschaftswörter ("property words"). Determiners[edit]

Main article: Determiner Linguists today distinguish determiners from adjectives, considering them to be two separate parts of speech (or lexical categories), but formerly determiners were considered to be adjectives in some of their uses. In English dictionaries, which typically still do not treat determiners as their own part of speech, determiners are often recognizable by being listed both as adjectives and as pronouns. Determiners are words that are neither nouns nor pronouns, yet reference a thing already in context. Determiners generally do this by indicating definiteness (as in a vs. the), quantity (as in one vs. some vs. many), or another such property. Types of use[edit]

A given occurrence of an adjective can generally be classified into one of four kinds of uses: 1. Attributive adjectives are part of the noun phrase headed by the noun they modify; for example,happy is an attributive adjective in "happy people". In some languages, attributive adjectives precede their nouns; in others, they follow their nouns; and in yet others, it depends on the adjective, or on the exact relationship of the adjective to the noun. In English, attributive adjectives usually precede their nouns in simple phrases, but often follow their nouns when the adjective is modified or qualified by a phrase acting as an adverb. For example: "I saw three happy kids", and "I saw three kids happy enough to jump up and down with glee." See also Postpositive adjective. 2. Predicative adjectives are linked via a copula or other linking mechanism to the noun or pronoun they modify; for example, happy is

a predicate adjective in "they are happy" and in "that made me happy." (See also: Predicative expression, Subject complement.) 3. Absolute adjectives have meanings that are implicitly unable to be used comparatively or superlatively; for example, dead is an absolute adjective, as the words deader or deadest are not normally used to describe states of death. 4. Nominal adjectives act almost as nouns. One way this can happen is if a noun is elided and an attributive adjective is left behind. In the sentence, "I read two books to them; he preferred the sad book, but she preferred the happy", happy is a nominal adjective, short for "happy one" or "happy book". Another way this can happen is in phrases like "out with the old, in with the new", where "the old" means, "that which is old" or "all that is old", and similarly with "the new". In such cases, the adjective functions either as a mass noun (as in the preceding example) or as a plural count noun, as in "The meek shall inherit the Earth", where "the meek" means "those who are meek" or "all who are meek". Adjectival phrases[edit]

Main article: Adjectival phrase An adjective acts as the head of an adjectival phrase. In the simplest case, an adjectival phrase consists solely of the adjective; more complex adjectival phrases may contain one or more adverbs modifying the adjective ("very strong"), or one or more complements (such as "worth several dollars", "full of toys", or "eager to please"). In English, attributive adjectival phrases that include complements typically follow their subject ("an evildoer devoid of redeeming qualities").

Other noun modifiers[edit]

In many languages, including English, it is possible for nouns to modify other nouns. Unlike adjectives, nouns acting as modifiers (called attributive nouns or noun adjuncts) usually are not predicative; a beautiful park is beautiful, but a car park is not "car". In plain English, the modifier often indicates origin ("Virginia reel"), purpose ("work clothes"), or semantic patient ("man eater"), however, it may generally indicate almost any semantic relationship. It is also common for adjectives to be derived from nouns, as inboyish, birdlike, behavioral, famous, manly, angelic, and so on. Many languages have special verbal forms called participles that can act as noun modifiers. In many languages, including English, participles are historically adjectives, and have retained most of their original function as such. English examples of this include relieved (the past participle of the verb relieve, used as an adjective in sentences such as "I am so relieved to see you"), spoken (as in "the spoken word"), andgoing (the present participle of the verb go, used as an adjective in sentences such as "Ten dollars per hour is the going rate"). Other constructs that often modify nouns include prepositional phrases (as in "a rebel without a cause"),relative clauses (as in "the man who wasn't there"), other adjective clauses (as in "the bookstore where he worked"), and infinitive phrases (as in "a cake to die for"). In relation, many nouns take complements such as content clauses (as in "the idea that I would do that"); these are not commonly considered modifiers, however. Adjective order[edit]

In many languages, attributive adjectives usually occur in a specific order. In general, the adjective order in English is:[2][3]

1. Determiners — articles, adverbs, and other limiters. 2. Observation — postdeterminers and limiter adjectives (e.g., a real hero, a perfect idiot) and adjectives subject to subjective measure (e.g., beautiful, interesting), or objects with a value (e.g., best, cheapest, costly) 3. Size and Shape — adjectives subject to objective measure (e.g., wealthy, large, round), and physical properties such as speed. 4. Age — adjectives denoting age (e.g., young, old, new, ancient, sixyear-old). 5. Color — adjectives denoting color (e.g., red, black, pale). 6. Origin — denominal adjectives denoting source of noun (e.g., French, American, Canadian). 7. Material — denominal adjectives denoting what something is made of (e.g., woolen, metallic, wooden). 8. Qualifier — final limiter, often regarded as part of the noun (e.g., rocking chair, hunting cabin, passenger car, book cover). So, in English, adjectives pertaining to size precede adjectives pertaining to age ("little old", not "old little"), which in turn generally precede adjectives pertaining to color ("old white", not "white old"). So, we would say "One (quantity) nice (opinion) little (size) round (shape) old (age) white (color) brick (material) house." This order may be more rigid in some languages than others; in some, like Spanish, it may only be a default (unmarked) word order, with other orders being permissible. Due partially to borrowings from French, English has some adjectives that follow the noun aspostmodifiers, called postpositive adjectives, such as time immemorial and attorney general. Adjectives may even change meaning depending on whether they precede or follow, as in proper: They live in a proper town (a real town, not a village) vs. They live in the town proper (in

the town itself, not in the suburbs). All adjectives can follow nouns in certain constructions, such as tell me something new. Comparison of adjectives[edit]

Main articles: Comparison (grammar) and Comparative In many languages, some adjectives are comparable. For example, a person may be "polite", but another person may be "more polite", and a third person may be the "most polite" of the three. The word "more" here modifies the adjective "polite" to indicate a comparison is being made, and "most" modifies the adjective to indicate an absolute comparison (a superlative). Among languages that allow adjectives to be compared, different means are used to indicate the comparison. Many languages do not distinguish comparative from superlative forms. In English, there are three different means to indicate comparison: most simple adjectives take the suffixes "-er" and "-est", as "big", "bigger", "biggest"; a very few adjectives are irregular: "good", "better", "best", "bad", "worse", "worst", "old", "elder", "eldest" (in certain contexts only; the adjective is usually regular) "far", "farther/further", "farthest/furthest" "many", "more", "most" (usually regarded as an adverb or determiner) "little", "less", "least"; all others are compared by means of the words "more" and "most". There is no simple rule to decide which means is correct for any given adjective, however. The general tendency is for simpler adjectives, and those from Anglo-Saxon to take the suffixes, while longer

adjectives and those from French, Latin, Greekdo not— but sometimes sound of the word is the deciding factor. Many adjectives do not naturally lend themselves to comparison. For example, some English speakers would argue that it does not make sense to say that one thing is "more ultimate" than another, or that something is "most ultimate", since the word "ultimate" is already absolute in its semantics. Such adjectives are called non-comparable. Nevertheless, native speakers will frequently play with the raised forms of adjectives of this sort. Although "pregnant" is logically noncomparable (either one is pregnant or not), it is not uncommon to hear a sentence like "She looks more and more pregnant each day", where a transference has taken place: grammatically the adjective is comparative but in fact it is the appearance that is being compared. Likewise "extinct" and "equal" appear to be non-comparable, but one might say that a language about which nothing is known is "more extinct" than a well-documented language with surviving literature but no speakers, while George Orwell wrote "All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others". These cases may be viewed as implying that the base form of the adjective is not as absolute in its semantics as is usually thought. Comparative and superlative forms are also occasionally used for other purposes than comparison. In English comparatives can be used to suggest that a statement is only tentative or tendential: one might say

"John is more the shy-and-retiring type," where the comparative "more" is not really comparing him with other people or with other impressions of him, but rather, could be substituting for "on the whole". In Italian, superlatives are frequently used to put strong emphasis on an adjective: Bellissimo means "most beautiful", but is in fact more commonly heard in the sense "extremely beautiful". Restrictiveness[edit]

Main article: Restrictiveness Attributive adjectives, and other noun modifiers, may be used either restrictively (helping to identify the noun's referent, hence "restricting" its reference) or nonrestrictively (helping to describe an already-identified noun). For example: "He was a lazy sort, who would avoid a difficult task and fill his working hours with easy ones." "difficult" is restrictive - it tells us which tasks he avoids, distinguishing these from the easy ones: "Only those tasks that are difficult". "She had the job of sorting out the mess left by her predecessor, and she performed this difficult taskwith great acumen." "difficult" is non-restrictive - we already know which task it was, but the adjective describes it more fully: "The aforementioned task, which (by the way) is difficult" In some languages, such as Spanish, restrictiveness is consistently marked; for example, in Spanish la tarea difícil means "the difficult task" in the sense of "the task that is difficult" (restrictive), whereas la difícil

tarea means "the difficult task" in the sense of "the task, which is difficult" (non-restrictive). In English, restrictiveness is not marked on adjectives, but is marked on relative clauses (the difference between "the man who recognized me was there" and "the man, who recognized me, was there" being one of restrictiveness). Agreement[edit]

In some languages, adjectives alter their form to reflect the gender, case and number of the noun that they describe. This is called agreement or concord. Usually it takes the form of inflections at the end of the word, as in Latin: puella bona

(good girl, feminine)

puellam bonam

(good girl, feminine accusative/object case)

puer bonus

(good boy, masculine)

pueri boni

(good boys, masculine plural) In the Celtic languages, however, initial consonant lenition marks the adjective with a feminine noun, as inIrish:

buachaill maith

(good boy, masculine)

girseach mhaith

(good girl, feminine) Often a distinction is made here between attributive and predicative usage. Whereas English is an example of a language in which adjectives never agree and French of

a language in which they always agree, in German they agree only when used attributively, and in Hungarian only when used predicatively. The good (Ø) boys.

The boys are good (Ø).

Les bons garçons.

Les garçons sont bons.

Die braven Jungen.

Die Jungen sind brav (Ø).

A jó (Ø) fiúk.

A fiúk jók.