Chinese alligator
- noun
- /ˈtʃaɪˌniːz ˈælɪˌɡeɪtər/
- Specialized
:
aligátor chino
- In the Yangtze River valley, the Chinese alligators are an important part of the ecosystem.
Examples
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That is a statue of Hal B. Keeler himself, his torch hand held high to light the plight of the Chinese alligators.
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Thorbjarnarson J, Wang X. 2010. The Chinese Alligator: Ecology, Behavior, Conservation and Culture. Johns Hopkins University Press.
Academic text (2011) -
The Chinese alligators are distinct for their unwebbed digits.
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At the conservation center, we saw a Chinese alligator swimming gracefully in its enclosure.
Synonyms
A small endangered alligator from the Yangtze valley in China with toes that are not webbed
Surface Forms
Morphology
The phrase is fully compositional: 'Chinese' simply specifies the geographic origin or association and 'alligator' names the animal, so the meaning ('an alligator from China') is directly derivable from the constituents. This demonym + noun pattern is cross-linguistically common and would be immediately understood by a B1 learner who knows both words.
Etymology
Chinese alligator names an alligator that lives in China. So, picture a much smaller alligator in rice fields by the Yangtze with almost no webbing on its toes, and that image explains why the name refers to this particular species.
