Monday, January 30, 2012

Random Linguistics Definitions Beginning with the Letter "Q"


quadrisyllabic Having four syllables. A word such as dictatorship is thus a quadrisyllable.

quantifier floating Proposed syntactic process by which a quantifier is detached from its phrase. E.g. in Birds can all fly, the quantifier all is seen as having 'floated' from its position as a determiner in All birds can fly.

'queclarative' Coined in the 1970s for an utterance which has the form of an interrogative (or 'question') but the force of a statement (or 'declarative'): e.g. 'What use is that?' meaning that it is no use.

Definitions from: The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Linguistics, Second edition, 2007
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