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Definition 2024


Quirkian

Quirkian

English

Adjective

Quirkian (comparative more Quirkian, superlative most Quirkian)

  1. Of or relating to Randolph Quirk (born 1920), British linguist who championed a descriptive approach.
    • 1999, Irma Taavitsainen, Gunnel Melchers, Päivi Pahta, Writing in nonstandard English (page 84)
      Naturally, such an interpretation must remain a wholly subjective matter even if one were to follow to their logical limits the clusters of Foucauldian and Quirkian beliefs about languages []
    • 1999, Rodney D. Huddleston, Peter Collins, David A. Lee, The clause in English: in honour of Rodney Huddleston (page 310)
      [] three works of Crystal who, of course, used the Quirkian model.
    • 2005, Petra Perner, Atsushi Imiya, Machine learning and data mining in pattern recognition (page 572)
      We are interested in the Quirkian notion that frequency of use of words correlates with acceptability of those words as part of the vocabulary []