appellative
- adjective
- /əˈpɛlətɪv/
- Specialized
:
denominativo
- The conventions of reading may diminish, but evidently cannot entirely extinguish the appellative power of the second-person pronoun.
Examples
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And, as we have seen in the case of La modification, individual readers might perceive a text as more or less dialogic, depending on their receptivity to the appellative force of you.
Academic text (1994) -
I guess the appellative 'masters of the universe' given to the elites of Wall Street is somewhat justified.
Blog text (23) -
The term appellative refers to words used for naming things, like 'dog' or 'city'.
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In grammar, a common noun is known as an appellative, distinguishing it from proper nouns like 'John'.
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Understanding the difference between an appellative and a proper noun is crucial for mastering language.
Surface Forms
Morphology
appellative = appellation (semi-transparent) = appell + ive
The relation to 'appellation' via the adjectival suffix '-ive' is regular, but the Latinate root is low-frequency and the exact form is not obvious to many learners.
Etymology
Appellative comes from the Latin appellare, which means 'to call' or 'to name'. So an appellative adjective or noun is about naming a type or class — for example, 'city' is an appellative because it calls any town, not one unique place.
