heteroclitic

  1. Adjective.  (linguistics) In linguistics, particularly Indo-European Studies, signifying a stem which alternates between more than one form when declined for grammatical case. Examples of heteroclitic noun stems in Proto-Indo-European include '''*wod-r/n-''' "water" (nominoaccusative '''*wódr'''; genitive '''*udnés'''; locative '''*udén''') and '''*yékw-r/n-''' "liver" (nominoaccusative '''*yékwr''', genitive '''*ikwnés'''). In Proto-Indo-European, heteroclitic stems tend to be noun stems with grammatically inanimate gender.
  2. Noun.  A heteroclitic noun.

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This entry was last updated on RefTopia from its source on 3/20/2012.