linguistic formn.

1852 Christian Rev. July 396 Many words, meanings, and linguistic forms common in one dialect, are infrequent in another.

1893 Amer. Anthropologist 6 402 The comparison of linguistic forms to ascertain probable linguistic affinity can be used with extreme caution and to a limited extent only.

1927 Mod. Philol. 25 218 Given a linguistic form, such as an inflection or a word, how can we state its meaning?

1968 Language 44 475 Contamination is taken to be the process by which two linguistic forms..are crossed to produce a single new form.

2004 Z. Frajzyngier & D. S. Rood in Z. Frajzyngier et al. Ling. Diversity & Lang. Theories (2005) p. viii A fundamental issue in all linguistic research is to determine the function and meaning of a linguistic form.

1912 E. Sapir in Amer. Anthropologist 14 240 Cultural change and linguistic change do not move along parallel lines... This point of view makes it quite legitimate to grant..the existence at some primitive stage in the past of a more definite association between environment and linguistic form than can now be posited anywhere.

1921 E. Sapir Lang. iv. 62 Linguistic form may and should be studied as types of patterning, apart from the associated functions.

1943 Amer. Speech 18 228 The flier forced down in Libya.., would have little interest in the linguistic form of the utterance, ‘I am an American’, in Arabic but he might forfeit his life by not knowing how to say it.

1964 M. A. K. Halliday et al. Ling. Sci. i. 20 The least obvious distinction perhaps is that between grammar and lexis, since these are two aspects of linguistic form.

1994 J. Harkins Bridging Two Worlds vii. 192 A way of relating linguistic form to function and social context.