normativeadj.n.

1852 S. S. Schmucker Amer. Lutheran Church 258 It seems evident..that the habit of ascribing normative or binding authority to these books..was of gradual growth.

1857 Ladies' Repository Oct. 579/2 Although they have no normative authority, yet they are credible sources of information of the state of things in the Church of their times.

1884 D. Hunter tr. E. Reuss Hist. Canon x. 171 The normative character of scriptures divinely inspired.

1912 L. Bloomfield in Jrnl. Eng. & Germanic Philol. 11 622 The scientific study of language has nothing to do with the normative (i.e. purely pedagogic) purpose of teaching people of (‘fixing’) the use or the better use of a literary language.

1931 M. R. Cohen Reason & Nature iii. iv. 403 Instead of refuting the normative standpoint of the old natural law, these writers substitute an unconscious natural law of their own.

1932 E. C. Tolman Purposive Behavior v. xxiii. 397 Normative psychologies..tend to take an average (normal) individual or..sample of individuals..and then to apply all sorts of different stimuli.

1970 R. C. Zaehner Concordant Discord iii. 46 It is the custom of nature mystics to assume that their own experience, even though it last only for a few moments, must be normative of all such experiences.

1992 P. W. Birnie & A. E. Boyle Internat. Law & Environment iii. iii. 123 This evidence..might be sufficient to crystallize the opinio juris into a normative standard of international law.

1902 W. Cross et al. in Jrnl. Geol. (Chicago) 10 604 The standard minerals which make up the norm are to be called the normative minerals, not the normal ones, since the latter adjective has the meaning of usual or common.

1909 J. P. Iddings Igneous Rocks I. ii. iii. 420 Normative minerals are frequently not the normal ones in certain rocks, though they may be the normal minerals in many others.

1962 Jrnl. Petrol. 3 353 The normative components in basalts closely approximate the mode in most cases.

1990 Jrnl. Petrol. 31 1295 All samples of the TR suite contain normative corundum.

1909 Jrnl. Philos., Psychol. & Sci. Methods 6 506 They have furnished normatives for our instruction and guidance rather than the normals of science.

1954 Mind 63 264 As examples of ‘normatives’ he gives ‘I ought to go’ [etc.].

1963 H.-N. Castañeda in H.-N. Castañeda & G. Nakhnikian Morality & Lang. of Conduct vii. 279 A complete elucidation of the nature and structure of normatives requires an understanding of the logic of imperatives.

1987 tr. M. Gorbachev Perestroika i. ii. 90 The activities of enterprises..will be regulated by long-term economic normatives.

1901 H. Oertel Lect. Study Lang. ii. 87 Normative or didactic grammar sets up a certain standard as correct.

1933 L. Bloomfield Lang. i. 7 This gave the authoritarians their chance: they wrote normative grammars, in which they often ignored actual usage in favor of speculative notions.

2001 Business World (Philippines) (Nexis) 13 Dec. 21 In the schools, they teach normative grammar which is called balrila. It's comprised of rules.

1950 R. A. Hall Leave your Lang. Alone! 28 Let's do so on the actual social acceptability of our speech, not because of the fanciful prescriptions of some normative grammarian.

1989 Eng. Today July 61/3 Peters would tell me that I am being ungrammatical, because I have lost a potential distinction; but that is, of course, a bogus, though standard, argument of the normative grammarian.

1895 F. Thilly tr. F. Paulsen Introd. Philos. 26 Three normative sciences are added: Logic, practical philosophy based on psychology, and technology based on physics.

1934 M. R. Cohen & E. Nagel Introd. Logic vi. 110 Logic has..been defined as the normative science which studies the norms distinguishing sound..from unsound thinking.

1992 J. M. Kelly Short Hist. Western Legal Theory ix. 385 In another normative science, say ethics or even grammar, it is possible to state a norm or rule.

1966 Math. Rev. 31 8/2 (title) The principles of a logic of normative systems.

1967 C. Margerison in G. Wills & R. Yearsley Handbk. Managem. Technol. 32 Various studies have indicated how the group's activity can be structured and led to bring about a normative system consonant with the organizational goals.

1997 S. Blum-Kulka Dinner Talk 253 The parents in the bilingual families try to socialize their children according to a normative system of pragmatic rules shaped on the American example.