appositive, appositional (adj.)

appropriate (adj.)

An application of the general sense of this term in LINGUISTICS, and especially in SOCIOLINGUISTICS, PRAGMATICS and STYLISTICS, to refer to a linguistic VARIETY or FORM which is considered suitable or possible in a given social situation. For example, ELLIPTICAL and CONTRACTED forms (e.g. I’ll, isn’t, going to lunch?, etc.) are appropriate for relatively informal conversational situations; forms such as thou, vouchsafe, etc., are appropriate for some kinds of religious situations. The point of the term is to provide an alternative to the absolute implications of CORRECTNESS encountered in PRESCRIPTIVE approaches to language, where linguistic forms are held to be either right or wrong, no reference being made to the different expectations of different situations. In pragmatics, appropriateness conditions for sentences are generally referred to as FELICITY CONDITIONS.