Abbreviations and Conventions
- -
affix boundary
- =
clitic boundary (see pages 12–14)
- /… /
encloses a phonological form, made up of a string of phonemes (see page 10)
- *
reconstructed form in a proto-language
- ♦
unacceptable sentence or phrase
- DAE
Dictionary of American English
- ME
Middle English
- NP
noun phrase
- OE
Old English
- OED
Oxford English Dictionary
- PIE
Proto-Indo-European (see pages 147–8)
- RP
Received Pronunciation (see page 10)
Abbreviations for syntactic functions (see pages 179–80)
- A
transitive subject function
- O
transitive object function
- S
intransitive subject function
At first mention, dictionaries are generally accorded their full title, in italics; for example, Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary. Later mentions generally use a shorter form, with no italics: for example, Ninth Collegiate.
