quotative
quotative noun: a grammatical device to mark quoted speech, such as be like in "he was like, 'who are you?'".
Noun
quotative (plural quotatives)
- A grammatical device to mark quoted speech, such as be like in "he was like, 'who are you?'".
- Whereas most quotatives introduce either inner monologue or direct speech, the new quotative be like can introduce both kinds of reported speech, thus allowing the speaker to express an attitude, reaction, or thought, as well as something actually said.1990, Carl Blyth, Jr.; Sigrid Recktenwald; Jenny Wang, “I'm like, "Say What?!": A New Quotative in American Oral Narrative”, in American Speech, volume 65, number 3, →DOI, →JSTOR, page 215
- A form of the complementizer related to the verb say, found in many languages of West Africa and South Asia.
Adjective
quotative (not comparable)
- Serving to mark quoted speech.
quotative meaning in Tamil
quotative in Tamil
- எடுத்தாட்சி சார்ந்த, எடுதுரதாளும் பழக்கமுடைய
Forms of quotative
| plural | quotatives |
|---|
Origin of quotative
From quote + -ative.
Words formed from quotative
Questions about quotative
- What does quotative mean?
- Quotative means a grammatical device to mark quoted speech, such as be like in "he was like, 'who are you?'".
- What is quotative in Tamil?
- Quotative in Tamil is எடுத்தாட்சி சார்ந்த, எடுதுரதாளும் பழக்கமுடைய. See Quotative meaning in Tamil.
- What part of speech is quotative?
- Quotative can be a noun or an adjective.
- What is the plural of quotative?
- The plural of quotative is quotatives.
Words near quotative in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: quotative (page history and authors); quotative (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Cite this entry: “quotative.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/quotative. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.