Word.ws English Dictionary

slifting

slifting noun: the preposing of an embedded clause containing reported speech or beliefs.

Noun

slifting (uncountable)

  1. The preposing of an embedded clause containing reported speech or beliefs.
    • The rule of Slifting (described in Ross 1973) moves complement clauses and adjoins them to the left of the original embedding structure as a coordinate clause, leaving the rest of the structure as a tag.1977, Alice Davison, Indirect Speech Acts: a Natural Class or not?

Origin of slifting

Blend of sentence + lifting. Coined by American linguist John R. Ross.

Words formed from slifting

Questions about slifting

What does slifting mean?
Slifting means the preposing of an embedded clause containing reported speech or beliefs.
What part of speech is slifting?
Slifting is a noun.

Words near slifting in the dictionary

  1. Slifers
  2. Slifes
  3. Slifka
  4. Slifkas
  5. slift
  6. slifting
  7. Sligar
  8. Sligars
  9. Sliger
  10. Sligers
  11. sligh

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: slifting (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.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “slifting.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/slifting. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.