Word.ws English Dictionary

subtrigging

subtrigging noun: the phenomenon whereby free-choice items, which are normally ungrammatical in non-negative episodic sentences, become licensed in the presence of a modifier.

Noun

subtrigging (uncountable)

  1. The phenomenon whereby free-choice items, which are normally ungrammatical in non-negative episodic sentences, become licensed in the presence of a modifier.
    • Cualquiera occurs in precisely those cases where we have identified English any as FC [free choice]. They are acceptable in characterizing sentences, in modal contexts including partitives and with subtrigging in affirmative episodic contexts.1998, Veneeta Dayal, “"Any" as Inherently Modal”, in Linguistics and Philosophy, volume 21, number 5, →DOI, →JSTOR, page 469

Origin of subtrigging

Coined by linguist Jean Ehrenkranz LeGrand in 1975 in her PhD thesis Or and Any: The Semantics and Syntax of Two Logical Operators.

Questions about subtrigging

What does subtrigging mean?
Subtrigging means the phenomenon whereby free-choice items, which are normally ungrammatical in non-negative episodic sentences, become licensed in the presence of a modifier.
What part of speech is subtrigging?
Subtrigging is a noun.

Words near subtrigging in the dictionary

  1. subtrie
  2. subtries
  3. subtrifid
  4. subtrigeminal
  5. subtrigged
  6. subtrigging
  7. subtrigonal
  8. subtrihedral
  9. subtriple
  10. subtriplicate
  11. subtriquetrous

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: subtrigging (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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