Descriptor (Noun)
Meaning 1
A piece of stored information that is used to identify an item in an information storage and retrieval system.
Classification
Nouns denoting cognitive processes and contents.
Meaning 2
The phonological or orthographic sound or appearance of a word that can be used to describe or identify something; "the inflected forms of a word can be represented by a stem and a list of inflections to be attached".
Classification
Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents.
Examples
- A linguistic descriptor of a word could be its phonological or orthographic form that denotes its meaning in the context of the language.
- The stem 'run' is a descriptor used in forming the past tense 'ran' and past participle 'run'.
- The phonetic descriptor *θ is used to represent the voiceless interdental fricative sound in words like 'this' and 'thin'.
- Inflectional descriptors determine the modification of words when expressing mood, tense and other grammatical categories.
- The orthographic descriptor 'ie' can distinguish between words that would otherwise be homophones like 'knight' and 'night'.