preverbal
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 1.56 in modern English
16
Scrabble Score
9
Letters
3
Syllables
7
Unique Chars
Meaning
adj
At an early stage of development in which one is not yet able to communicate by means of words.
adj
Occurring before the verb in a sentence or expression.
noun
A preverb.
Example Sentences
- "The expressive power of intonation in communication with preverbal infants was a topic of considerable interest in the early literature on language acquisition."
- "I will attempt to document some recent syntactic (word order) changes involving preverbal noun phrases in the Coast Tsimshian language."
- "Here, the more general construction is a simple transitive verb construction, such that the preverbal subject is the actor (causer) of the action, and the post-verbal object is the patient of the action."
Etymology
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *per- Proto-Indo-European *preh₂- Proto-Indo-European *-i Proto-Indo-European *préh₂i? Proto-Italic *prai Proto-Italic *prai- Latin prae-lbor. Middle English pre- English pre- English verbal English preverbal From pre- + verbal.