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May 26, 2012
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Dictionary


form•a•tive



Pronunciation: (fôr'mu-tiv), [key]
—adj.
1. giving form or shape; forming; shaping; fashioning; molding: a formative process in manufacturing.
2. pertaining to formation or development: a child's most formative years.
3. Biol.
a. capable of developing new cells or tissue by cell division and differentiation: formative tissue.
b. concerned with the formation of an embryo, organ, or the like.
4. Gram.pertaining to a formative.

—n.
1. Gram.a derivational affix, particularly one that determines the part of speech of the derived word, as -ness, in loudness, hardness, etc.
2. Ling.(in generative grammar) any element, as a word, affix, or inflectional ending, functioning as a minimal syntactic unit that can be used in forming larger constructions.

Random House Unabridged Dictionary, Copyright © 1997, by Random House, Inc., on Infoplease.

formationformative element
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