markedness

English

Etymology

marked +‎ -ness

Noun

markedness (countable and uncountable, plural markednesses)

1. (linguistics) The quality of a word, form or phoneme that is considered to be more complicated, less natural or stranger than the usual form.

   Using the word "comedienne" instead of "comedian" can be seen as an example of markedness.

Derived terms

• markedness constraint