Sunday, January 14, 2018

single word requests - Is there a common noun form of the adjective "repetitive" that doesn't have a negative connotation?




Is there a common noun form of the adjective 'repetitive' that doesn't have a pejorative connotation and that denotes a state rather than action?



Edit: I am not looking for the word 'repetition', as the suffix '-ion' conveys the meaning of "action or condition" (dictionary.com), which is not yet the level of abstraction I am thinking of.



I am tempted by the word 'repetitivity' [and its suffix "-ity", which is "used to form abstract nouns expressing state or condition" (dictionary.com)]



But: Although the word 'repetitivity' exists (first detected in 1930 by Ngram Viewer), it doesn't seem to be common within any discourse.
None of the dictionaries I consulted (Oxford Dictionaries, Cambridge Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, etc.) knows this word.
But isn't it instantly intelligible?



Grammarist knows the word "repetitiveness" but quite clearly states that the word has mostly a negative connotation (hence misunderstandings are around the corner!):






  • "Repetitiveness is the noun form of the adjective repetitive, which is used to describe something or someone as having the attribute of repetition. This term is usually negative, as in something repeats without need or becomes very tiresome in its repetition." [my italics]




Surprisingly, the Urban Dictionary knows the word "repetitivity" (the one I wanted to use) - but it assigns a negative connotation to this word too!




Example sentence: "English teachers often find it hard to convey to young learners such abstract ideas as generality and repetitivity, when they have to explain the main uses of the Simple Present tense."



Important: What I am looking for is a word for a concept more abstract than the concept of "repetition".
Compare:




exclusive - exclusion - exclusivity



Answer



I think you might be looking for something like recursiveness or recursivity, both of which are nouns meaning (Oxford Dictionaries):1





The property of being recursive




which is an adjective that is a close synonym of repetitive. Again from Oxford Dictionaries:




Characterized by recurrence or repetition.





Similar to your own "progression" of words, we thus have




recur (verb) —> recurrence (fairly concrete noun) —> recursive (adjective) —> recursiveness/recursivity (more abstract noun)




I personally prefer recursiveness as slightly easier to say. (Your own suggestion of repetitivity I find particularly difficult to say, though it would otherwise work.)







1 Yes, the basic definition of both words is word-for-word identical, omitting only the cross-reference to one another.


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