linguistic (adj.)

A term which has to be used with care because of its ambiguity: it can be (1) the adjective from LANGUAGE, as in such phrases as ‘linguistic philosophy’, ‘linguistic skill’ and ‘linguistic minority’, or (2) the adjective from LINGUISTICS, where it refers to an approach characterized by the scientific attributes of that subject, as in ‘linguistic analysis’. In such phrases as ‘linguistic intuition’, however, either sense could apply: (a) intuitions about language, or (b) ‘intuitions about how to analyze language linguistically’. Similarly, a ‘linguistic atlas’ may or may not be based on the techniques, findings, etc., of linguistics.