Scanty pants? Predictable response in rule-following order (9)
I believe the answer is:
syntactic
'rule-following order' is the definition.
I can't tell whether this definition defines the answer.
'scanty pants? predictable response' is the wordplay.
I cannot really see how this works, but
an anagram of 'scanty' is 'syntac' which is located in the answer.
'response' could be 'tic' (I have seen 'Involuntary response ' mean 'tic' so perhaps 'response' could also mean 'tic') and 'tic' is found in the answer.
This accounts for all the letters.
This explanation may well be incorrect...
'in' is the link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for syntactic that I've seen before include "dealing with arrangement of sentences" , "following the rules of grammar" .)